I believe your views are wrong.

There is indeed a clear threat posed by certain Islamic groups/states, and it is a continuing threat that is loosely organized and thus conventional efforts to deal with it are not successful. In addition, the threat is not a uniform one, and in its nihilism its targets are large and small.

People can recognize the threat and not support the course of action choosen by the U.S. Administration in dealing with the threat and still be "with us". We are not defined or limited by the current policy of the White House, whoever the occupant may be.

Nice picture by the way, high school yearbook photo?

it is not loosely orginized. There are several seperate independant armies. But the majority of this war against the non islamic people of the world is highly orginized and orchestrated by Iran.

As for not supporting the course of action thats where you are wrong.

Tell me Mahons if the enemy gives you no choice other than submission or death. What other course than war is offered?

Or can you show me where they have offered us a different set of options.

Troll - Iran is involved in many terrorist networks, though hardly all. If it were only Iran it would be fairly easy to end the threat.

I have been offered coffee or tea, ribbed or plain, and of course smoking or nonsmoking in my life, but never submission or death. And I was taught by nuns in High School.

You are overplaying the threat and undermining the ability of the West to deal with it by insisting on no dissent, no alternative strategy and no questions.

Troll/Mom: I totally agree. Any number of books and research papers now reveal the Islamofascist struggle to be as you describe:

If you simply list out all recent terrorist attacks, or even just "wars" globally it becomes obvious that Islamofascism is widespread, growing and responsible for most conflicts around the world.

That the MSM is silent in the face of this monumental struggle is tragic. The willful denial - the attempt to minimize the enemies resolve and the difficulties we and our children will face is mindboggling.

Bush's inability to make the case for a united front against Islamofascism is, in my opinion, his biggest failure as President.

Troll

How can you be so certain of the construction, leadership , degree of Western penetration, strength and aims of the 'global Jihad'. Do you have greater insider knowledge than the rest of us ?.

I do not pretend to know any more than I can observe from what has actually happened so far in the Islamic onslaught against the west , which (9-11 excepted) has since then been quite pathetic and small fry. The entire second world war took place in less time than between now and 9/11, yet if that was the supposed start of the new world war, it has proved a dismal failure. I agree with Mahons, there is clearly a problem with Islamic terrorism, but it doesn't appear to me to be the threat to our existence as we know it that you claim.

Islamic fundamentalism is the major source of instability, and confict worldwide. From the Sudan, to Indonesia, to Great Britain, and the US, to Iran (supporting Hizb'Allah) Syria (supporting Hamas) Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi supported Al Queda - most conflicts are Islamic fundamentalist conflicts.

But the most insidious thing I have learned about jihad is the "soft jihad" alive and well within the borders of the US. This soft jihad - spelled out in Walid Phares book "Future Jihad" is planned and organized and has a 6 prong approach:

1. economic jihad: oil as a weapon
2. ideological jihad: intellectual penetration
3. political jihad: mollification of the public
4. intelligence jihad: infiltration of the country
5. subversive jihad: behind enemy lines and protected by its laws
6. Diplomatic jihad: controlling foreign policy.

"it is not loosely orginized." You are soooooo right. Why are there so many Muslims causing a problem all over Europe. Why was there a Muslim school in a little village in Kent (UK)...wearing muslim outfits, looking totally our of place, and demanding, and getting, a Mosque.What are they there for. In my view this is not all ad hoc. Be aware terrorism exists and it is all part of a larger picture. Oil prices are causing mayhem in the West and all over the world. Are the Muslims going to help out in parts of Africa where poverty is rife and this latest situation will cause more poverty ... I don't think so. Ignore it at your peril Colm

Maggie

All I am saying is that if there really is an organised fanatical determined worldwide evil conspiracy of Millions of Muslims out to slaughter as many westerners as possible, they haven't since 9/11 made much of a success of it haven't they ?.

The IRA which was much more localised, specific and very very much smaller in number managed to bomb and shoot on an almost daily basis in one of the most intensly surveilled and patrolled areas of the world for decades, yet quite literally mamny many months can go by without even an attempted attack by Islamic terrorists in Western countries. Where are these hordes of willing suicide bombers ?. Why is is that in Exeter recently , the terrorists had to allegedyl resort to recruiting an unstable mentally sub norm white teenager to carry out an attack ?

