The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Down on the Pharma

4.11.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 3)

After reading the April edition of the Naval Institutes Proceedings it is apparent that unlike George H. Wittman a large number of Americans are clueless as to whom we are fighting in the GWOT and their quasi-political religious underpinnings. It is apparent that the "head in the sands" crowd and their kindred spirits in the appeasement intelligentsia have a new catch phrase -- "civil war in Islam." The suggestion is that our current conflict is merely spillover or as author Norman Friedman writes, "we are suffering the side effects of a war within the Islamic world, not of a concerted assault on us." God save us from such fools. This hearkens back to the Carter administration and Zbigniew Brzezinski's naiveté that fundamentalism had no future in Islam.

While it may be an inconvenient truth for Democrats, their stooges in the media and a feckless American public we are at war and the main target of Islamic terrorists. In his excellent article Wittman nails it by identifying the Iranian Pasdaran and by inference all of militant Islam with the occult based Nazi S.S. Like their "forefathers" in the Third Reich our enemies are committed to domination of the world (a goal they have pursued since the late 6th century). The theological and ideological underpinnings of Islamic imperialism demand that the world submit to Islam.

Fortunately, conservatives have sources like Wittman and TAS to keep them informed. Prayerfully, as Democrats and the ignorant push appeasement and surrender conservatives will continue to support the GWOT and defense of the U.S. Unless, we stand up to imperialistic Islam then its victory seems inevitable, because the Europeans, Russians and Chinese wrongly believe by abetting its ambitions they can control, appease or manipulate the Osama bin Laden's of Islam. Like Friedman and the Democrats they are dead wrong.
-- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

SITUATIONAL ETHICS
Re: Christopher Orlet's Blaming the Barrel:

Chris Orlet notes "psychologists had been trying to understand why ordinary men do beastly things to complete strangers ever since reports came back from Poland about the Nazi death camps" and notes that the 1963 Milgram Study was coincident with the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.

Perhaps even more astonishing is when virtually all "ordinary men [are doing] beastly things to complete strangers" there are the most amazing exceptions, which Hannah Arendt thoroughly documented in her Eichmann in Jersusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil (Viking Press, 1963).

On pages 165-166, Arendt notes "only then [February 1942] did the Germans realize that the country [Croatia] was still not judenrein. In the initial anti-Jewish legislation, they had noted a curious paragraph that transformed into 'honorary Aryans' all Jews who made contributions to 'the Croat cause'....Even more interesting was the fact that the S.S. Intelligence service...had discovered that nearly all members of the ruling clique in Croatia, from the head of the government to the leader of the Ustashe [the strong Fascist movement], were married to Jewish women. The fifteen hundred survivors among Jews in this area -- five percent, according to a Yugoslav government report -- were clearly all members of this highly assimilated, and extraordinarily rich, Jewish group."

On pages 167-170, Arendt documents the absolute refusal of the Bulgarian King, government and general population to turn Bulgarian Jews over to the Germans. She writes "...in January 1941, the [Bulgarian] government had also agreed to introduce some anti-Jewish legislation, but that, from the Nazi viewpoint, was simply ridiculous: some six thousand able-bodied men were mobilized for work; all baptized Jews, regardless of the date of their conversion, were exempted, with the result that an epidemic of conversions broke out; five thousand more Jews -- out of a total of approximately fifty thousand -- received special privileges; and for Jewish physicians and businessmen a [i]numerus clausus[/i] was introduced that was rather high, since it was based on the percentage of Jews in the cities, rather than in the country at large." And "the population of Sofia tried to stop Jews from going to the railroad station [for deportment] and subsequently demonstrated before the King's palace." And despite the apparent murder of King Boris by German Intelligence agents, "both Parliament and the population remained clearly on the side of the Jews." The "Chief Rabbi of Sofia was unavailable, having been hidden by the Metropolitan Stephan of Sofia." And most stunningly "the same thing happened in Bulgaria as was to happen in Denmark a few months later -- the local German officials became unsure of themselves and were no longer reliable." And "not a single Bulgarian Jew had been deported or had died an unnatural death when, in August, 1944, with the approach of the Red Army, the anti-Jewish laws were revoked."

Croatia. Bulgaria. Infinitesimal exceptions almost not worth repeating, right? What about France? On pages 147-149, Arendt documents that the French collaborationist government under Pierre Laval was initially delighted to assist the Germans in "resettling" Jews who had fled Germany and the rest of occupied Europe to France, stating "these foreign Jews had always been a problem in France" and that the "French government was glad that a change in the German attitude toward them gave France an opportunity to get rid of them." However, in the fall of 1942, when the Germans asked for permission to include French Jews, "This caused a complete turnabout; the French were adamant in their refusal to hand over their own Jews to the Germans." By then the reality of "resettling" had reached France, and all Jews, foreign and native, were dispersed throughout France, with over 250,000 surviving the war. Arendt concludes "The Nazis, it turned out, possessed neither the manpower nor the will power to remain 'tough' when they met determined opposition."

Orlet regrets his failure to resist peer pressure in what was in fact a totally innocuous psychological experiment. However, there is "good" peer pressure and there is "bad" peer pressure. If a group achieves a critical mass of "good," then it would appear that group can resist some of the most terrifying evils of all time. Unfortunately the converse may also apply. It would seem extremely important that the "right good" be taught and made second nature. Is that the case in America today?
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

It sounds as though Zimbardo and his fellow researchers went to a lot of trouble and considerable mental gymnastics but failed to consider what the Bible has to say on the subject: that mankind is fallen and therefore inherently evil; not inherently good.

Recognition of this truth leads to proper thinking; denial of it leads to untold misery. Consider: democracy with its system of checks and balances implicitly presumes those checks and balances are indeed necessary. All other forms of government incorrectly presume that such checks are unnecessary, because, it is thought, mankind is inherently good and wonderful things will happen if we simply put the correct "good" people in charge of everyone else. Somehow though those "good" people wind up having names like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...

As C. S. Lewis put it, when considering competing theories the one which most closely resembles reality is the one most likely to be correct. Another way to say that is if it walks like a duck, flies like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. So again, our founding fathers presumed people inherently evil and set up our marvelous democracy. Others presume humans inherently good and set up systems the likes of which are in place in North Korea, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, to name just but a few. And those examples are not exceptions, they are in fact the norm as one tyrannical kingdom replaced another throughout human history the world over. At what point do we concede the point the overwhelming evidence requires?
-- R. Trotter

SORRY TO SAY
Re: Jennifer Rubin's Learning the Hard Way:

I disagree with Jennifer Rubin's column. We don't need more apologizing, but less. If this makes us seem out of the mainstream, then remember the immortal words of Bono, "F--k the mainstream."
-- Vern Crisler
Gilbert, Arizona
P.S. Sorry, I just wanted somehow to work in Bono's line, and I'm truly sorry if it offends anyone. Sorry for disagreeing with Ms. Rubin, too. Really, I'm as sorry as can be.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Business, Religion, Islam, Global Warming, Law, Founding Fathers, Iran, Russia, NATO, North Korea