The Bosque Boys

Here are two politically incorrect questions that I think will need to be answered before we can consider the possibility of assimilation by Arab Muslims, or their near neighbors. These questions also raise possibilites in the psychology of Islamic terrorists.

1. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up first-cousing marriage?

Patrilateral parallel cousin marriage is evidently ancient in the Near East, from whence it spread during the Arab conquests to adjacent peoples through the vehicles of clientship, intermarriage, and religious conversion. *

In other words, the ancient tradition, and common current practice, is to marry a first or second cousin on the father's side. This practice both reflects and helps to produce inward-focused families with intense family loyalty that trumps other loyalties such as to one's nation, or to the common good. It helps lead to nepotism.

In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if ages and ages of inbreeding have produced higher-than-necessary numbers of unstable individuals. It is no accident that researchers of genetic diseases regard Saudi Arabia as a great place to study their topic.

2. Are Arab Muslims and others influenced by them willing to give up sexual relationships between men and boys?

They talked about Islam, especially about the sequestering of women. They said it forced the native men into prisonlike expedients. On night patrols, they said, they would bump into Afghans hooking up with animals. And they joked about “Man-Love Thursday,” when they’d spot Afghan men and boys together, grabbing a quick sin before the redemptive Sabbath.

The above quote is from an embedded reporter with an American unit in Afghanistan. Similar observations have been made by many other allied units of various nationalities. It reminds one of the reaction Europeans had to the Turks and their similar practice. Anecdotal evidence also points to the practice in Arab culture.

In regard to Islamic terrorists, we must ask if being abused as a boy helps to produce angry men ready to lash out at "the enemy."

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From National Review Online, Jay Nordlinger on the sorry state of Middle Eastern Studies. During the Cold War Sovietologists were often apologists for the Soviet Union. Sinologists often parrot the Chinese government's positions. Middle Eastern studies may be worse, in part because of the combination of Political Correctness and funding from the Mideast. A ray of hope,

Last year, an encouraging event occurred: the founding of a new organization, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Their website is here. ASMEA was to be, in brief, what MESA should be, and almost certainly used to be. (The older group was founded in 1966, before the rot set in.) The new group’s chairman is Bernard Lewis, the great nonagenarian British-born scholar. On the academic council sits George Shultz — who, as I said at the outset, is so desirous of new and helpful institutions.

From City Journal (link from NRO), "Five Days at the End of the World: My visit to Afghanistan, and the War on Terror movie that Hollywood would never make". The author Andrew Klavan travels to Afghanistan, recounts his experiences, and outlines the movie he would make of the experience.

Here, then, is the movie I would make. It would be something like this, anyway. With maybe Ed Norton as Rory—Alda’s too old now. And Dennis Haysbert, President Palmer from 24, as Mitchell. Someone fresh like Jim Sturgess for Baronner. Perez? George Clooney doesn’t deserve to play him, but he could.

I would probably make the mission to build the bridge and the mission to buy the FOB site into one mission. A bridge is more visual, but the tensions with the natives over the site make good drama. I’d have the ambush happen at the end of the first act, with a likable gunner getting killed. Then maybe our guys wouldn’t be able to return to base because of the weather. They’d be stuck up in nowhere with some locals they couldn’t trust and the bad guys still in the woods. It would become a matter of life and death whether the PRT guys could count on the goodwill of the natives in order to smoke out the bad guys before getting smoked themselves.

That would be the theme, see: the frustrations of building goodwill in wartime. Because goodwill is the key to this multifront counterinsurgency. It’s the only way to win the locals away from the brutal scum who’ve enslaved them in the past and over to some semblance of liberty and the rule of law. That’s why Information Operations—what they used to call propaganda—is so important. That’s why the bad guys work so hard to spread lies about us.

And from Jihad Watch, another episode in the ministry of Father Zakaria Botros who I've posted on before as the most important man in the world you've never heard of.

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.

In a recent program on al-Hayat he challenged the notion that Mohammad was a true prophet.

For the first characteristic regarding prophethood, Botros opened by quoting Jesus’ famous saying: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:15-16).

