Why won’t anybody report the bad news from Syria and Egypt?
By Thoreau
In the last week or so I’ve heard some rumblings about Iraqis returning to Baghdad. Ah, so our plan to create a stable, prosperous, and liberal society at gunpoint is working! I mean, why else would people voluntarily move back to Iraq?
Neighbours such as Syria, which originally welcomed Iraqis, have found themselves overwhelmed and are now starting to cut off services. Few of the refugees have been able to find enough work to support themselves in exile. Some have simply run out of money.
Most of the host countries seem unwilling to risk the international opprobrium that would accompany rounding up Iraqis and sending them back to a war zone. Instead, they find other ways to make it unpleasant to stay. According to a report released by Human Rights Watch, a lobby group, desperate Iraqis who have fled from Syria to its more prosperous neighbour, Lebanon, are often caught by the authorities and offered a stark choice: opt for home “voluntarily†or rot in prison indefinitely. Iraqis in Egypt who want to renew valid visas claim they are met by sneering officials who tell them they are not wanted any more and demand extortionate fees to process their papers.
Oh, that’s why.
Yes, I’m aware that the body counts have been dropping. They’re still at appallingly high levels. When the body count drops from “Completely fricking batshit insane” to just “Completely fricking insane” nobody says “Hey, that’s a place I want to live!”
Let’s put it this way: If an American city were facing the level of violence that Baghdad faces, how many people here would want to move to that city?
Comment by kid bitzer —
December 9, 2007 @ 7:44 pm
whew. man, i duck out for a few days and 615 weirdos show up.
i’m glad they’re gone again. what a bunch of losers.
don’t sweat it, jim–just keep doing what you do. and that goes for mona and thoreau, too–y’all are some of my faves.
Comment by Bob Weber —
December 9, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
If you take seriously Steyn’s “They are outbreeding us” trope, then a drop in the civilian death rate would be bad news.
Notice how the comments downblog on the Steyn article quickly turned to “support the war”. But if you think about it, the only logical reason to support the war, if you believe Steyn’s point, would be to kill as many Muslims as possible. A prosperous Iraq would just enable those damned Muzzies to breed faster. Note that “logical” does not mean “not evil”.
Comment by Bob Weber —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
As a follow-up to my post above, also note that one of the effects of the Iraq war is that the Christian community of Iraq has been pretty much destroyed, along with Muslim extremists being enabled.
Saddam Hussein, being a Ba’ath secularist, protected Iraqi Christians and suppressed Islamic fundamentalism. Saddam’s secularism is why so many neocons like Daniel Pipes were enamored of him twenty years ago.
Comment by Floyd —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:06 pm
Let’s put it this way: If an American city were facing the level of violence that Baghdad faces, how many people here would want to move to that city?
Out of curiosity, please state a year in the last half-century or so in which you think an American would have been willing to move to Baghdad.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:08 pm
Out of curiosity, please state a year in the last half-century or so in which you think an American would have been willing to move to Baghdad.
Fair point, but before the war I imagine the main factors keeping Americans from moving there would be poverty and dictatorship. And heat. Now they’ve got poverty, tyranny of whatever local militia happens to be in place, heat, AND massive body counts.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
Dangle enough cash in front of ‘em, and just about any year. There are Americans moving to Iraq right now, AFAIK.
Comment by Professor Blather —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
Critical thought is obviously discouraged here.
Being a sycophant, on the other hand, is apparently applauded.
The irony. It stings.
As for the original post – even if I conceded your argument, I’d suggest one thing: you might want your obvious cheering for anti-American forces to be a little more subtle. Obviously, crowing about victory is premature – but it is equally obvious that you and your ilk are actively, consciously hoping that victory will never come.
Which is your prerogative. But subtlety isn’t a bad idea when you’re essentially espousing implicit treason.
If nothing else, you might want to prepare – emotionally at least – for actual victory in Iraq. I realize that you’d rather be right than have lives be saved, that you’d rather prove George Bush wrong than see peace reign. But just in case, if I were you, I’d start working on how you’ll shift positions. You might want to at least hedge your bets; at the moment, your one of the few in a tiny, sinking ship, with rats deserting you all around.
Comment by lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:19 pm
Stop it, you Steyn-slanderng dhimmtoid! The Islamoflavinoids are going to sub merge us all in burkhadhimmitude. Admit your slander admit admit admit or its the comfy chair.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
you might want your obvious cheering for anti-American forces to be a little more subtle
Dear Professor Blather,
What you call “obvious” is in fact entirely non-obvious. I do not see where I cheer for anti-American forces. Since you are a professor, you must know that it is bad pedagogical practice to make a non-obvious (and possibly wrong) point, declare it obvious, and leave confirmation to the reader.
