When you went to Google on 11 Sep 2022, this is what you got. Normally, Google marks a noteworthy occasion by incorporating the theme of the date in its clickable Google logo, with the embedded link taking you to a search with results about that historic day.
This year, Google simply put an American flag with a black ribbon over it. It was not clickable, but did render a tool tip message when you hovered the cursor over it.
I found that oddly fitting. What are we remembering?
Yesterday I read that only 14 states in our country teach the children about 9/11. The BIG Question is WHY?
ReplyDeleteThat's what Geez posted this am...
DeleteWe're all just virtue signaling now. Islam still needs reforming, but any reforms won't be coming from us. Our military fiascos and attempts to "democratize" the region were all absolute failures.
ReplyDeleteNow the same idiots who gave us Afghanistan want us to deploy to Ukraine/Russia.
DeleteHistory repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce
DeleteWe never support the leaders we should. Moqtada al-Sadr is the only thing keeping Iran from controlling Iraq now.
DeleteWe failed to distinguish the "quietism" of Najaf from the heresy of Qom within Shi'a Islam.
Delete...for suicide bombing WAS a HERESY.
Delete...just like global corporate capitalism became "Reagan's heresy".
DeleteThe two go hand-in-glove.
DeleteThe latter also giving rise to the economics-driven movement known as the "Arab Spring"
Delete"We never support the leaders we should. Moqtada al-Sadr is the only thing keeping Iran from controlling Iraq now."
DeleteIn May 2003, al-Sadr issued a fatwa that became known as the al-Hawasim (meaning the finalists – a term used to refer to the looters of post-invasion Iraq) fatwa. The fatwa allowed theft and racketeering on the condition that the perpetrators pay the requisite khums to Sadrist imams, saying that "looters could hold on to what they had appropriated so long as they made a donation (khums) of one-fifth of its value to their local Sadrist office
So, we topple Saddam Hussein, and help Moqtada al-Sadr loot everybody...
Sounds efficiently self-refuting.
Maybe Moqi should just step aside now, and let Iran recruit suicide bombers fot joint attacks agaainst the Great Satan in the former Green Zone in Bagdad. Your position refuted itself when the $2t American trained army surrendered to ISIS years ago.
DeleteThe question once again facing Iraq’s politicians, which has occupied Iran and the U.S. since 2003, is how to deal with Muqtada al-Sadr.
DeleteThe assumption is that he is a problem, something to be treated or opposed. This is an underestimation of the man and his mindset. Sadr believes he is the sole legitimate political representative of Iraq’s Shiite population and therefore should dominate the state. This belief comes from his background and experiences in Iraq.
...
When his father was killed in 1999, the Shiite Islamist parties were relieved to be rid of a rival whom they saw as cooperating with the regime. In 2003 and 2004, as he clashed with the U.S. occupation, the religious authorities in Najaf did not back him and were glad his movement was defeated. In 2006, the Iranians began to splinter his movement, creating dozens of groups out of the Mahdi Army, and then used them to weaken Sadr. In 2008, the Iraqi government backed by the U.S. attacked his movement in Basra, Baghdad and elsewhere while the Shiite parties and Iran watched on.
Even his religious mentor Ayatollah Kazem Hairi turned his back on him. Hairi was his father’s designated successor who gave Sadr some religious legitimacy and cover for his political activities after 2003, but their relationship was strained over the years. On the morning of Aug. 29 Hairi released a highly unusual statement announcing his retirement as a religious authority, calling for his followers, especially Sadrists, to now follow Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolution of Iran, a move designed to rob Sadr of any legitimacy.
...
This is where the escalation into violence on Aug. 29 fits in with the greater arc of Sadr’s story. Frustrated by his opponents to form a government and constant Iranian intrigues to get him to fall in line, Sadr believes he can control the angry masses and prevent the worst excesses of the backlash against corrupt government but only if he can control the system.
His unleashing of the Sadrists for 24 hours was that message in graphic form, a demonstration of his ability to use street force if he can’t get his way politically.
