Observations and Opinions on Topics of Personal Interest

Work of Satan?

2006-01-13T23:49:00.000-05:00

My cohort, William, has alerted me to the next biggest trend: Brimless BAseball hats. Observe:

Yes, that's right, a baseball cap but without the brim. Yes, brimless. I'm sort of flabbergasted. The first time I saw the webpage I shouted "Oh no!" a few times and closed the browser. This picture feels like a blackhole. One day the internet will implode into THIS picture. I like the "graffiti" in the back to give the viewer the true urban feel. And for just the touch of grit we need, the "O" has an ambivalent smiley face. Those aren't the brimless hats though, those are the people that inspired their invention. What looks like a hat is actually their exposed skulls.

Return of the Yelling.

2005-10-29T00:39:00.000-04:00

We've been lazy... But now that the summer is over and the heavy drinking is done(not ever) we'll be righting the wrongs and calling bullshit again shortly. Thank you and kindly fuck off.

We forgot about this like we forget about almost everything.

2005-06-26T23:31:00.000-04:00

Biafra, Republic of

secessionist state of W Africa, in existence from May 30, 1967, to Jan. 15, 1970. At the outset Biafra comprised, roughly, the East-Central, South-Eastern, and Rivers states of the Federation of Nigeria, where the Igbo people predominated. The country, which took its name from the Bight of Biafra (an arm of the Atlantic Ocean), was established by Igbos who felt they could not develop-or even survive-within Nigeria. In Sept., 1966, numerous Igbos had been killed in N Nigeria, where they had migrated in order to engage in commerce. The secessionist state was led by Lt. Col. Chukumeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and included some non-Igbo persons. Biafra's original capital was Enugu; Aba, Umuahia, and Owerri served successively as provisional capitals after Enugu was captured (Oct., 1967) by Nigerian forces. Seeking to maintain national unity, Nigeria imposed economic sanctions on Biafra from the start of the secession, and fighting between Nigeria and Biafra broke out in July, 1967. After initial Biafran advances, Nigeria attacked Biafra by air, land, and sea and gradually reduced the territory under its control. The breakaway state had insufficient resources at the start of the war-it was a net importer of food and had little industry-and depended heavily on its control of petroleum fields for funds to make purchases abroad. It lost the oil fields in the war, and more than one million of its civilian population are thought to have died as a result of severe malnutrition. At the time of its surrender on Jan. 15, 1970, Biafra was greatly reduced in size, its inhabitants were starving, and its leader, Ojukwu, had fled the country. During its existence Biafra was recognized by only five nations, although other countries gave moral or material support. Civilian groups were organized in a number of countries to publicize the case for Biafra and to raise funds for the secessionist state.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition Copyright ©1993.

T.E. Lawrence and a numeric approach to the failure of U.S. occupation forces against the Iraqi insurgency

2005-06-21T01:17:00.000-04:00

Thomas Edward Lawrence "of Arabia" helped lead and organize the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, a decisive component to allied victory in WWI. He theorized on the nature of rebellion against a larger force, and the structural aspects of nations which can be exploited by a weaker force against a stronger one. Lawrence employed force-to-space ratios to figure out how many troops th Turks would need to subdue the whole of Transjordan. The number: 600,000 or 6 times the available force to the Turks.

If much territory needs to be defended by a government, terrorists or insurgents can compensate for their operational or strategic inferiority by massing their forces to gain a local numerical superiority. Government forces often attempt to defend territory or resources that have political, economic, social, or military value. More often than not, states have the resources to protect many local targets, but not EVERY local target.[emphasis added]
-James D. Kiras

The basic idea is simple, ambushes, remote bombs, improvised explosive devices, suicide bombings. These are all cases in which insurgents or terrorists strike vulnerable locations creating a temporary numberical superiority. After producing sufficient mayhem or dieing they're gone. This is the essence of the Iraq insurgency.

Now, getting back to Lawrence of Arabia, he also touches upon the role of sympathy in the success of an inurgency. I'll let him explain it this time:

Rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in a striking force and 98 percent, passively sympathetic. The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply.

Anyone should find this compelling when considering Iraq. If you do not, I'll throw some numbers at you to show you why.

First and foremost lets look at the force-to-space ratio of Iraq. A 90-91 figure says that Iraq with 447,000 square miles of territory would require 485,000 regular army and air defense personnel. Or 965,000 including called-up reserves currently serving with the army. These figures are based on Toward Defensive Restructuring in the Middle East a Project on Defense alternatives paper.

A Global Security assessment of US forces in Iraq says that the official number of US troops in Iraq is 153,000. That's 20 brigades.

According to a report by the Iraqi national intelligence chief made in January the insurgency was estimated to have more than "200,000 active fighters and sympathisers" says AFP article. According to my calculations, which aren't necessarily good, that's .77% of the iraqi population (26,076,906).

