Jihad Watchers respond to the JFK plot

Today’s blog essay will examine a typical pool of comments from Jihad Watch readers, in order to demonstrate that most of the readers there seem to share, along with Spencer and Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch, many of the same misapprehensions about the problem of PC.

I have chosen as my representative thread one that has many comments to choose from (over 100 logged as of the moment I write this on June 3, 2007) and that concerns an event reflecting the psychopolitical epicenter, if you will, of the whole problem of Islam: a horrific terrorist attack—in this case, a foiled plot to carry out a horrific terrorist attack, using gas pipelines, that could have mass-murdered tens of thousands of people and injured thousands more in highly dense areas near the JFK Airport outside New York City, and would have doubtlessly wreaked untold damage to infrastructure and dislocation to the economy not only of New York City and the state of New York, but even of the northeastern seaboard, with uncertain repercussions to the national economy.

I now will quote many of the comments in italics from that Jihad Watch thread, and comment on them. Note: My interspersed commentary will be un-italicized and in brackets.

Another close call. sooner or later they are gonna pull one of these attacks off .It's only a matter of time.What are we going to do about ISLAM . To Stop this evil we have to get to the source .

[This type of frustration expressed by this type of rhetorical question, and this type of radical prescription, could well be exercised in that curious vacuum about which I wrote in a previous essay on this blog here.]

Hmmmmm....Little brother Teddy Kennedy has been one of the 'architects' of our out-of-control immigration policy that has and continues to encourage the immigration of millions of Muslims to the US. I await any comments that the esteemed senator has on the latest Muslim plot to destroy our country. However, I am not holding my breath..

[Undue finger-pointing at Leftists, when Bush has been outrageously blameworthy for a faulty immigration policy as well as derelict in his duty about border security—all ultimately a result of his unremarkable support of the dominant and mainstream paradigm of PC Multiculturalism.]

"Defreitas is a U.S. citizen with roots in Guyana."
What will it take for those screwballs in the Congress of the United States to do something to protect this country from Muslim terrorists?"
If these terroris are ever successful,the whole Congress should be charged with treason for aiding and abeting in the crime.
As for Mr. Defreitad, a U.S. citizen, the Constitution clearly mandates death for treason. If the government doesn't demand the death penality for this man, someone had better start asking some questions.

[Now we are getting warmer—or, rather, colder (i.e., farther from accuracy and closer to the blind spot of the myopia): first, blaming Congress for behaviors and attitudes that are so unremarkably axiomatic and de rigueur throughout Western societies and throughout all sociological strata (not just among political and other “elites”), then demonstrating utter ignorance of the dominant and mainstream PC paradigm: the delimited focus of the blame game follows from the myopia to the nature and extent of PC.]

Some of the talking heads on TV are emphasing there needs to be an investigation into what would cause a muslim to become radicalized.
Oh, I wonder what could it be?
Are these people that unobservent? Unbelievable!

[Again, a delimitation of focus—here, on the Media.]

Anyone who does speak the truth about the Islamic threat is going to be shouted down and labeled a racist.
We desperately need a third party in this country. It's pointless to think that the Democrats or Republicans are going to put self-interests aside and do what has to be done to protect this nation.

[This poster seems closer to the proper appreciation of the nature and extent of PC—but he subtly vitiates that appreciation by putting the explanatory onus on “self interests”. It cannot be merely “self interests” that explains why most politicians cannot, or do not, tell the truth about the Islamic threat, because if that were true, it would mean that most politicians in America (and throughout the West) are evil: for, that is one crystalline definition of evil—to knowingly put your self interests above your responsibility to defend the people you have been entrusted to defend even though you know that putting your self interests first will aid horrible evils. I cannot believe that most politicians in the West are this evil. This poster, therefore, is operating under the assumptions of that curious vacuum to which I referred above.]

Be prepared for CAIR to release a statement saying that Muslims are peaceful and that we shouldn't blame Muslims for this plot.
Then, a few days later, there will inevitably be a questionable discriminatory incident that CAIR will claim to be part of the backlash from the JFK Terror plot...
Finally, CAIR will attempt to silence Americans by filing paperwork against some poor soul who alerted the FBI to this plot...
The CAIR spin doctor cycle is just way too predictable...

[This poster apparently is oblivious to the fact that CAIR’s tactics would have little or no traction were our Western societies not deeply and broadly guided by the dominant and mainstream paradigm of PC.]

I'm shocked, just shocked, that the first out news reports mention Islam.
How many bullets do we have to dodge before we get serious, or will it take another mass casualty incident?
Even then, I'm not so sure the gloves would come off.

[A fairly good, if overly terse, observation + rhetorical question—though it suffers from a subtle yet significant flaw: our problem is not that we are not “serious”: our problem is that we are serious about the wrong things. The sociopolitical context for our seriousness is misguided. Our seriousness, which already exists—just as our will, our guts and our brains also exist just fine—is being channelled in a faulty direction. Our Western societies labor under the PC “filter” that re-routes our seriousness, will, guts and brains. So, contrary to this poster’s complaint, we do not lack seriousness. Our problem is that our seriousness is being consistently, systemically misapplied. One of the many misapplications is toward maintaining and defending the axiom that Islam itself is not the problem nor a significant source of the problem; and therefore the fact that these JFK terrorist plotters were Muslims does not get properly assimilated and analyzed.]