Colm: If you look, say, at Holland you will see pockets of Sharia law communities beginning to creep into the landscape. Or look in GB, or the US, or Canada - the continuous ongoing attempt to overturn the Western rights which we Westerners take for granted and put in place Islamic fundamentalism. If radical islamist can do this without bombs, they will.

Good points, Colm.

Exactly Patty, stealth without your really noticing it. Why suddenly all the immigration to European countries and trying steadily to introducing Sharia law. The muslims who bombed London Underground and a bus were all home grown Muslims. So they found a mentally sub norm it doesn't matter to them who does the killing - they get their point over. They employ underage females to detonate bombs in Iraq.

Patty -

Let's take a step back. Of course some/many muslims seek to spread their creed and they've had some success. But this is a symptom and not the actual problem. Islamists are merely filling a void which we have left because Western self confidence has collapsed.

The decline in (here at least) Christianity and the resulting rise in immorality, the war on the family, the cultural war against patriotism, the ending of any meaningful education in schools regarding our country's history and the decades-long promotion of the state-approved muticultural religion have left us culturally flattened and very much defenceless against incursions on our way of life. We are defenceless because so many of us have no knowledge of what ought to be defended, let alone why.

Before addressing islam, we need to address ourselves.

Peter Moore, that is a good point, we have become morally & sexually decadent but we had hetter get our act together in a hurry.

It is totally wrong to dismiss this as a non issue. It is an issue - not just in terms of terrorism either.

1. Cultural

Decline in christianity as a specific objective? Nope.

Modernism: the rise of the mass media, the increase of male entitlement and in ya face sexual moronics, multi-culturalism, erosion of pride in our history, increase in selfish consumerism. American cultural erosion of our own culture. This contributes to an unsatisfied mindset here.

2. Mindset respect of asian cultures in the UK

At the same time the usual boring but violent angry young male syndrome resurfaces with a gang mentality which has been attached to Al Qaeda locally since 9/11. The baddest gang out there - and which young Pakistanis relish in the absence of anything to feel pride in.

3 Western Incoherence: The extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. Some reject outright that there is a war at all; others agree with the assertion by Blair that “the war we fight is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century”.

4. Underestimating the Threat: the strengths of the world community of Muslims are being underestimated. Underestimating the ‘Religion’: Islam is not even a religion in the conventional sense of the term. It is a transnational political and ethical movement

5.‘Islamophobes’ & ‘Apologists’: the contribution to the disarray of Western policy-making being made by the egotistical competitiveness, and in some cases hysterics, of “experts” and commentators on Islam. They include hyperventilating Islamophobes as well as academic apologists for the worst that is being done in Islam’s name.

6.Leftist Guilt: The fifth disablement is to be found in the confusion of “progressives” about the Islamic advance. With their political and moral bearings lost since the defeat of the “socialist project”, many on the Left have only the fag-end of anti-colonial positions on which to take their stand

7. Propaganda: The next indication that Islam’s advance will continue lies in the skilful use being made of the media and of the world wide web in the service both of the “electronic jihad” and the bamboozling of Western opinion by Muslim spokesmen.

8. Dependency: Guaranteeing Islam’s onward march is the West’s dependency on the material resources of Arab and Muslim countries

9. Powerful Retrograde Force: the West is convinced that its notions of technology-driven modernity and market-driven prog- ress are innately superior to the ideals of “backward” Islam. This is an old delusion. In 1899, Winston Churchill asserted that there was “no stronger retrograde force in the world” than Islam.

10. Crap Western Leadership: Radical Islam will not be defeated, as things stand, because of the low level of Western leadership, in particular in the United States

Re feminism btw: Islamists fear women's lib the most but we have managed to morph feminism into lad culture.

Is anyone worried about Saudi Arabia's participation in the Olympics? Yet they ban women from sport. If those women were black people there would be an outcry.