Sadr’s main parliamentary rival is the Coordination Framework, the largest Shiite alliance in the national legislature and including Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) bloc (as the political arm of al-Fatah). The trouble is that while that coalition cannot accept Sadr’s domination, its members also do not have a workable alternative for freezing him out.
The Kurdish and Sunni parties are hesitant to join either side now, not wanting to be collateral damage in a Shiite power struggle.
...
To keep the current political order functioning and prevent its collapse, Sadr wants to dominate it and reduce the power of some other parties. This is not for altruistic reasons but because a collapse of the system threatens his interests too. However, change must occur, and he is making it clear that if his opponents do not accommodate that change in a gradual, controlled manner, then it will happen in a sudden, violent one.
Moqtada al-Sadr does not want to participate in a government with laws that apply to him and his kleptocracy. He wants power more than he wants peace. He doesn't have, and never had the backing of any other Shia group in Iraq, and no backing at all from Sunnis and the Kurds. His schtick has gotten tiresome. When things don't work out for this petty thug's hashpipe dreams of being the reincarnation of Ayatollah Khomeini, he incites violence against the duly elected government. Several militia groups opposed to him are in fact schisms within his ranks, split by leaders tired of his bullshit. He can't even keep his rape gangs together.
To their credit, Sadrists don't wear MIGA hats.
Yawn.
Yet he's the only one still pushing back against Iran. How droll for you. A mere "curiosity" born from an inability to control.
DeleteAmericans always go for the hard-kill, even when the softkill is right in front of them. No wonder the British Monarchy still control us.
DeleteConducting foreign policy and keeping our nation safe often requires dealing with and tolerating and savory characters.
DeletePie in the sky dreamers need to understand that
Yet he's the only one still pushing back against Iran.
DeleteSame as he did when he wasn't pushing back against Saddam Hussein. He doesn't need to sell it to me, he needs to sell it to his fellow Shia Iraqis. He wants "his" 20% of the loot, or Allah will tell him to kill people who say otherwise.
WWHKD?
(What would Hulagu Khan do?)
Dateline Baghdad 1258 AD - Hulagu Khan arrives at the city gates, gets told that his god, the sky he could look up and see all day everyday, was lesser than Allah, proceeds to have his warriors build a 200 foot tall pyramid of Baghdadi skulls "until Allah tells him to stop." Allah never showed up.
Funny thing about dead people...they just lay there and rot and never revere martyrs.
If Moqtada al-Sadr were really a problem for Iran, you think they wouldn't just drone strike him like a Saudi oil processing facility?
DeleteA direct descendant of Mohamed? Not likely.
DeleteReminder to all: please stay on topic
ReplyDeleteWe shouldn't be surprised at google I guess.. As I recall they no longer acknowledge, comment/link on Christmas... only other religions. So 9/11 doesn't qualify any longer. Thank for pointing that out.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote over at Z’s: A cell of radical upper middle class Islamists carried out a surprise attack against the nation’s symbols of economic, military and political power — using a hijacked air force.”
ReplyDeleteAt minimum that tells us that there are people resentful of our power and influence (a whole other subject cuz there’s much there that I don’t like seeing). They were able to goad us into a poorly calculated military operation and in the process we uncovered vast termite hills within our culture that egged on the principle of hating America unbalanced by mountains of good she’s done. That’s a BIG wake up call that the lines of Google wants to ignore.
BAYSIDER
Well said.
DeleteUGH!
ReplyDeleteJoe Biden:”The greatest lesson of September 11. Not that we will never again face a setback, but that in a moment of great unity we also had to face down the worst impulses, fear, violence, recrimination directed against Muslim Americans….”
Why are Muslims so often portrayed as the victims?
...because despite all the evidence to the contrary, the heresy's of Ayatollah Khomeini in particular, the Left INSISTED on arguing that the attacks had NOTHING to do with the Islamic religion and thereby turned the WHOLE of Islam into a target by prohibiting any inquiries into the new aspects (heresies) of Islam that formed the true cause for the attack.
DeleteAnd by making it a "cultural" issue, they in effect de-politicized the attack and placed it into the political category of "unsolvable".