"Terrorism is just a bumper sticker slogan"
Democratic Presidential candidate, John Edwards
--How many of you actually believe such nonsence?
I wonder what kind of response this new darling of the left would get if he made that speech near JFK,La Guardia, and Queens. The leader of this foiled attempt apparently worked at JFK and was an Muslim US Citizen.

[This poster does fairly appropriately fingerpoint at the Left; for it has always been my opinion that, while PC broadly and deeply pervades both the Left and Right, it has come to affect and constitute the Leftist paradigm more by a matter of degree—and sometimes that degree becomes significant; though not as significant as one would like, since too many of the current Republican candidates for the next Presidential election are too politically correct about Islam, even if the Republican party culture seems more likely to produce a Tom Tancredo or a Rudy Giuliani, both closer to being politically INcorrect than any other candidates around.]

The good side [is that] Hillary [is] finished, Edwards, Obama, who else?

[This simplistically anti-Leftist sentiment runs on specious gas: as long as the PC paradigm is dominant and mainstream, too many Americans will continue to fail to connect the dots to Islam itself (and by extension to all Muslims whose population we cannot sufficiently categorize into harmless and harmful), and so terrorist plots like this could easily be attributed to the supposedly wrongheaded strategy of Bush: many Americans might well conclude that the best way to avoid this obviously escalating peril of terrorist attacks since 911 would be to vote in the softer even more conciliatory approach reflected more by the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates on this issue. Another poster later responds to this poster above with a rebuttal that is superficially correct, but which, for the most part, remains myopic to the larger problem of PC: “Are you sure? There are enough people disgusted with George Bush to vote for Hillary, Edwards, O'Bama or anyone else to the right of Kucinich. Look for them to say that this would never have happened if we hadn't gone into Iraq. A lot of people will buy the argument and to heck with the facts. It's easier to pretend the problem will just go away rather than take the hard steps to fight it.”]

I heard a news report about this on an AM news radio station a few hours ago....no mention "Islam" or "Muslim". The only plotter name mentioned was the one non-Muslim.
The majority of people are still in the dark whn it comes to Islam. We regular JW readers are a true "tiny minority".

[This poster implies that the problem of PC is purveyed by the Media—whereas it would be more accurate to say that the Media simply axiomatically and unremarkably reflects the dominant and mainstream PC paradigm. And, since that paradigm enjoys a cachet or aura of a wisely anti-Establishment and pro-underog posture—i.e., a posture that is pro-Third World and pro-“the People” (particularly, of course, non-white, non-Western “People”) in terms of human rights disenfranchisement and oppression by the rightish-tinged white Westerners who hold power geopolitically built upon the legacy of an evil Colonialist past—there are within the box of that paradigm strong inhibiting factors against any Woodwards and Bernsteins coming forth to investigate and report on the problem of Islam. Such independent-minded reporters who would buck the trend—the prevailing System—and go against the grain are virtually non-existent: even if some exist whose minds are not warped by PC, there is the further problem that going against the grain of the PC paradigm is perceived by untold numbers of otherwise, intelligent and sincerely ethical reporters and journalists to be to favor the worldview of the “ultra-Right”, privileged whites, reactionary Westerners, “bigots”, “racists”, “Islamophobes” and even of those tending to slide (either unwittingly or willingly) down the slippery slope to “genocide”.]

[Then, a Jihad Watch reader (in the quote immediately following, below) takes Hugh to task fairly well (even if he does not explicitly advert to the PC paradigm that underpins his criticism of Hugh) for Hugh’s myopic reminder (in a comment I did not include above) about how we had to destroy whole populations of Germans and Japanese during World War II, and how we now face a similar challenge with a trans-national ideology no less pernicious and dangerous. Hugh’s myopia here is the same as always: a myopia to the profoundly entrenched PC paradigm in the West which would resist such measures as Hugh advocates as indicative of the very same “bigotry”, “hatred”, “racism” and slippery slope to “genocide” against which we fought in World War II—thus effectively turning Hugh’s argument upside-down!]

Hugh, While I agree fully that the adherents of Islam should be no more immune to retribution than the people of Dresden or Tokyo, haven't the laws of warfare changed?
Take the most sparsely built and populated Muslim city and bomb it in retribution for acts of war committed by the Ummah and aren't you guilty of a war crime? Isn't that the result of Geneva Conventions governing the laws of war and targeting civilians? Our enemy is civilian. It's not an army that will meet us on the battlefield. Our military will deliberately attack civilian infrastructure. Won't that now be a war crime?
Israel was attacked by Hezbollah but its retribution drew international condemnation because the targets were in civilian neighborhoods. If Israel couldn't attack Beirut in retribution for direct attacks against it without its leaders being accused of war crimes, how far can this doctrine go?