I actually agree with a lot Pete Moore says here. Nobody with a heart in his breast can be indifferent to the loss of so many things that made England so special. I also agree that (lack of proper) schooling is a major part of the problem. The current total ignorance of history is enough to fill anyone with dismay. Id much prefer to encounter someone with a total lopsided view of history than one with no view or interest at all. The decline in English folk music and literature are other big losses, IMO; as is the general decline in standards of spoken and written English (by the way, Pete, Im always surprised that people like you don't point the finger at the US - like Alison does sometimes. While it is not responsible, most of the things you complain about have their origins there).

These losses are, of course, also happening all over Europe. France has made some efforts to arrest them, but they are clumsy and ultimately vain.
Because these trends can't be halted. Their causes include technical progress and rising affluence, and the selfishness and mental laziness that these things bring for so many people.
Even if we were able to stop them - and it would require someone like Pol Pot - nobody would be willing to make the sacrifice.

--the increase of male entitlement--

Huh? You're kidding, right?

Look to your London and NYC theaters, where "Sex and the City" just opened. Takes two to tango, dear.

Sex and the City is your export, boy. As was Hugh Hefner, Larry Flint, general mainstream porn, lap dancing clubs and all things OTT gross. We were okay with Benny Hill and page 3 til you turned Flynt into some kind of people's hero.

But boy do they love it there. If you can send toxic waste like the Spice Girls over here we can send our toxic waste on the return boat!

Larry Flint is no mainstream hero here. If you think that he is, you're badly misinformed on yet another subject.

And as for "mainstream porn", it, with was and is far more mainstream (and vulgar ) in Germany and Italy than it was or is in the US. Check your satellite TV tonight for proof of this.

None of the Spice Girls managed to make the no knicker brigade though. Sweet as they were with their silly girl power.

Perhaps you think your film industry didn't turn him into a people' hero or turn sex into a spectator sport. Shows how far your head is up your own arse as usual Phantom.

Clue yourself up on the word mainstream re porn. California manages to shovel more out than some little cinema in Germany.

You are so bitter, its actually funny. There's a story there somewhere I'm sure.

Most people here think Larry Flint is a filthy degenerate pig. He's far from a popular hero here, sitting in his wheelchair.

If you're intimidated by sexuality in movies, direct your viewing accordingly.

So what's this "male entitlement" that you speak of? That someone watches a sex scene in a movie? Is there a point in there?

Actually bitter no, i just think raunch culture sucks. Ariel Levy wrote a good book about US raunch, have a read. She's a yank so it won't make you so sore when she berates Larry.

I just cannot stand you Phantom. I think you're an asshole - that's the story, since you make a point of mentioning it.

Equally if the truth hurts re your cultural exports I suggest you avoid threads where it is critiqued and don't respond to my comments.

Excellent post Troll - and some very thoughtful responses.

I believe the solution lies within us, we need to be either for us or against us and THAT means facing into the global Jihad that Patty neatly spells out. There's enough to unite us all here if we reflect on the choices we all face. Right and left, secular and Christian - we must come together and NEVER submit. As they say here in Northern Ireland - not an inch and no surrender.

Don't forget the scarves!!!!

Alison

Oh, what can I do to win your favor? Actually, with enemies like you and McCann, I think I'm doing very well. I just need one more like youze, and I'll have the trifecta sorted out.

I lived in Italy for most of two years, in the seventies, and raunch culture was very alive then, and very visible on the newstand, right next to the Chicklets and childrens comic books. And Germany, Eastern Europe loads of places have flourishing porn markets and home industries that feed it. ( Japan, too ) How can anyone believe you about Californication when you don't know the first thing about your own backyard?

Raunch culture does indeed "suck". I'm 'agin it.

Now what about this male entitlement? You still can't say what it is supposed to be! Is it a cliche from some feminist klavern?

How is it that the Spice Girls/ Victoria Beckham has managed to creep into 2 threads tonight which are nothing to do with them/her.

Try gang culture, rap culture, lad culture. Or are you saying young men don't get treated to everything they want like spoiled kids in a candy shop now. Try opening a magazine, listening to rap, switching on your Playtstation and listening to your Jenna Jameson's dulcit tones do the whore's voiceovers in a few of those games.

