"An opera star falls for a Mountie chasing her outlaw brother," goes the VideoETA synopsis of the 1936 musical film classic, Rose-Marie. Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald (above) "on location at Lake Tahoe" during filming. According to one website, America's Singing Sweethearts "did have a romance off screen, but because of circumstances and Louis B. Mayer they never married each other." The Mounties have always held a privileged place in our heart, from Rose-Marie to the radio and TV fave of the 50's, Sargeant Preston of the Yukon, "written in the Lone Ranger mold but with a dog as an action hero. The dog was a Husky named Yukon King." Now the RCMP has burst once again upon the national scene down here in the lower 48. Ignore their words. Fearful of offending PC types and hysterical Islamists, they euphemize Islamist terrorists in their midst as representing a broad "strata" of society. Instead, focus on their deeds -- a daring sweep of insidious Jihadis within the walls -- and the romance lives.
Calling a spade a spade doesn't come easily to our multicultural elites, so we were duly impressed with the [Canadian] Globe and Mail's semi-bold reference to those who would blow them up as “terrorists, the ones who hate the West.” The blogosphere is rightly impatient with the Western media's general squeamishness about calling a Jihadist a Jihadist in connection with yesterday's spectacular sweep of mostly Canadian-born Muslims plotting to blow up CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] headquarters and Parliament, among other targets of choice. The prize went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who delicately referred to their off-with-their-heads fellow citizens as coming from a broad "strata" of society, as Michelle Malkin pointed out with justifiable disgust. The [Canadian] National Post was shocked, shocked:
The exact targets of these young terrorists were not revealed, but it is their profile that is most shocking: young Canadian Muslims who have somehow become radicalized while growing up in Canada.
Shocking only for those who haven't been paying attention. We and the immediate blogosphere have been forever blogging about the very thing early and often. As David Ignatius wrote about the London attacks of last summer:
This is the revolt of the privileged, Islamic version. They have risen so far, so fast in the dizzying culture of the West that they have become enraged, disoriented and vulnerable to manipulation.
The National Post, finally getting it -- better late than never? -- has more:
In Europe, the United States and Australia, intelligence agencies have been reporting the same trend: loose homegrown youth networks (some of them virtual networks that exist only in cyberspace) inspired by al-Qaeda but that operate locally and autonomously.
The suicide bombings in London last July 7 that killed 52, for example, were the work of three British-born Muslims and a Jamaican-born immigrant who had converted to Islam. "The attacks showed very clearly that terrorism is a 'homegrown' problem," said a British parliamentary committee's report on the bombings.
Rather than taking orders from overseas bosses, they plan and execute their activities locally, "without input from masterminds abroad," says one CSIS report. The Internet provides all the indoctrination and instruction they need. [It must be internet-inventor Al Gore's fault. --ed]
"With the help of radical Web sites and chat sessions they compile a radical 'cut-and-paste' version of Islam from Koran quotations which they reshape into a revolutionary pamphlet of global violent jihad," the Dutch security service says.
"They're the kids who don't do well in high school, but could do anything," now-retired CSIS deputy director Dale Neufeld told a Senate committee review of Canada's anti-terrorism legislation ['course it's more complicated than that, as several of the culprits are well educated high achievers, but the underlying dynamics of resentment hold true]:
They could become petty criminals. They could get involved in the drug culture. They might join a motorcycle gang. We're now seeing a number of examples where they decide to take up Islam in the radical form.
It's the second generation, the children of Muslims who are born in this country. They have a very normal upbringing, according to our analysis, but at some point in their teenage years or young 20s, they decide that radical Islam is the path they want to take.
The importance of being noticed rears its lovely head once more. As we wrote last year, "The real issue is, whom do we select as our peers."
I think that we are in serious trouble. Islam as a political ideology has a very expansionist, supremacist, triumphalist tone. It urges religious world domination, and it promises that this dominance is divinely ordained. All of these fantasies of power will be extremely intoxicating to adolescent males and male young adults. Many will prefer to dream of domination than to strive for integration.
Here is an example - a forum posting from an online discussion board on Islamic issues. You will see similarities to playground taunting, but with potentially deadly implications.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22784&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
Quote:
JihadJedi brother:
Islam will rule the world, very soon.
Allah Hu Akbar.
Constitution for the new Islamic Republic of EU and USA is under construction.
To the infidels of the West:
We will fight the infidel to death.
Meanwhile American laws will protect us.
Democrats and Leftist will support us.
UNO will legitimize us.
CAIR will incubate us.
ACLU wil support us
Western Universities will educate us.
Mosques in the West will shelter us.
OPEC will finance us
Moderate Muslims will fertilize us
Hollywood will love us.
Koffi Annan will pass politically correct sympathetic statement for Jihadists.
They will go to the West for education in full scholarship. America is paying and will continue to pay for our children’s educations and their upbringing in state funded Islamic schools.
We will use your (West) welfare system. Our children will also send money home while they are preparing for Jihad.
We will take the advantage of American kindness, gullibility, and compassion. When time comes, we will stab them in the back as we did on 9/11 and 7/7, the Islamic way. We will say one thing on the camera and teach another thing to our children at home.
Posted by: Umma Allergic | June 05, 2006 at 09:35 AM
I am always amazed at the level of self deception the news media seems to find necessary. It's almost as if they can't quite come to terms with the fact that there are very bad people out there and they are NOT from the Conservative side of the government.
"How can this be?" they think. "We've been so understanding of their plight."
What idiots.
Posted by: Teresa | June 05, 2006 at 10:41 AM
The above quote goes a long way toward illustrating the point I want to make, which is that our present day, politically correct and very emasculated white western culture instills a certain disgust in anyone who has a problem with authority - whether you are a western native or not, everything from our laughable handling of Massoui to the current situation with Iran combines to create the sense of a world lacking any moral compass - a kind of moral black hole that inevitably sucks everything in.
This is where modern day Islam comes in - it energetically embraces the young and the angry, affirming their basest tendencies and desires for moral clarity, in exchange for their allegiance (which is an added attraction for many who want to belong to something larger than themself - and as another added bonus, Islam suffers from no stigma of media disrepute as does the hip-to-hate-it Christianity).
Finally here is a refutation of the syrupy mommy/village/antimasculine culture that addicts with its cloying security blanket and thereby engenders an ever accelerating spiral of rage among the disaffected.
Ultimately Islam acts as an "out" for people who are sick of trying to address their frustrations and resentments with logic; sooner or later the persistent encouragement of older, respected, bearded men becomes more attractive as one tires of attempting to grasp complicated modern realities like the limiting effect of a supply/demand world on local (employment/education/medical/political etc) opportunities.
Islam promises to make everything simple. And in its own perverse way, it delivers. Either we recognize the danger and develop ways of fighting it with eyes-wide-open, or we lose - sooner or later.
Posted by: Scott | June 05, 2006 at 04:37 PM