Sincerely,
Professor Thoreau, Ph.D.
Department of Physics
University that I prefer not to name
Comment by lgf-type commenter2 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
No it’s explicit treason, not implicit treason. Those of the Left are really LEft they used to be left but now many are event LEFt. They want us all to wear burkhas!
Comment by lgf-type commenter3 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:23 pm
You are cheering the anti-American forces because you are in dhimmitude to not notice the victory we are having as Mark Steyn who has an IQ of 20000 has pointed out. It’s worse than treason, and show me where he is a racist even though you didnt call him that you really did because you want us all to wear burkhas!
Comment by lgf-type commenter4 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
Soon, we’ll all be overrun no thanks to Guru Henley and his Eurabic flunkies here on a nowhere corner of the internet that I spend an inordinate amount of time on. The Islamoboticoids are more dangeorus than feces and you can’t see that, because you can’t see through your burkha!
Comment by lgf-type commenter5 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
The camel jockeys are the true racists. And they are going to force us all to wear burkhas.
Comment by Qwinn —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
You’d think if “lgf-type commenters” were really so bad, and really said the ridiculous sort of things you’re miming, you wouldn’t need to mimic them, their comments would speak for themselves.
Their comments -do- speak for themselves – and they show far more logic and the capacity for understanding concepts like “burden of proof” than most of the native posters defending the indefensible have been.
Qwinn
Comment by lgf-type commenter6 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:27 pm
There is no moderate Islam as there is no moderate burkha! That’s why we liberated Iraq from the burkha-wearing Saddam.
Comment by kid bitzer —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
don’t worry, professor blather–you could become one of my faves, too.
Comment by lgf-type commenter7 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
Our comments do speak for themsevles but you just can’t hear it through your burkha.
Comment by lgf-type commenter8 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
We have plenty of logic on our comments.
1 Muslims suck.
2. Muslims are Muslims.
3 Therefore they suck.
4. And they are going to force us all to wear burkhas.
Challenge that impervious valid logic, you Islamoislaminoidal dhimmitudinous Professor Burkha, who doesn’t being to have Mark Steyn’s 800,000 level IQ.
Comment by lgf-type commenter9 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:32 pm
Guru Henley stil hasn’t retracted his opinion even though he admitted making a mistake. What kind of Islamofascismo admits a mistake? The Left kind, not just the left kind, who are all breeding us into wearing burkhas.
Comment by lgf-type commenter9 —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Guru Henley is the real racist, he runs an insignificant blog, where he apologizes for a mistake but doesnt refute his mistake. that makes him a real racist, whose forcing us all to wear burkhas.
Comment by Qwinn —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:35 pm
Wow, that takes a lot of talent. Here, let me try:
Comment by UO-type commenter-
December 9, 8:32pm
Yes, you stupid theocrat Christians are all so hung up about burkhas, haha, stupid bigot theocrats, why don’t you off yourselves and get your creeping theocracy off our backs, only a drooling bible thumping moron would think there’s anything wrong with abortion at 9 months, and trying to force their morality on us with their laws, and to prove just how bad and stupid those Christians are, we’ll mock how stupid they are to be scared of Muslims taking over the country and enacting shariah law.
—–
Yep, that was pretty easy. Gotta give Christians a lot more points for consistency, though, then those who scream BIGOT! about worrying about Muslim theocracy while screaming on a daily freaking basis about Christian theocracy. And without the slightest self-awareness or irony.
Comment by non-burkha wearing lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:36 pm
Now let’s hold our horses here. Henley was brave enough to admit his mistake. We shouldn’t therefore assume all his co-bloggers are stupid. But I’ll be goddammed if I let them make me wear a burkha.
Comment by Non lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
“Wow, that takes a lot of talent”
Damn straight. But it takes more talent to breed an entire continent into wearing burkhas! I’ll be damned if I wear that burkha.
Comment by Non lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Oh no I think they hate Christian theocrats who are not forcing us all to wear miters and therefore are not merely irrelevant to this discussion but who are also, where was i?. But the Islaminoids are going to breed us all into dhimmositde.
Comment by Non lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Sorry, dhimossitude.
Comment by Non lgf-type commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:41 pm
Burkha-wearing dhimmositude.
Comment by Self-aware ironic commenter —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
I personally think that theocracy is bad. But I want antireligious laws to prevent some religions form religionizing the left into burkha-wearing dhimmitude. And not just the left, but the Left.
Comment by Self-aware computer with ironic lgf-type comments —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Guru Henley, undoubtedly still planning his burkha-infested defense of his apology, refuses to apologize for his apology even though by apologizing he admitted his apology was false. Like all members of the much-lower-than-Steyn-IQ far Left, as well as the Far left, and the Far Left, he dodges while we are bred, sperm by despicable Saracen sperm, into endless dhimmitudinous burkhadom.