That may seem like a small number but the empirical evidence (the news) seems to show that .77% of Iraq can cripple the nation. We mustn't forget that the US force size is a mere 15.85% of the force-to-space ratio. The number of troops is going to be brought down to 135,000 (13.99%). Beating the insurgency through US military power is clearly no longer an option. Perhaps if the Pentagon didn't ignore Generals' estimates of several hundred thousand for a successful invasion, things would be different. At best we cold hope for 50% of force-to-space. The bottom line is, we can not and are not protecting everything, and our very precence is the problem. I'm aware that this ignores a number of other factors like local Iraqi anti-Insurgent forces, the qualitative difference between the iraqi insurgents and US military, that is adjusting the figures relative to the killing capabilities of each sides combatants. The fact of the matter is, besides strategic deficiencies we also lacked the hardware capabilities of accomplishing the task at hand in iraq. it all begs the question, What were you thinking, George?

haHA

2005-06-21T01:01:00.000-04:00

A bear and a rabbit are both having a crap out in the woods.

The bear looks down at the rabbit and says "Hey rabbit -- d'you have a problem with crap sticking to your fur?"

The rabbit looks up and says: "No. Why do you ask?"

So the bear grabs the rabbit, wipes himself with him and strolls away.

Upheaval Ahead

2005-06-20T23:42:00.000-04:00

by Patrick J. Buchanan
Who is the Gene McCarthy of this generation?
For those too young to recall, in late 1967, Gen. Westmoreland came home to ask LBJ for 200,000 more troops for Vietnam, in addition to the 500,000 already committed. LBJ told him no.
Vietnam was the issue of the day. And as no other Democrat dared challenge Johnson in the primaries of 1968, Sen. McCarthy bravely went into New Hampshire and declared against him.
He carried 41 percent to LBJ's 49 percent. Johnson's name, however, was not on the New Hampshire ballot – he was a write-in candidate – and perhaps half of McCarthy's vote came from Granite State hawks who wanted the United States to unleash its power and win the war.
But in politics, perception is all. Gene McCarthy broke Johnson's presidency and converted the antiwar movement into a mass political movement. Four days after New Hampshire, Robert Kennedy leapt into the race. Two weeks later, Johnson announced he would not run.
Nixon's victory in 1968, over a divided Democratic Party, became, with 1932, one of the two seminal elections of the 20th century.
Prediction: A Eugene McCarthy will appear soon to pressure and challenge Hillary Clinton in 2008, if Hillary does not convert herself into an antiwar candidate.
For politics abhors a vacuum. And with U.S. casualties now running at the rate they did before the January elections and polls showing that three in five Americans think the war a mistake and we should start bringing the troops home, some Democrat is certain to try to give voice to this majority and ride it into the White House.
Will a peace candidate be elected? Probably not. None ever has in wartime. But it seems certain the Democratic Party will be as divided on Iraq in 2008 as it was on Vietnam in 1968.
Why has no national antiwar Democrat emerged since Howard Dean's campaign collapsed in Iowa, one who could be a serious candidate for the nomination in 2008?
Because serious Democrats know that antiwar candidates are rarely nominated and never win. Even the venerable Sam Nunn of Georgia was finished after he opposed the Gulf War in 1991. This is likely a reason why skeptics of the Iraq war – like Clinton, Kerry, Daschle, and Edwards – all voted for war.
They are all now locked in as war hawks on Iraq. The only defense they can make for that vote today to their antiwar party is to argue that Bush misled them and mismanaged the war.
But that raises counter-questions.
Why did these senators give Bush a blank check to go to war? Why did they fail in their duty as custodians of the congressional war powers by not demanding Bush prove Saddam had ties to 9/11 and an arsenal of WMD he planned to use? Why did they not ask in advance how the Bush administration planned to pacify and democratize Iraq? Why did they not demand to known how long pacification would take and what the cost might be in lives and treasure?
Why did they not say: Mr. President, you must make a better case for war – before we authorize war?
The pro-war Democrats thus have a grave dilemma to confront.
As John Kerry demonstrated with his agonized performance in 2004 – trying to rally antiwar Democrats while maintaining his war hawk credentials – a Democrat who voted for war, only to turn against it, risks being ridiculed as a cut-and-run liberal. And that is usually fatal.
There is a second reason no potential Democratic nominee has yet demanded that Bush start bringing the troops home now. Democrats fear the peacenik label. For they believe this label, pinned on them by Nixon-Reagan-Bush Republicans, froze them out of the White House for 20 of the 24 years from 1968 to 1992. And they are right.
Yet the antiwar constituency has now grown to where it can sustain, and will demand, a national candidate to carry its case to the country.
What about a Republican antiwar candidate in 2008?
There may well be one, but how such a candidate can be nominated by a party that will be forever associated with the Iraq war is impossible to see. Like it or not, as the Mexican War is known as "Jimmy Polk's War," the Iraq war is going to be known as "George Bush's War."
No matter how badly things have gone in Iraq by 2008, how can the GOP nominate a candidate who has run against the cause that defined the presidency of George W. Bush?
As the Bush poll numbers fall and the Iraq war returns front-and-center to politics, the divisions in this country over whether to stay the course; escalate, as the prospect of failure is intolerable to the nation; or begin to withdraw and take the consequences will reappear and deepen.
A politics of war, a politics of upheaval, lie just ahead.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC

Global Destabilization Analysis

2005-06-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

I read an article about 5 bombs going off in Iran killing at least 10. Conspiracy Theory: could this be a US attempt to destabilize Iran in the hopes of limiting their interference in regional politics through the manifestation of a domestic crisis for the government? I'm not alone in the idea of a US (straussian) hand in the Iranian bombings. As usual this is completely unsubstantiated so, I move on to more salient arguments.

