Sunday, July 30, 2006

Husband Gets It – Wife Not


Accomplished professional Time Magazine writer Lisa Beyer has written the most absurd article on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. This veteran reporter acknowledges Hisballah is a terrorist organization existing to kill civilians and destroy Israel. Furthermore, she admits Hisballah is controlled and financed by Iran, a declared enemy of the United States. Then after reviewing all these facts she concludes the U.S. should not care.

Why the Middle East Crisis Isn't Really About Terrorism: However grand it may be to fight all global terrorists, though, the simple fact is that we can't: we don't have the troops, the money or the political will. That means it may make sense to limit our hit list to the groups that actually threaten us. Hizballah does not now do that.

The headline is misleading. The fact that Hizballah is a murderous armed militia utilizing terrorist tactics means that the current fighting is exactly about terrorism. This is a classic example of liberal pride in being able to discern and enumerate differences, while being completely oblivious to the broad pattern and overarching principles which unite individually unique circumstances. Hizballah has differences from Hamas and Al Qaeda - so what?

Time Magazine is promoting the defeatist idea the United States can not completely engage the magnitude of the problem of religious justified murder. Ms. Beyer understands the core problem as evidenced in her writings immediately after 9/11.

The Most Wanted Man In The World” (Lisa Beyer, TIME, from the 2001/9/24 issue) In many ways, bin Laden's story is like that of many other Muslim extremists. There's the fanatical religiosity and the intemperate interpretation of Islam;

"Roots Of Rage" (Lisa Beyer, TIME, from the 2001/10/01 issue) But to get to the virulence of antipathy exhibited by the kamikaze 19 and their abettors and apologists, another element is required. That element is the idea that the U.S. is not just the enemy of the Arabs or even of Muslims generally but also the enemy of God. It is an idea encouraged by the Ayatullah Khomeini, who proclaimed the U.S. "the Great Satan," spread by Islamic extremists throughout the Arab world and now given potent expression by, it would seem, the biggest player among all such militants today, Osama bin Laden."

Coming up on five years into the post 9/11 global struggle, the liberal media is now willing to deny what they once knew. The jihadist problems threatening world civilization start with the belief, supported by Islamic scripture, that the one God desires and rewards the killing of humans who fail to worship him properly. When Beyer writes today: “But there is no one ideology among terrorists. And terrorism isn't even an ideology. It's a tactic”, she denies the unifying foundation of the crisis and thus negates any validity of her proposed solutions.

Her husband Zev Chafets is also an accomplished professional writer, and to his credit he understands the scope of the problem. Writing earlier this week he discusses the thinking of apocalyptic Christianity towards the current violence, and brilliantly links their end of the world obsession with the comparable global warming nonsense being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the progressive left.

All quiet at Armageddon: Secular liberals find this scenario preposterous. On the other hand, many of these same scoffers profoundly believe that high-octane gasoline and the profligate use of electric home appliances will heat planet Earth to a doomsday temperature last experienced 420,000 years ago. … They may have odd ideas about the end of the world, but the evangelicals' ideology has made them into militant anti-fascists (which is more than I can say for some of my best friends).

Best friends and wife.