However, since Muslims may think that verse has been “corrupted”—the accusation of tahrif being commonplace when wanting to avoid biblical debates—Botros also went on to quote from none other than Ibn Taymiyya himself, radical Islam’s most favorite son, in regards to the characteristics of prophets.

According to Sheikh al-Islam’s Minhaj Al Sunna Al Nabawayya, Taymiyya said that false prophets, such as Musailima the Liar, were exposed by the fact that they were liars, oppressors, and possibly possessed by demons and jinn. However, when sober minded individuals studied their lives and deeds, they were able to discern that they were false prophets, that they were exposed.

After reading the relatively long quote from Taymiyya, Botros put his book down, looked directly at the screen, and flatly said that everyone of those negative characteristics indicative of false-prophethood mentioned by Taymiyya in fact apply to Muhammad.

This link will take you to a website that will list the companies selling gasoline made from USA and Canadian petroleum.

Sinclair is perhaps the most common.

Citizen Warrior has more; as does the Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

In the last several decades we have made the largest transfer of wealth in history from Europe, Japan, and the U.S. to the oil-producing nations. The billions of dollars transfered to many nations in the Middle East, most noticably Saudi Arabia, have funded militant Islam around the globe. Buy gas from Saudi Arabia and support terrorism.

Mariner posted a comment that deserves a wider read:

I won't get into the macro-level concerns against movements like these, but instead I'll point out a few errors in the cited material:

1) The Citizen Warrior article contains a link to a chart showing percentage of crude oil imports coming from the Persian Gulf. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/...)

Errors here:
a)The Persian Gulf as defined here includes Iraq. Natural, for a purely geographic definition, but in this case, we as Americans WANT to buy Iraqi oil! If we want to have a stable Iraq, if we want to lower our troop numbers there (and limit American deaths), we NEED an economically viable Iraqi government. This hinges on oil exports. Conservatives of all people should be first lining up to buy Iraqi oil.
b) As alluded to earlier, "Persian Gulf" as a political designation is very difficult to support. Yes, the Saudi government has supported madrassas which have supported terrorist training. They should be out. Hell no, we shouldn't support Iran. But the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain? We would have no military presence in the Gulf if not for the support of these countries (Navy base in Bahrain, Air Force base in Qatar, major Army post in Kuwait.) I'm having a tough time buying a boycott of these countries.
c) Again, the "Persian Gulf" designation: this list focuses on one region (which we've already seen is 2/3 wrong anyway) to the detriment of others. What about gas from Venezuela? Russia? Citgo is transparent enough: it = Hugo Chavez. Oil from GazProm or LukOil (both Russia) is more difficult to distinguish, and should be pointed out. Also, some of the companies listed as "good" for low percentages of gulf oil do far more damage elsewhere. Shell, for example, is hand-in-glove with the Nigerian government, ranked the most corrupt in the world. I personally don't buy Shell gasoline, because the amount of human suffering inflicted in Nigeria as a result of its and the government's policies is astronomical.

2) The Terror-free oil initiative:

Errors:
a) They lose for sheer logical disconnect. The two categories for oil companies? "Companies that do not import oil from the Persian Gulf" and "Companies that finance terrorism by importing oil from the Middle East". Apples and oranges between Persian Gulf and Middle East, for one. Two, it's a mere tautology to speak of Persian Gulf equaling Terror-support. Trust me, *most* governments in the Middle East (or Persian Gulf, if you prefer) have as much if not more to fear from Islamic extremism as we do.
b) Maybe a little more nit-picking, but the list of "good" companies includes a caveat for Hess and Sunoco, as they import oil from Algeria, "home of GIA and GSPC." First, the GSPC doesn't exist anymore - it's now AQIM, but that's just a detail. More importantly, the GIA and GSPC's primary enemy and raison d'etre is the Algerian government. Who gets oil revenue, and uses a portion of this revenue to finance anti-terrorism operations? - the government. [We equip and train these troops, too]

I think most of these errors come down to portraying the entire situation in too broad of terms: It's purely "us" and "them", regardless of who "they" actually ARE. That's misidentifying the problem; the solution is misidentified as well. I fully recognize the value of conservative viewpoints, but economic isolationism is a 19th century solution to a 21st century problem - I don't think it will work.

