If this is the same Chris Matthews I think it is, then this is hilarious, He does not have a molecule of conservative in his body.
David > On Feb 26, 2015, at 3:56 PM, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > World Affairs > > > > Off the Fence > > > By James Kirchick <http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/users/james-kirchick> > on 25 February 2015 > > Has Chris Matthews joined the ranks of the dreaded neoconservatives? > > > Usually the MSNBC host has no time for foreign policy interventionists, > national security hawks, and the other assorted defense intellectuals crudely > classified under the “neocon” label. “There’s always a war that the neocons > are looking forward to,” he grumbled in 2012. “Neocons,” he said that same > year in a discussion of Mitt Romney’s presidential advisers, are “horrible, > dangerous people.” > > Just five months ago, Matthews lambasted none other than President Obama, not > a man usually accused of falling under the spell of neoconservative > influence, for his use of the word “homeland,” a term the towheaded pundit > considered “totalitarian,” one “used by the neocons,” whom, Matthews said, > “love it.” > > And so imagine my surprise to see Matthews closing out a recent Monday > evening Hardball broadcast with a robust call for the use of American > firepower that would have made former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul > Wolfowitz swoon. Matthews was moved to make this stirring call to arms by the > Islamic State’s latest act of savagery: the beachside beheadings of 21 > Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya. The gruesome video of this atrocity, > expertly filmed and edited as usual, ended with the bloody waters of the > Mediterranean Sea lapping along the Libyan coastline. “We can’t see people > killed like this in our face and simply flip to the sports page or the > financial news or what’s at the movies or who’s going to win the Oscars and > act like America, our country, is not being morally humiliated,” Matthews > intoned, the rising anger in his voice a reflection of wounded national > honor; the vow to enact justice positively Churchillian. > > “Because it is,” he continued, “with the lives of at least some of these > people, who must, in their last minutes, have to be wondering if there’s any > chance the people in the United States could be coming to their rescue, > because that’s how we were taught that we conduct ourselves. We don’t leave > people behind.” Somewhere, John Bolton was twirling his moustache. > > > Matthews’s tirade was not just the isolated ranting of a cable television > host. His frustration reflects the views of a growing swath of liberals and > Democrats fed up with the White House’s response—or lack thereof—to the > Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The administration’s tendency to > obfuscate the nature of the threat we are facing, refusal to confront the > problem of radical Islam by its right and proper name, and inclination to > draw spurious moral equivalences are being met with fierce resistance from > within its own ranks. > > The Matthews tirade was delivered the same night as his famous face-off with > State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf, who told an incredulous > Matthews that “we cannot kill our way out of this war” and urged that we “go > after the root causes that lead people to join these groups.” The following > day, Harf went on CNN to defend her remarks, saying that it was “too nuanced > an argument for some.” > > But if anyone was lacking “nuance” it was Harf. For had she bothered to read > the voluminous scholarly literature on terrorism and poverty, she would have > discovered that the relationship between the two is reverse. “If there is a > link between income level, education, and participation in terrorist > activities,” Princeton economist Claude Berrebi wrote in a study of > Palestinian terrorists, “it is either very weak or in the opposite direction > of what one intuitively might have expected.” Ridiculing the administration’s > “nonsense” about terrorism, the liberal New America Foundation’s Peter > Bergen—who in 1997 produced the first television interview with Osama bin > Laden—wrote that the question “‘Who becomes a terrorist?’ turns out, in many > cases, to be much like asking, ‘Who owns a Volvo?’” > > Take some of the more high-profile terrorists of recent times. Attempted > underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab descended from a prominent > Nigerian family and lived in a London apartment worth 2 million pounds. > Meanwhile, the arch-terrorist bin Laden was himself the son of a billionaire > Saudi construction magnate. Poverty, in other words, doesn’t create > terrorism. Ideology does. > > Which leads to the second conceptual problem that some liberals are beginning > to have with this administration: its reluctance to spotlight the ideology we > happen to be confronting. Last week, the White House held a summit on > “countering violent extremism,” the very name of which presents the threat to > the world as some sort of nebulous, ecumenical army of fanatics, when, in > fact, the people trying to kill us and destroy our way of life are, almost > entirely, followers of one faith tradition. > > Ah, but the president and his defenders say: The perpetrators of these crimes > are not really “Islamic.” With this deliberate denial of reality, not only do > they mask the threat of violent Islamic extremism among other, far less > pertinent dangers, they ignore the very Islamic nature of it. Having drifted > from their Judeo-Christian moorings (if they ever had them), many Western > progressives are poorly equipped to grapple with the religious zeal of > Muslims. > > In the cover story of the March issue > <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2015/03/> of the Atlantic, Graeme > Wood explains how overlooking the Islamic character of the Islamic State > backfires, because “pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, > millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has > already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to > counter it.” Rather than speak honestly about what we’re dealing with, the > White House would rather assuage the sensitivities of people like the Muslim > Public Affairs Council’s Salam Al-Marayati, who, according to > <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/17/muslims-aren-t-the-only-extremists.html?source=TDB&via=FB_Page> > the Daily Beast, “express[ed] concerns that our government needs to ensure > that it doesn’t give ‘legitimacy’ to the claims of ISIS and al Qaeda that > they are in fact Islamic.” > > As the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading authority on