[My order of posts in italics followed by my bracketed unitalicized comments got reversed, so I will now restore it, with my comment on the following to follow that.]

Even then, I'm not so sure the gloves would come off.Posted by: Thunder Pig
You know something...? It's the American Public.. just like the public in Europe puts up with these crap POLOticians and keep going to the voting booth like lemmings on crack.. always voting in the most well-advertised 'product'...
As long as the vast majority keep going to work and mowing their lawn.. watching the Superbowl and consuming huge loads of 'Bud'..
As long as only the few who come to jihdwatch and other similar sites express our anger..
NOTHING WILL CHANGE!

[The Jihad Watch reader above typifies many of the Jihad Watchers. In the small bundle of that comment are tucked away two serious misapprehensions: 1) locating most of the problem of our PC inability to fight Islam in “Elites” (here, “POLOticians” [sic]); and 2) explaining the inaction and/or disinterest in the general masses of people by recourse solely to their pleasantly Capitalistic inertia and not rather by recourse to a far more serious psycho-sociopolitical ideological phenomenon (PC multiculturalism) which has affected the ordinary folks of the West as much as it has its “Elites”.]

If and when another jihadist attack happens,i bet any of you here,that our government will probably bring in the National Guard and order it to protect muslim communities and mosques against any potential "backlash",i bet they will imprison any of us who would even dare to "incite anti-muslim sentiments" or even look at a muslim on the street the wrong way.Not only our government will not protect us,not only they willingly and knowingly bring in thousands of muslim immigrants,they will turn against us,the american people and side with the muslims...i know it and it will happen.We do not have leaders,we have cowards and traitors.

[Now this poster above seems somewhat more aware of reality than many Jihad Watchers. Her pessimistic prediction (her nickname is “adela”) is far more plausible than the more common prediction I see among comments by Jihad Watchers (as well as by the majority of Paltalkers in the vocal chat rooms devoted to the political and social problems of Islam at Paltalk) that, to paraphrase: “If another attack happens on our soil, by Gum, them Muzzies better watch their backs because us Americans ain’t gonna stand for it any longer, no siree!” To which I second “adela” above and say: Bullshit. Should there be another major attack as bad as 911 or (as with the JFK plot) far worse—or even several attacks clustered more or less in a short time period—it will be far more likely that most Americans will do nothing, for two reasons: 1) because they have been so well acculturated for several decades to be mature and law-abiding and not erupt into chaotic running amok as most Third World hellholes do; but also perhaps more importantly, 2) because most Americans are also well acculturated in the dominant and mainstream PC paradigm, by which lashing out in reprisals against Muslims (whether fairly intelligently and surgically, or less intelligently and more vigilantishly) is believed by these same ordinary Americans to be wrong, “bigoted”, “racist”, an evocation of our internment of Japanese during World War II (reflexively assumed to have been horribly and unacceptably “bigoted” and “racist”, and would lead them on a slippery slope toward “genocide”. Where the above poster “adela” begins to err is where she implies the inevitability of a high number of Americans who would attempt to engage in any anti-Muslim reprisals, but who would be beaten back by the various levels of law enforcement personnel of the U.S.A. She is right about the latter, but I don’t think there will be many Americans to beat back—likely a pitiful handful; though that will not mitigate our politicians and law enforcement (in concert with the usual propaganda from CAIR, etc.), from wringing their hands about the prospect of it happening.]

[A poster later echoes what “adela” said, both in what she got right and what she got wrong:]

Then, one day, small "group of men" will succeed in blowing up JFK or something. Americans will finally run wild and try to defend their selves. But US security forces will defend *democracy* (i.e. "moderate" muslims) and you will look with disbelief your own state defending your enemies and arresting your people and friends...

[The above poster, I think, is grievously wrong about the Americans “finally running wild”. The above poster continues:]

I saw that in Bosnia and Kosovo.

[This poster makes the mistake of thinking the U.S.A. is roughly equivalent to the former Yugoslavia. The U.S.A. is precisely not equivalent to welters of sociopolitical chaos like the Balkans, a slight step up from the hellholes of the Third World (due, of course, mostly to the ravages which centuries of Muslim intrusion and rule wreaked upon that region).]

[And speaking of Third World hellholes, another poster takes up the same point, now implying a comparison between the U.S.A. and regions of India besotted with sociopolitical turmoil:]

Allahfanculo, LazarOfSerbia,We are all thinking alike. And it is true. In 2002, our own boys fired at us in Gujarat when the Hindu "backlash" was happening. Last year at the Mumbai blasts, almost all of the wounded were rushed to the hospitals by people since the guv'mint sent the ambulances along with the police parties to protect the mosques. And the policemen who fired at the muslim mob running wild in Hyderabad after a IED they were making in the mecca masjid went off, were transferred. The muslim orgs here said that they should have used batons and tear gas instead of bullets, but Yours Truly is of the opinion that they would have been dead had they (2 in no.) tried to use batons on a crowd of hundreds of muslims. We are going down.