So you have nothing to say on the sunny centre of the known universe for porn export in all its lovely new guises. I guess bunny rabbits on tweens t shirts are European also are they. Funny as i thought that was the emblem of Playboy, the global porn brand. Another US export in the cultural normalisation of porn.

Colm, to say nothing of Britney Spears, who has been sighted sans knickers on three .

Noel,

"general decline in standards of spoken and written English (by the way, Pete, Im always surprised that people like you don't point the finger at the US - like Alison does sometimes. While it is not responsible, most of the things you complain about have their origins there)."

If you mean standards of english I don't buy that. At their best the Americans are some of the most adept exponents of the language going, and it's no accident that American usage and culture has spread through the world like wildfire. Simple, clear, zero bull, funny, wonderful use of analogy, high signal to noise ratio. They are excellent communicators.

I once worked on a European project for a security protocol where they named the data that controlled access to the system a Privilege Attribute Certificate (which was always written 'PAC'). The American version of the same thing is called a ticket. Which one needs less explanation? The American one was called Kerberos, after the three-headed dog that guarded Hades in Greek mythology. The European one was another acronym. It was technically better in many respects but guess which one caught on.

As for ignorance of history, at the risk of being controversial, like philosophy and religion it often seems to me the hot air of people unable to do anything useful for a living. As we see it is a pretty soft science given that people here cannot even agree as to the facts of the Iraq war or for that matter the history of Peter's beliefs as expressed in this forum! Look at you and Pete Moore with your completely contradictory histories of the changes in society - a question that will never be resolved because there is no way to decide it. And as for NI - sheesh.

This is multi faceted war of that there is no doubt.

As for the infiltration of our countries by combatent sleeper cells the information is there do your research.

The incrementilist part which is a culture war can be seen in all of the western world as countries accept no-go zones for the established arms of law enforcement and turn the blind eye or actual acceptance of sharia in other places.

As for our vulnerability on the social war we can blame the decline of the family unit and the banning of judeao christian acts and symbils in our public institutions.

In some schools in the US you could where a T-shirt with a naked girl on it but would be forbidden to display a bible or a crucifix, but that is another post entirely.

As for the shooting war Iran is financing terror all over the globe they are fronting the shooting war with Hamass & Hezbooha. saudi Arabia is financing the soft war through wahabism.

We can afford setbacks and giving points on the soft war but not the shooting war. They are going to nuke someone and at the very least we will see more and more suicide bombers in the US, The UK, France, etc etc.

On the shooting front they need to fear us more than we fear them.

For what it's worth, I think the Spice Girls were the most annoying loud mouthed bunch of talentless bimbos whose brief burst of fame and success was as baffling as it was annoying. I never watched Sex and the city but from the brief glimpses I have seen of it, I'd say it was a typical slick US production - and it can't have been half as crap as the 'Girl Power wannabies' - so I'm afraid this Brit is going to side with Phantom the Yank rather Than my fellow Cockney sparrow Alison ;)

Noel

Perhaps I should drag Paris Hilton into a few threads :)

Actually Alison, its center.

Colm/Noel - Clearly Victoria and Britney present fronts that we must tackle if we are to win the war on terror (terror of hearing them sing for instance).

Mahons

That's not fair. At least Britney can sing. Victoria's voice was so flat it had to be distorted out of all recognition on her one and only UK solo hit.

Is EVERYTHING Hollywood's fault?

I thought porn came from Sweden....(kidding)

Actually, during the 70's the porn industry was in the Valley, and I have actually heard people lament its demise because apparently porn in the 70's had plot and story lines.

On behalf of everybody in Hollywood, including those now stuck in traffic on the 405 coming over the hill from their jobs in the Valley, I would like to say: "I'm sorry!" :)

Sex and the City versus the Spice Girls. That's a weird one Colm. Samantha gets on down with her girlfriend and experiments with female ejaculation and Gerry dons a Union Jack mini dress. 'Slick' versus teen fun. Not really on a level playing field!

Playboy is very passe, has been so for years - it's porn for the near- elderly. The circulation of the magazine here continues to plummet--have no idea whats happening in Europe with it.