ISIS, told > Wood > <http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/>, > Muslims who talk like this are understandably “‘embarrassed and politically > correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion’ that neglects ‘what > their religion has historically and legally required.’” ISIS leaders have not > invented out of whole cloth the various Koranic edicts to wage war on > infidels and herd non-Muslim women into chattel slavery; it’s all there in > the Muslim holy book. The great struggle of our time will be whether or not > Islam, as it is widely practiced and understood, can achieve a reformation in > the same manner as the other Abrahamic faiths. It is for this reason that > denying the religious element of that struggle is so counterproductive. > > > Unfortunately, the president ranks among those who make the kind of > unqualified claims on behalf of the faith that Haykel abjures. “99.9 percent > of Muslims,” Obama said > <http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-999-muslims-reject-radical-islam_836303.html> > recently, “are looking for the same things we are looking for—order, peace, > prosperity” and “don’t even recognize [radical interpretations] as being > Islam.” That doesn’t square—at all—with the latest results > <http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/01/concerns-about-islamic-extremism-on-the-rise-in-middle-east/pg-2014-07-01-islamic-extremism-10/> > from the Pew Global Attitudes project, which shows that support for suicide > bombings and other forms of terrorism, while having fallen significantly > since 9/11, is still popular with a disturbingly high number of Muslims. As > Joshua Muravchik observes > <https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/muslims-and-terror-the-real-story/> > in Commentary, if even 20 percent of the world’s Islamic population, a > conservative estimate, were to support terrorism, that would translate into > about 300 million people. This is the pool from which ISIS draws its active, > and passive, support. > > Thankfully, the sensible majority of Americans do not share the views of the > administration and its politically correct enforcers. Only last September did > more than 50 percent of Americans finally come around to the realization that > Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other faiths. But even then, > that violence can easily be written off as “reactive” conduct in response to > the provocations of the Western oppressor, not actions undertaken with > individual agency and animated by a murderous ideology. “Without the war > waged by western powers, including France, to bring to heel and reoccupy the > Arab and Muslim world, [the Charlie Hebdo] attacks clearly wouldn’t have > taken place,” wrote > <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/15/paris-warning-no-insulation-wars-arab-muslim-world> > Seumas Milne in the Guardian. > > Arguing that France, and the West in general, are responsible for the > terrorist acts committed against them, Milne would allow the Islamists—people > who murder Jews because they’re Jews and gays because they’re gays—dictate > terms to the rest of us. And by putting Muslims writ large at the top of > their victim totem pole, those Western progressives who fashion themselves > allies of the umma are in fact doing it great harm. In validating Osama bin > Laden’s claims that the relationship between Muslims and the West is one > defined by a set of grievances, and that Muslims are therefore partially > justified in committing terrorism to address these grievances (whereas no > other social group is allowed such dispensation), the Western left demeans > and belittles Muslims. Of all the downtrodden and discriminated against, of > which there are many in this benighted world, it is only the followers of the > Islamic faith whom they excuse as prone to bomb and murder as a means of > voicing their collective complaints. > > “What happens there ends up happening here too,” Milne says, arguing that > continued Western strikes on the Islamic State will only result in more > terrorist attacks, or “blowback,” in European and maybe even American cities. > Should we veil our women and execute our gays, since that, too, is what the > Islamic State desires? There is no negotiating with those who kill people > because of who they are. I would argue for bombing these barbarians back to > the Stone Age, but that would be redundant. > > The last, and perhaps most decisive split to emerge on the left over ISIS > regards the urge to draw moral equivalencies. Earlier this month, at the > National Prayer Breakfast, the president told us all > <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast> > to get off our collective “high horse” about ISIS because some European > kings had ordered the Crusades many hundreds of years ago. More pressing > today, there are many on the left who refuse to let any discussion of Islamic > terrorism persist in which Christian and Jewish terrorism is not subjected to > the same analytical rigor. > > This is an insult to the intelligence. There is no Christian or Jewish > equivalent to the Islamic State, to which tens of thousands of people have > ventured from all corners of the earth, heeding its call to live in a land > governed by strict sharia law and dedicated to waging war not only on the > Western world and non-believers, but on any and all Muslims who do not > conform to its obscurantist dictates. And even long before the establishment > of the Islamic State, the world was already stuck with some half a dozen or > so various Islamic theocracies, of both the Shiite (Iran) and Sunni (Saudi > Arabia) variety. > > Writing of the president’s impulse to draw a connection between the Christian > crusades of yesteryear and ISIS’s current barbarism, Damon Linker of the Week > observed > <http://theweek.com/articles/539699/liberals-missed-true-threat-isis> that, > while the “liberal habit of self-criticism” is important, “this instinct can > also blind liberals to real and important differences, and discourage the > making of relevant, even essential judgments, as the embrace of humility and > call to refrain from judging others becomes, paradoxically, its own source of > pride.” > > Progressives revel in dredging up our iniquities; it is determining whether > or not those old vices should prevent us from doing good today that separates > the serious liberals from the morally exhibitionist ones. > > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > <http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism> > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > <http://radicalcentrism.org/> > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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