'''kinda like they did with "crime". It's a black thing and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Delete...and to try to do anything is just RACIST!
DeleteTo "culturalize" a problem means to create "victim classes" so that the root problem can no longer be effectively addressed.
Delete...and the politicians can NOT therefore be held accountable for the lack of effective solutions. Solutions would alter the cultures within our multicultural society, and all such imposed alterations would be racist.
Delete...and to even "think" of addressing the problem would be like obscenely staring into Sharon Stone's crotch during the police investigation scene in "Basic Instinct".
Delete:P
DeleteSomething good and decent people who love virtue signaling would never do.
DeleteIt's ob skene.
DeleteIt's something only a pervert would do.
Delete...a "white supremacist" pervert.
DeleteBiden isn't making muslims into victims, he's congratulating Americans for resisting the impulse to condemn American muslims for the actions of al-qaeda. Of course AoW disagrees (she considers that impulse to be wisdom), but Biden's statement has nothing to do with conferring victim status on anyone but the actual 9/11 victims.
DeleteJoe's claim that it is racist to recognise that subcultures are redeemable makes very little sense. I appreciate he's making a point about how stupid liberal orthodoxy is, but I think he's missing a fairly reasonable liberal contention, which is that you can't solve a subculture's problems while studiously ignoring the conditions under which that subculture has developed. Eg if policy-makers in the mid-80s had asked themselves whether crime levels in black neighbourhoods had anything to do police indifference and/or corruption, would they have responded with the same sudden escalation of performative, draconian measures? Or, if foreign policy gurus had asked themselves whether Arab anti-American sentiment had anything to do with American's support for Iraq through the 80s, might they have given more emphasis to non-military responses to 9/11, or at least chosen targets that'd had more to do with sponsoring bin Laden?
The way I see it, those repsonses don't make any sense when viewed as sincere attempts to solve the stated problems: for me, they only start to make sense as political grandstanding and hawkish opportunism respectively.
Joe's claim that it is racist to recognise that subcultures are redeemable makes very little sense.
DeleteThat wasn't my point at all. My point was that to even "look" at a culture not your own automatically earns you the epitaph of "racist" (unless its' unreflexively "affirmative") therefore those who do look, must be "bad people". So ask me (the politicians) no questions and I'll (the politicians) tell you no lies.
ps - That is, of course, unless you want to be critical of whites or Europeans. In fact, to become a "vanishing mediator, such condemnations are required as proof of one's "objectivity" and eliminated bias'
DeleteA critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture to reveal and challenge power structures [citation needed]. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. It argues that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation.[1] Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychology, sociology, history, communication theory, philosophy and feminist theory.
DeleteSince the "power structures" are historically white, and (cisgen) male, these are the only two entities that one can legitimately criticize. All other must, as VICTIMS, be blindly "affirmed".
The words " in a moment of great unity" asks the listener to identify the race/culture of that unity as a "singularity". In Biden's eye's the white/European cisgen male "vanishes" and leaves us only with Muslims...
Deleteand "the worst impulses, fear, violence, recrimination directed against Muslim Americans….” represents those who are not. The spot of Yin in Biden's universalized Yang.
DeleteNow stop staring at Sharon Stone's crotch, you freakin pervert!
DeleteFor if you look too hard, you might see something... and thus the "affirmed" might fall out of the frame of desire and become subjected to a "mortifying love".
DeleteLike the Jews of Hitler's Germany.
Delete"Showing off is the fool's idea of glory." - Bruce Lee
DeleteLet's put Norman Schwarzkopf on CNN across the world to broadcast the war porn into every TV on the planet. It's BDE, man.
"Oh shit those bastards are dragging downed Blackhawk helicopter crews through the streets...on TV."
It's an easy corollary to your point: if, as you claim, you are forbidden from examining culture, naturally that includes recognising that they are redeemable.
DeleteThe reasoning you project onto liberals seems more defensive than sincere. Did someone once "call you out" for racism, and are you cross and possibly confused about why they did that? If so, are you sure it's a good idea to let some personal offense you once took affect your entire political outlook?
