[2banana]

Oh brother, arab terrorists = the IRA because they fight against "occupation" by another country. Both are pretty well Marxist so at least the author got that right.

Hell, we might as well equate Hamas to the Founding Fathers.

[ffusco]

Arabs are NOT the Irish of the world.

Apologies are due to Celts everywhere.

[Texas_Dawg]

That was not the objective of modern Irish terrorism. The objective was to expel the hated Other from Irish land, and to kill as many of them as possible, for sheer hatred's sake.

Very true. Good article.

[Sender]

Imagine you are a citizen of a single nation with some decent cultural achievements to its credit in the past — at very least, in the decorative arts, in poetry and literature, and in the transmission of knowledge from the ancient world to the late-medieval.

Unfortunately, their progress seems to have halted at the late-medieval.

Imagine now that your nation finds itself living in the shadow of a much richer, more powerful, more aggressive nation

Israel is richer and more powerful not only because of US support, but because they have embraced cutting-edge 21st century technology instead of moon worship and swords. As to Israel being more aggressive...yeah right. That's why the world lives in fear of Israeli homicide bombers, eh?

Suppose, further, that this bigger, richer, more aggressive nation has seized a part of your territory, planted its own people there, and denied your claim to sovereignty over it.

With the Islamists' claim to Palestine, al Aqsa and 50 cents, I still couldn't get a Starbucks coffee.

[50sDad]

You know, Hitler talked to his people before WWII. He sensed the national zeitgeist. He knew the German people felt that the world had treated them unfairly. He knew the German people felt that they had a grand and glorious past, and that after WWI the world had put unfair restrictions on their country, limiting them economicaly and physically. He knew that there was a particular kind of German who would be willing to go risk their lives and kill others if it meant regaining their national glory.

I am sick to death about people telling me I need to "understand" Islam, as if insisting that if I only "understood" all the Muslims have been through, I wouldn't be so quick to condemn them for slaughtering horribly 3000 innocent civilian mothers and fathers for the simple crime of going to work to feed their families. If I only "understood" the hard lives they must live (under the lash of their non-democratic, hardline, religious leaders who chop their hands off, then tell them to be angry with the West because our women actually show their ankles) then I wouldn't be so single-minded as to condemn them for shooting people in the head for kite-flying. If I only "understood" how grand and glorious their culture was a thousand years ago, since they invented the zero and all (allowing heathen infidels like us to enjoy food, shelter, and peace the likes of which they have never known, thanks to the technology they condemn) then I wouldn't be so quick to condemn their culture for not really producing an innovation in a millenium.

Look, Libs out there, I don't need to "understand" Hitler, and appriciate what a rough time Germany had before we had to spill American blood kicking his @$$. The important thing is that I understand how a thourghly evil bastard used his people to try and take over the world by killing millions of innocent people. I clearly see how a bunch of so-called religious leaders have corrupted a generation of people into taking up arms to kill. Same old story, new despots. IMHO, 90% of the Muslim population is welcome to live in the past if they want to enjoy the benifits like starvation, meyhem against their own, and secret police. However, the day 10% of them came around here to try and destroy the rest of us infidels, they had no idea who they were picking on.

I understand Evil when I see it. I have no sympathy for Sauron, Hitler, or the next bully that steps up after we make Bin Ladin a dark smear on the floor. You invented the zero. Great. But even if you gave us flipping cheap fusion power and anti-gravity, if you fail to stand up and condemn the cruel bastards who murdered innocent Americans, and condem them clearly and often, than you are as guilty as the Jehadis that flew into the Towers.

My President is a cowboy. Yippo-yo-kai-yay, get out of the way, locked and loaded. We dragged the "brave and powerful" Saddam out of his hidy-hole, and sometime soon, we will drag the rest of you brave Jehadis out into the daylight. Maybe the next genration will be smarter.

[Diddle E. Squat]

That 'Christmas morning on St. Patrick's Day' Guiness beer TV commercial is pretty funny.

[Billthedrill]

Derbyshire admits it's an imperfect analogy, which it certainly is. The sense of despair that he cites in Saudi Arabia is not the same as that in Ireland - it is not the sense of a nation that, physically occupied, maintains a culture and national pride despite it all. It is, on the contrary, the desperation and anger of a people whose very culture has failed them. That is a huge difference.

It needn't have done so. We read ad nauseum of the intellectual and cultural heights the Islamic world once enjoyed relative to the brutal and illiterate West. Most accounts note that the West changed where Islam did not - this is not exactly true. The form of Islam that has decided to exert itself in the late 20th century is, in fact, a stifling distortion of a once relatively tolerant and open culture that would be as incapable of competing with its cultural predecessor as it is of competing with the West today. If there is despair, that is the reason - the young people know perfectly well that it is a deliberately-chosen cultural dead end effected by those who insist that it is the only alternative to the perceived decadence of the West. It is not.

There are obvious examples of this. It is a shock to those of us used to hearing the incessant bleating of various imams and mullahs to learn that Islam in its traditional form has no formal clergy at all. It does now. Edicts from the doctors of Islam concerning jurisprudence were checked in terms of foreign relations policy by the advent of the Sultan in application, and controlled by the guiding hand of the Caliph in origination. Neither exist today, and the self-proclaimed heads of religion have an untrammelled influence with no accountability whatever. This sort of thing goes on and on.

One indication that this process of ossification is irreversible at this point is to try to imagine what it would take for Islam in general to agree on a Caliph or submit to a Sultan today. It would take that, IMHO, to restore the characteristic features of a culture that once could compete and today would at least have a chance at exhibiting the flexibility and adaptability that are so vital to the survival of any culture in today's world. We see none of that in the theocrats who have taken over Iran, for example. And it's going to cost them dearly.

[Astronaut]

What an insult to fine Irish people everywhere. The barbarity and stupidity of arabs, especially the Palestinians, is without parallel.

[Snuffington]

Very good (though rather discouraging) article. I very much agree with his conclusion: "This is going to be a long, wearying fight."

On the other hand, the "I didn't read the article" crowd are going to go nuts over that headline.

[ameribbean expat]

What's the difference between an Arab wedding and an Arab Funeral? One less drunk.

Somehow it just doesn't have the same punch.

(Famine Irish great great grandfather for the professionally sensitive)

[VeritatisSplendor]

The Irish never thought they had a God-given imperative to conquer the world.

Lose a city? Paterson NJ and Dearborn MI come to mind.

No they can't defeat us. But we better stop letting them in.

Spain with a birthrate of 1.2. How does it break down? About 1 child per Spanish woman and 4 for the less than 10% Muslim? Takes about 3 generations. No more Spain.

Having children is voting for your future. Vote early, vote often.

Mrs VS