Pissed

It never fails to amaze me to observe how many western people cannot bring themselves to connect the dots which inevitably resolve into the understanding that the most realistic and liberal-minded way in which emerging global threats - such as escalating Islamist terrorism and genocidal 'cleansings' - are to be eliminated or even reduced, is to address the 'freedom deficit' that has long impoverished the people of the developing world and given excuse to the ambitious fascist in their efforts to gain mindshare. Out of this 'social injustice' The prevalence of what appears to be tacit western pacifist support for this classic tyrant's defence has been refined into a veritable science of western self loathing - wherein presumably intelligent people mesmerize themselves into a sort of moral paralysis by suspending their disbelief in support of whatever blindingly big lies some fascist chooses to utilize in his obfuscating shell-game.

As well-intentioned and comfy sounding a theory as 'peace for peace sake' is at warming the cockles of millions of liberal western hearts, such sentiment has never convinced terrorist or tyrant to stop crushing people who they perceive as being in their way. Passivism worked in India because the British weren't immune to moral obligation or shame and such was also the case for South Africa. In the end 'even the Russians loved their children too' but only after threat of a certain Mutually Assured Destruction had sobered up their leadership.

Luck and grit eventually saw the western democracies through - relatively unscathed. Such is not the case in dealing with the Islamofascist variety of tyrant

Examples of the tragedy of pacifist denial are replete - from the Nazis through Stalin, Mao, Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and now Sudan with Iran hot on the heels of a necessary confrontation. And confrontation it is, as every historic attempt to enforce an absence of war through pacifist inaction, has led to disaster. Having said that, it seems clear to me that a "terrorist" is but a tyrant without a state apparatus at his/her beck and call. The ideological similarity of faith in some totalitarian cause for which humans opposition is but an obstacle, is in my estimation, so nearly similar as to be practically identical.

One would think the realization that sentimental paper-bombing alone is entirely insufficient to ensure "peace for our time" would be more widely understood. Preserving simple dignity, or our concept of the sanctity of human life - human rights if you will - is not ever truly defended by bits of paper. Despite all our loft ideals and multilateral frameworks, there still remain those sorts who justify any means by which to achieve their goals. Humankind still produces sociopaths with the power to grind whole peoples into dust in order to achieve their desired ends, and they are quite unimpressed by reams of paper resolutions exhorting them to "just think peace". Their willfully heartless ambition knows no peace that isn't splattered beneath their boot.

As a result of such, "peace" is a luxury paid for in the blood of stick-wielding heros. It is not gained through passive legislation which amounts to nothing more than toilet paper for snickering tyrants or terrorists scrabbling up the fascist ladder.

The American President's much maligned preemptive and proactive response to the problems arising out of the newly opened nexus of martyrdom and Bill Joy's nightmare technologies, is far more charitable and respectful of culture and/or the moral inconvenieces of reality than is the irresponsibly shortsighted approach of say...France - the self-proclaimed bastille bastion of egalitarianism gone wild...where a leader's conspiratorial wink and contracted nod hidden as it is behind the veil of an outlawed headscarf, is supposed to constitute moral action.

Chirac's, and thus France's sort of corrupt and condescending realpolitik approach is hardly to be admired for its open embrace of repugnance under the guise of benevolence. Yet it is despite the fact that one only needs dig even slightly beyond the elite graveyard silence of the fawning media class to see this hypocrisy in all its poisoned glory - Wherein massively irresponsible nuclear, military, and [exclusive] multi-billion-Euro energy development contracts become the negotiated carrots from crocodiles in exchange for looking the other way and/or lobbying on behalf of 'profitable' totalitarians on the UN's equally corrupt stage - crowded as it is with a dissonant choir of "voting" dictators. Such old-European shadow puppet "third-way" soft imperialism is far less likely to free any "oppressed" peoples than are hokey "cowboy" ideals put into action by the current US President.

The choir has almost succeeded at turning the very concept of morality into a bad word. Bad for them and their socialist bottom line which balkanizes people into classes to be manipulated and pandered into subservience.

Chirac's sort is so smart they're as stupid as most hawkers of socialist science tend to be...Blinded by their own self-important sense of position in a morally bankrupt vision of 'their' new world.

It was despite these envenomed intellectuals, and because of 'hokey cowboy ideals' that Saddam is now facing judgement by peers who were once cowering victims. This latest 23 million member bit of social justice was made possible despite the continuing opposition of millions of self-described advocates for peace, who I suspects are only advocating for personal peace of mind rather than social justice for any condescended to brown-skinned-body else.

Bush, for all his universally magnified stumbles and overly-scrutinized domestic failings, is much nearer to realities mark than are his ambitious critics across the ideological aisle. Whilst they're quick to draw their partisan conclusions, they're molasses slow at the trigger, and have yet to give me a reason to believe that they'll do anything beyond emulating the "nuanced" do nothing rhetoric of French elites who stamp their hypocrite feet in rage over the American President's decisive elimination of a morally bankrupt cash cow. These 'hidden in the open' complicit connections to active slavery and government sanctioned rape and rapine - not to mention real pervasive torture that the media's Abu Graib shell game seeks to obscure from our view - couldn't be more clearly documented but for a general refusal to see...Much less act to forestall its manifestation.

Given a choice, Bush's opponents would sooner have Sudan's Christians and blacks be driven from their lands and/or starved to death by the hands of their would-be masters in the north rather than join him in stopping this human calamity...This return to the 8th century.

I pray that Darfur is handled differently by those sages of the UN. I pray because there is little else I can do besides write my disgust for those who even now gear up to feign their concern as they haggle over the semantics of genocide whilst they feed Sudanese crocodiles in hopes that another exclusive oil concession scrap jumps into one of their laps under the lazy eyes of naive advocates for their conception of peace without effort.

Unfortunately, I hold little faith that men so small as to have presided over Rwanda's deconstruction - who still capitalize on their Balkan malaise after heavy American lifting of course - will prove more willing and able to see past the tip of their upturned noses to gird swords in defence of the meek they profess to champion. I have only the narrowest of hopes that they will find the spine to stand more upright than they did during the rescue of the Iraqi people, the rescue they oppose to this very day...In the name of peace.

This is one of those times where I pray that I'm resoundingly wrong in allowing them to make me so cynical...If that's to be the case, I recognize that it will be through the actions of people like Jane through the humble medium of her Armies of Liberation blog, and it will be harnessed to a similarly steadfast American resolve.

She has taken up the essential task of disseminating information on the escalating shame of civilization continuing to unfold in Darfur Sudan. A shame which has been effectively dribbed and drabbed and kept under wraps outside the blogosphere whilst our omnipotent media shoots their elite wad attacking President Bush for daring to do the right thing in Iraq.

It's through the efforts of people like her that my wavering faith in humanity will be renewed. Go to her site and contribute in whatever way you can.

Be it by pen, or by check or through shouting at the ill wind from the east.

UPDATE: Booker Rising stands for the Meek as well.