I've been called a racist for being white every day of my life since about 1970. Before that, I was called a gringo.
DeleteMy points about culture come from the Left (Zizek), and he calls "the neoliberal multicultural team" out much better than I ever could.
;p
DeleteThe truth of Islam.
Delete"Good men wouldn't stare at Sharon Stone's pussy...."
Deleteuhammad was, of course, the first to doubt the divine origin of his visions, dismissing them as hallucinations, as signs of madness or as outright instances of demonic possession. His first revelation occurred during his "Ramadhaan" retreat outside Mecca, when the archangel Gabriel appeared to him, calling upon him to "Recite!" (Qara', whence Qur'an).
Muhammad believed he was going mad, and not wishing to spend the rest of his life as Mecca's village idiot, he decided to throw himself from a high rock. But then the vision repeated itself: he heard a voice saying: "O Muhammad! Thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel." But even this voice did not reassure him; he returned to his house and, in deep despair, asked Khadija: "Wrap me in a blanket, wrap me up in a blanket." Muhammad told her what had happened to him, and Khadija dutifully gave him comfort.
When, in the course of subsequent visions, Muhammad's doubts persisted, Khadija asked him to tell her when his visitor returned so that they could verify whether it really was Gabriel or a demon. So, when the angel Gabriel next came to Muhammad, Khadija instructed him, "Get up and sit by my left thigh." Muhammad did so, and she said, "Can you see him?" "Yes," he replied. "Now turn round and sit on my right thigh." He did so, and she said, "Can you see him?" When he said that he could, Khadija finally she asked him to move and sit in her lap. After casting aside her veil, she asked, "Can you see him?" And he replied, "No." She then comforted him: "Rejoice and be of good heart, he is an angel and not a Satan."
(There is a further version of this story according to which, in the final test, Khadija not only revealed herself, but made Muhammad "come inside her shift" - that is, penetrate her sexually - and thereupon Gabriel departed. She then said, "This verily is an angel and not a Satan." The underlying assumption is that, while a lustful demon would have enjoyed the sight of copulation, an angel would politely withdraw from the scene.)
Only after Khadija provided him with this proof of the authenticity of his visions was Muhammad cured of his doubts and so could embrace his vocation as God's prophet. The first Muslim, in other words, was Khadija, a woman. She represents what Jacques Lacan called the "big Other," the guarantee of Truth of the subject's enunciation, and it is only in the guise of this circular support - through someone who believes in Muhammad himself - that he can believe in his own message and thus be the messenger of Truth.
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Delete"I've been called a racist for being white every day of my life since about 1970."
DeleteI hope that isn't true, but I can't guarantee that you aren't surrounded by fools. Even so, the crude things said by fools about race do not refute the nuanced things wiser liberals are trying to say about it.
I appreciate that Zizek is fashionable, but I have yet to find a use for him.
You've probably not met an intellectually honest Marxist before Zizek then.
DeleteI may not agree with Zizek on his DiEM25 EU solutions, but I respect the fact that he doesn't hide or obscure them. He certainly knows a lot more about the European political situation than I do. In the grand theme of things, his does represent the characteristics of the "Analyst's Discourse"
Slavoj Žižek uses the theory to explain various cultural artefacts, including Don Giovanni and Parsifal.[3]
Discourse Don Giovanni Parsifal Characteristics
Master Don Ottavio Amfortas inauthentic, inconsistent
University Leporello Klingsor inauthentic, consistent
Hysteric Donna Elvira Kundry authentic, inconsistent
Analyst Donna Anna Parsifal authentic, consistent
I think I just haven't read enough to get to grips with exactly what questions he typically addresses. I have the same problem with Lacan. The responsibility for my ignorance lies with me.
Deleteo/t - Jean Luc Godard, French New Wave Auter, has died. Condolences to mr. ducky.
ReplyDelete:)
DeleteThat brings back bad memories of the time I took duckies suggestion and rented one of those movies. My wife thought I was crazy.
DeleteHe was mr. ducky's avatar for many years....
Delete