Granted: the category "Persian Gulf" is too simple and misleading. And agreed, Venezuala and Russia should not be encouraged right now with our oil money. Agreed, no oil money to Saudi Arabia or Iran. Re: "economic isolationism," I still think it is a tremendous problem for us in transfering so much wealth to other nations. And, there are two things no nation can be dependent on and survive long as an independent nation--food and energy.

Jihadwatch reminds us that October is the month in which Charles Martel and his Frankish army defeated Islamic invaders near Tours. This battle is called the Battle of Tours, or, the Battle of Poitiers.

For some time after conquering the Iberian penninsula, the Muslims had raided into Gaul, and contested Christian rule there. Finally, in 732 an army of about 80,000 led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, pushed into Gaul. Charles met them near Tours with an army about half their size. The victory by Charles Martel saved Western Europe from Islamic conquest.

So, if you prefer the Europe of cathedrals, to the averted fate of Europe with mosques, then raise a glass to The Hammer this month.

To read more, here, and here, and here is an account from an anonymour Muslim chronicler. And here excerpts from 3 medieval accounts.

And I'm not talking about the bailout, although that was nice.

I'm talking about the Senate's other action yesterday, to approve the nuclear trade treaty with India. The treaty allows civilian nuclear trade between the U.S. and India for the first time since India started its own nuclear program in the 1970s.

I don't think I could overstate the importance of this action.

I'm not talking about the impact of Indian nuclear reactors but about the fact that India is now in the inner circle of U.S. allies.
[Although the nuclear power issue is important, as well. India is in position to out-consume the U.S. in terms of energy (well, not for a decade or so) and a network of nuclear plants will make a significant difference in world CO2 output.]

And, for once, I agree with Condoleeza that this is a very good thing.

Bosqueboys has previously commented on the strategic importance of a relationship with India here and here.

In short, India is a natural ally of the U.S. - a big, noisy, federal democracy. It's on its way to join the top-tier economies and it's got the potential to be the major maritime force in the India Ocean. The arguably two largest threats to the U.S. in the next 10 years are Iran and China - both of which are significant threats to India, registering behind only Pakistan (in the minds of Indians, at least.)

This deal is getting some flak, and understandably, for the fact that India is a non-signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Critics of the trade deal insist that it's sending the message that a state can flout international convention and be rewarded for it. I would humble point out that the single largest recipient of American aid, Israel, is also a non-signatory to the NPT (and Israel almost certainly has nuclear weapons, too.)

I hope that our next President, whoever it is, cultivates what could very well be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Now its coffee products and candy that are being recalled. Story here.

If there is a free society in existence in 500 years, I predict lots of dissertations in economics, political science, history, and ethics, debating why the U.S. allowed China to become its number one source of most everything.

I have never been a conspiracy theorist explaining world events in terms of the Tri-Lateral Commission, or the Masons, or the Illuminati, or Zionists. But I am edging closer to the conclusion that some world events are controlled by multinational corporations accountable to no one but themselves and interested only in profits.

China is creating a new African empire. And it seems to be worse than the European ones of the past.

From Peter Hitchens in The Mail: How China Has Created a New Slave Empire in Africa.

Someone explain to me again, why do we trade with these bastards?

Poison Toothpast. Baby Formula Causes Kidney Stones. These and many other headlines have this in common: they refer to Made in China goods.

Now, chairs and sofas that can cause eczema. Article here.

Would someone please explain to me again, why do we trade with these folks making dangerous products? Why do we help support their murderous, aggressive government by enriching their nation?

For my money, Michael Yon is doing the best reporting from on the ground in Afghanistan. Here is his report on the successful transport of a large electrical generating turbine.

The Chinese government is putting on a clean, bright, smiling face for the world in Beijing, complete with bikini-babes cheering on beach volleyball.

But the face that reveals the dark heart of the Chinese government is seen in its treatment of protesters.

China shoots Tibetans dead.

Somebody tell me again. Why do we buy from these murdering bastards?