I don't put Hefner and his livin' the high life image in the same category with Flint and his vile gynecological and dehumanizing and thoroguhly unerotic porn.

I loathe rap and the deep anger and ignorance and incoherance at modern life that lies at the heart of it. But gangs or indeed rap doggerel play no role in how the huge majority of "males" live their lives. They do completely dominate some areas, true.

---

Colm

Attaboy!

Flynt was celebrated as a defender of free speech. In a successful film on the same subject too.

Don't apologize Patty, I of all people will rally to your side in this moment of attack on a sister state. Hollywood may have some responsibility for some awful movies, but it also produced most of the best. Cue Randy Newman's I Love LA. Besides, do we really want to get our porn from England? Debbie Does Manchester?

the film was a flop and Flint himself was loathed as a scumbag

The movie "Death Race 2000" celebrated race car drivers who ran over pedestrians. I guess we can blame Amerikay for illegal street racing in Glasgow today.
--

I don't know anyone who idolizes Flynt. I don't know anyone who even thinks about him. Wait, maybe I do know one.

It was the ancient Greeks who invented porn. I've been in the British Museum. I've seen some of those filthy old vases . And don't get me started on the Kama Sutra.. those sex crazed 2nd century Hindus ;)

No, Colm it was invented in California last year!

Colm: Oh yes! The Greeks! I was in Pompeii last summer - you know, that volcanic city preserved - over 2000 years old - near Naples...

and in this 2000 year old city there was a bathhouse (incidently with tile work that is very popular at this moment in LA - visible in Pottery Barn catalogs) and on the walls of the bath house (whore house) were "erotic" pictures and jokes about a certain man's size etc.

Men! I tell you...obsessed, they are! If I weren't a "creationist" (joking) I would think it were Darwinian.

It's the heavyweight commercialism behind it that the US has, which makes the difference. Course all cultures have had the same but not nearly as heavyweight or frankly as mainstream crass, certainly not with nearly as much influence.

Less of course those bunnies on t shirts are really just ...cute bunnies.

>>If you mean standards of english I don't buy that<<

I didn't mean the standard of English there is lower. I meant that, like so much of American culture, good and bad (and of course to say most of it is good is a vast understatement), their language has come back to England with a vengence, and the effects can't be lost on someone like Pete Moore, for whom even the arrival of Italian cuisine is a cultural loss.

I agree that Americans are in general more articulate than us on this side, but that's only the pragmatic side of language. You are wrong to suggest US usages have spread because they are in any way better. They spread simply because of the strength of American culture: language is carried by everything from films to technical innovations, and for so many Brits (and probably even more so Irish) it sounds simply cool to use the American instead of the English term and grammar (see David's "I will protest it" on his Protesting the Protest post).

I do have a few gripes. I think because the US was famously E Pluribus Unum, they tend to be more tolerant of language irregularities than is/was the case in Britain, and idiolects are carried into the mainstream much quicker. Nor do they seem to notice - or care - about ugliness in form in their language. You don't have to be Pete Moore to consider words like "verbalize", "deculturalize", "momentarily" or the forest of split infinitives to be an assault on the English way of life.

The point about history is for another day. But this bunk is necessary if a society is to appreciate its place in the scheme of things, and vandalism, crime and social selfishness are some of the milder consequences if it does not.

Besides, why should people "do something useful for a living"? Let each do something interesting.

Colm - Bizarrely i think it was the Egyptians. Before Islam took a hold. Obviously.

Patty

Naples is where I lived for two years, so yes, I saw those same things in Pompeii, there and in the big museum in Naples, where for a few lire at the time, they would show you the closed room with the special collection.

But the stuff on the newstands there was really weird. Very in the open, including lots and lots of magazines with obese or elderly "models" etc etc. I did not understand what the attraction was.

Alison: "Bizarrely i think it was the Egyptians. Before Islam took a hold. Obviously."

I love the symmetry here. (seriously) You have brought the discussion away from the brink, full circle back to Islamic influence. There is a God.

But there isn't an Allah

The Phantom: your 11:20 LOL.

your 11:18 Depravity aside, I have long been amazed by the depth and variety of men's passions.