See our new book “While Europe ejaculated…”
Comment by Qwinn —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Heh. “Irrelevant”? Your “satire” might be a little relevant if a single actual “lgf type commenter” in the two biggest threads on this topic on this blog had once used the word “burkah”.
I -did- find this though.
Ah yes, there’s that creeping theocracy that is a daily imminent danger from Christians, but is simply bigotry when it’s about Muslims. It would be hypocritical to the n’th degree even if Christianity and Islam displayed equal propensities toward theocracy, and you actually saw mobs of thousands of Christians wielding swords chanting for the execution of a schoolteacher for naming her teddy bear Jesus.
Qwinn
Comment by Thoreau —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
Whoever is doing the joke posts, it isn’t necessary. We can handle this ourselves, at least until the prophesied coming of URKOBOLD.
Comment by Donna —
December 9, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
From the “Sympathy for the Devil” thread:
Comment by Ty Shareef —
December 8, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
As a African-American convert to Islam, a soldier, and as someone who actually can read, I would have to say that anyone who thinks what Steyn has said is either racist or objectionable is a complete douchebag. The Canadian Muslim groups that have complained are essentially terrorist front organizations and Steyn should wear there offense as a badge of honor.
I am sick and tired of white liberals apologizing for the subhuman filth that has degraded my beautiful religion. The Islam that I practice stresses self-discipline and tolerance for one’s neighbors. I have fought the Wahhabi scum in both Afghanistan and Iraq and will be going back to Iraq soon to finish the job. I personally find it pathetic to find that I am fighting in Iraq to give Iraqis a right to free speech, while Canada seeks to chill legitimate political discourse.
Perhaps “lgf commentator” can snark on about that a bit.
Comment by urkobold —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:00 pm
I’m not coming back, i choked on my Muslim sperm-laden burkha, which came from subhuman wahhabi filth.
Comment by Donna —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
Oh, poor urkobold, Thoreau scolded you for being a bad boy and now you have to stand in the corner.
Don’t worry, in a few days we’ll all have forgotten about you and you can come back and play with the 20 or so regular readers of this blog. Who all think exactly like you.
There, there, sweetie. Feel better now?
Comment by Thoreau —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:12 pm
Donna, you need to learn what URKOBOLD is. Try Google.
Comment by Reader #19 —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
20 readers? That’s like .001% of Mark Steyn’s IQ! And the number of children Eurabians have who wear burkhas, but whose Islam that they practice by breeding doesn’t stress self-discipline and tolerance for one’s neighbors, because it lacks the gene pool of gentle tolerant African-American wahhabi scum-hunters.
Sorry, though, to hear about Urkobold. Readers 1-18 are devastated. 20 is out buying a burkha for his Luxxembourg visit.
Comment by Qwinn —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
Such comedy gold.
Let’s see what our jokester can do with this bit of data.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=500087
Well. 36% of British Muslims are effectively and admittedly homicidal. One wonders how many others agree in principle but were hesitant to admit it publically.
Well, it’s not a problem. Let’s make some more burkha jokes to dismiss people who think that’s a significant issue as bigots, and go back to bashing Christianist theocrats, cause God knows they deserve it.
Qwinn
Comment by Thoreau —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
20 readers? Blogger please.
I’ve got a coalition of the reading. I’ve got 40 readers–ready to roll, son!
Comment by Donna —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
As Qwinn pointed out, no lgf commentators here have actually used the word “burka” so your “satire” is a bit flat. You see, to be funny, satire has to er, be true.
And I probably underestimated the number of regulars here. Scrolling down, I see that 20 comments on a particular thread is pretty high for this blog – so let’s be generous and say that maybe 20 more people lurk without commenting. (Aunt Mary and brother Bill, I suppose.) OK, 40 regulars, then. It’s amazing, the vast number of fans you’ve been able to draw in with the sparkling wit and intelligence on display here since October 2001. You finally get visitors, but, damnit, they’re the wrong kind!
Of course, Henley can f*ck up again and that will bring us all back. But do you really want to known as the jackasses of the blogosphere?
Comment by Donna —
December 9, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
Qwinn, you’re doing great work here and I commend you, but don’t expect any reaction to any counter-arguments or data or links you provide. It just sails right over their heads. (For a physicist, Thoreau seems remarkably uninterested in stuff like facts. Ah, well, I guess after a long day reading about string theory, the last thing you want to do is look at more data.) These people are fundamentally unserious and so they deserve only mockery.
