Michael Scheuer has done numerous interviews on fox but there was one that sort of stood out and that was in relation to the Libya conflict. Ever since he wrote his Book Osama Bin Laden, he has basically become nothing more than an apologist for anyone in an Islamic country no matter what actions they take. His pronouncement of the world muslim in one interview should not be a surprise as he has basiclaly become a fanatic of foreign policy idiocy. But to the real point.
Libertarians just assume that muslims are always victims and therefore it is the west’s fault. But as we have seen during the so called “revolution”, the demands are no better than when they were previously ruled under old arab autocrats. They call for higher wages, education (yawn) etc. Does anyone believe that the protestors have a serious understanding of how a market economy would work. NO! And if anyone looks at the parties being formed by the “protestors” they are statist. So there is no change.
Why does anyone listen to this clown? I am sure that he is a facist in one way or another. He is no better than a neocon. What is next to come out of these so called “experts”
A lot of lefties have been seduced by Libertarianism because even among them there are some who have some understanding of economics. But in the end they still have the same old leftist habits of going against all things status quo just for the hell of it, it’s not like being free is their main concern.
First of all, Scheuer is not a libertarian. He is a nationalist and a former spook. I don’t think he apologizes for anyone in muslim countries, but he does explain why the muslim world has a hard on for the west, and for America in particular. No hardcore libertarian would agree with his proposed solutions or tactics, but his analysis is pretty accurate IMO.
Libertarians don’t assume muslims are always victims because real libertarians are not collectivists and recognize muslims as individuals.
When the American government stops occupying muslims countries, propping up Arab dictators and mass murdering muslim civilians, then maybe we can have a dialog about the misplaced anger of the Arab world.
If by apology you mean defense/excuse, then from the interviews of him that I have seen, his theory about blowback is not an apology. Scheuer’s theory seeks to explain why Muslim extremists do what they do.
Libertarians desire freedom from coercion. Islam promotes certain forms of coercion. The two are incompatible unless the meaning of either or both terms is changed.
A few entries from an online article written by Dr. Mohammed Maruf also sheds some light. It goes on to show that the Prophet Muhammad was economically illiterate:
What Islam discourages is the uncalled for accumulation of wealthwhich is not put to any proper use and is just stagnating in the coffers of a person.
This analysis shows how comprehensive and extensive significance this fundamental principle has. Just think of a society in which nobody keeps what is beyond his needs in the sense stated above. It discourages amassing of wealth, piling up of valuables, and adding to ones property either for self-aggrandizement or for the sake of some pecuniary advantage. In this system no extra house or building will be allowed to build for renting or leasing out. Islam encourages only that much which fulfils ones genuine needs; e.g., a person who runs his business is entitled to keep as much resources with him as his present business commitments and its further development necessitates. What this system demands is that wealth and other resources should remain in circulation, and what is left to stagnate is illegitimate…
The Holy Qur’an has condemned ‘Ribā’ (usury) very severely. It says very emphatically in the chapter The Cow (‘Baqarah): “Those who devour usury will not stand except as stands one whom the Evil One by his touch hah driven to madness…
Islam lays down clear-cut rules for investing money in trade, as man is not left free to invest his resources as he pleases…
The Qur’an has severely condemned the hoarding of wealth. It says: “Who piles up wealth and layeth it by, thinking that his wealth would make him last for ever! By no means! He will be sure to be thrown into that which Breaks to Pieces”.[45]Hoarding is condemned also because “the miser’s hoards block up the channels of economic service and charity, and the circulation of goodwill among men.”[46]Thus, according to Islam, stagnation of wealth not only leads to uneven and unjust distribution of wealth among the members of a community; it also causes “hardening of the heart”…
I don’t know who that guy is, but Mohammed was one of the best traders of his day and very successful as a businessman. If he was economically illiterate, he must have been incredibly lucky.
Islamic jihad isn’t half the threat that democracy is. Jihad is obvious and has an end. Democracy has no such failsafes built in.
This is probably true. All a Mongol horde wants to do is loot and pillage you because youhave money and they don’t, plain and simple and everyone openly knows it. It easy to mark and measure. This is not so much the case with modern govt schemes like democracy, nationalism, etc. No ends, no semblence of sanity.
This is simply a semantic issue. Coercion is a better term because it implies both aggression and the threat of aggression.
“Islamic jihad isn’t half the threat that democracy is.”
So what? A single gunman isn’t half the threat of an entire army, but if it’s your own freedom he’s violating, it matters little. That democracy is destructive doesn’t cancel out the fact that Islam inherently is also.
“Jihad is obvious and has an end. Democracy has no such failsafes built in.”
Communism is obvious and has an end (all property owned in common). It is still something to condemn.
It is unbelievable how Islam is defended by so-called libertarians - and the argument is always about comparing it with something else which is supposedly worse: usually Christianity but here Democracy. Maybe Obama is worse than Bush, maybe Bush worse than Obama. That one may be better than the other doesn’t mean that the former should not be condemned.
It is unbelievable how Islam is defended by so-called libertarians
I don’t understand how anyone can think they can really talk about such things. Honestly religion, at least in the catagorical way I think most people are trying to discuss it, is a sort of gibberish. It can really only be spoken of in something like an aesthetical type of catagory, if at all.
It’s like calling something “real jazz” via a scientific defence. I don’t think anything is being said.
Islam is something that can indeed be precisely spoken about, in that it has a paricular document around which the entire belief system is established. This says nothing about people who call themselves Muslims.
As a side note and nothing at all to do with what I was talking about above, I suspect that a great amount of so-called Muslims do not live in accordance with the defining document of their faith.
Islam is something that can indeed be precisely spoken about, in that it has a paricular document around which the entire belief system is established. This says nothing about people who call themselves Muslims.
In the same sense that no one “follows the Constitution”, or anything else that is a list of “oughts” or something that personifies one of these non-things (nation, Jew, crowd, socialism, proletariat) we can not rationally talk about what is or is not Islam. It is an aesthetical catagory. All you can do is draw a million correlations to causations on some intellectual ghost plane.