Thoreau, I really couldn’t give a damn what urkobold is. It’s as immaterial as Michelle’s hair fussing. I’ll google it if you google a few things yourself: try “Theo van Gogh.” Or “honor killing.”
Comment by Qwinn —
December 9, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
Thanks, Donna.
The way I look at it, it’s possible that they’ve just been so insular that they’ve never even heard an actual argument from conservatives, and have just relied on the echo chamber effect to build up straw men and caricatures. At least now, they’ll have actually heard the positions and argument without the filter of their ideological buddies, and if they keep the echo chamber going (which they will) there’ll still be that nagging doubt deep inside that they’re being completely fraudulent for the purposes of remaining cool to those in their peer group.
But deep down, they’ll know better, they’ll know how absurd it is to whinge about Christian “theocrats” while 36% of british muslims are explicitly homicidal toward anyone who converts away from Islam, and they’ll feel like shit about it when they go back to mocking Christians as they always do, even though they’ll never admit it to themselves. Knowing that they’ll feel that inner disgust with themselves even as they practice everything they purport to hate is worth the price of a couple days of effort on my part.
Qwinn
Comment by Donna —
December 9, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
Qwinn: When they read your posts, maybe they’ll learn about something else too: class. You have it in spades.
Goodnight!
Comment by R.H. Potfry —
December 9, 2007 @ 10:31 pm
By the way, I found this comment
“Jim said that he is going to revisit the matter at hand and post new thoughts. The man happens to have a job, a family, and a life. We can cut him some slack on not posting immediately”
absolutely priceless. You almost start to feel bad for a guy who called someone else a douchebag (God, I hope Mark Steyn doesn’t have a family).
Comment by dhex —
December 9, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
The way I look at it, it’s possible that they’ve just been so insular that they’ve never even heard an actual argument from conservatives, and have just relied on the echo chamber effect to build up straw men and caricatures.
alternate explanation:
myself and others find you to be a bunch of very frightened people who support immoral douchebags because your fear overwhelms your sense of human decency.
see also: donderoooooooooooooooooooo
Comment by KRYPTODYNE —
December 9, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
KNOWING THAT YOUR DADDY ISSUES INSPIRE SUCH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR IS WORTH THE PRICE OF READING YOUR TEPID FIDDLE-FADDLE.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
December 9, 2007 @ 11:45 pm
Donna – a big thanks for comment 41. Kissy faces to you too!
Comment by Reader #2 -- satire is truth —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:01 am
“You see, to be funny, satire has to er, be true.”
Now that’s funny.
Comment by 16 year old homicidal British Muslim —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:07 am
You’re all DOOMED, DOOMED, because of my blogger army of gullible batmoons of the LEft, and of the FAr Left, and far left, who will dhimmify you with my less sensitive but highly fructive wahabbi scum sperm and force you all to wear burkhas until you admit that Allah is your God, that Mark Steyn is an agent of the Mossad, that Christian theocracy is merely a theocracy of dhimmwits.
Comment by KCinDC —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:24 am
It’s nice of you all to come over and set up this little demonstration of an echo chamber in the comments for us so that we’d understand what you meant when you used the term.
Comment by josephdietrich —
December 10, 2007 @ 2:04 am
Thoreau, a good point in this post but you are wrong about one thing. Body counts never drop. They add up. I know this doesn’t sound like a big difference, but by allowing people to say “you know, hardly any of our Troops (or the Iraqis, by the way) are getting killed any more” we allow them to tacitly ignore the pile of corpses they have stacked like cordwood behind them.
Comment by Thoreau —
December 10, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Yes, I should have remembered the difference between rates and total counts.
Integral vs. derivative. Damn, I ought to know that.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
I’ve lived my whole life around people (they’re called Americans) who harbor murderous beliefs. Some think we have the right to launch wars on flimsy evidence. Many think such wars should be won by using as much force as they deem necessary–in other words, kill them all and let God sort them out. Some support any group of thugs or butchers that a conservative President labels “freedom fighters”. Some support the apartheid-like policies of Israel on the West Bank–these folks typically are further to the right on that issue than most Israelis. I don’t know what percentage of Americans would support any one of these positions, but I think it’d be well over 10-20 percent for most of them, if not all.
So it doesn’t come as a big shock to me to know that a disturbingly large number of Muslims support killing converts to another religion, even if this was the first time I had heard it.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 10, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
Come to think of it, how many Steyn fans support torture? I’d like to see a poll on that.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
December 10, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
Adding to the list of things I’d like poll Steyn fans on, in a previous thread one of the new crop of Henley fans (using the term loosely) came out in favor of death squad killings of people adhering to liberation theology, on the grounds that they were really Marxists who needed killing.
So I call for a poll of Steyn fans to see how many believe in a category of people who need killing by death squads.