I found this article about a people smuggler being found guilty in Australia of trying to bring over 400 iraqi refugees to Australia by a 19.5m x 4m wooden fishing. the boat capsized between Indonesia and Australia and 353 passengers died.

You might be wondering why the hell am I looking at bombings in Iran and a capsized boat of Australia-bound Iraqi's and seeing the same dynamic? According to Interpol, People smuggling has become the preferred trade of a growing number of criminal networks worldwide which show an increased sophistication with regard to moving larger numbers of people at higher profits than ever.

Interpol says there is big money to be made from people smuggling, around $30,000 for access to Europe and $60,000 for North America a person. To little old me it seems a little more than highly likely that terrorists wanting to move around unnoticed would travel through the same networks as desperate migrants looking for better oppurtunities. The idea that illegal immigration has a connection with terrorism is not one that has been overlooked by the US government as US border and immigration policy has become much more strict. Migrants are classified as the same type of national security threat as terrorists and drug smugglers. The US public seems to largely ignore the droves of Mexicans dying of dehydration and exposure after seeking unguarded desert routes into the US.

So now I'm brought to my point, Iranian bombings: domestic dissidents or conflict spillover from Iraq. It mustn't be too hard for the Muj to cross borders. Perhaps Sunni combatants want to strike back at Iranian support for Iraqi Shias at exactly where that support comes from. or it could simply be an attempt for anti-government national elements to undermine the elections set for friday. or it could be a result of US support for anti-government Islamic opposition from the Mujahideen-e Khalq. only access to a tremndous number of intelligence resources could confirm the answer.

On a side note, the Palestinian Authority is catching flak for those executions, as I have predicted.

Return of the Death Penalty

2005-06-12T15:40:00.000-04:00

It seems like the pursuit of peace and stability in the middle east has meant the resurgence of one of the most important and contentious inssues in justice systems, capital punishment. With 3 men now waiting for death in Iraq before the ban on the death penalty (imposed by the US) has even been lifted. If the death penalty ban is raised, or possibly I should say when the ban is lifted, it's curtains for Saddam Hussein

But now, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority and Chairman of the PLO, has also reinstated the death penalty in Palestine, executing 4 people today. Apparently only 9 people have been executed by the Palestinian Authority since 1994, out of 71 sentences. The Grand Mufti says that not acting on the execution orders "encouraged the phenomenon of revenge in the Palestinian community."

What does this mean exactly? I think one could say that this may reinforce the cycle of violence existing between the governments' (states') attempting to consolidate power and control, as well as regain the monopoly on violence versus national elements (Iraq: insurgency, Palestine: Extremists) who wish to instate their own brand of control, or at least disallow the current potential order from solidifying. On another level it may help to reinforce the idea that any violence by non-state sanctioned entities will be retaliated against in as many "legitimate" (subjective word hence the quotes) means as possible. Thus reinforcing popular support and faith in the government.

what are these legitimate means? well in both of these cases legitimate means are obfuscated. Even if one limits legitimacy to state actors, we have foreign actors who are exacerbating the problem. The news claims that more and m ore powers are being handed over to Iraqi security forces, but I haven't seen aything for myself, thoguh a lot more of them seem to die than americans. But the americans are still instrumental in retaliating against attacks, even those on Iraqi civilians or security forces. The death penalty in Iraq, after a US ban reasserts an aspect of indigenous, national monopoly on violence.

In Palestine, the cooperation between the foreign power (Israel) and the local national government is far more tenuous and strained. Nevertheless, the PA executing Palestinians will reinforce their monopoly on power in contrast to the "justice" of an Israeli gunship. I don't know what kind of internal pressures Abbas is facing, by I doubt and hope this won't make things more difficult for the Palestinians to govern themselves. Increased violence against the administration, or, more likely, the loss in Abbas' ability to rein in the militant groups would be very damaging in the face of the upcoming peace talks which, in the worlds of Ariel Sharon "hinge on complete quiet" vis-a-vis the Palestinian Security situation.

Excitable Boy by Warren Zevon, 1978

2005-06-12T12:54:00.000-04:00

Johnny Strikes Up The Band
Dry your eyes, my little friend
Let me take you by the hand
Freddie get ready
Rock steady
When Johnny strikes up the band

They'll be rocking in the projects
Walking down along the strand
Freddie get ready
Rock steady
When Johnny strikes up the band
When Johnny strikes up the...
When Johnny strikes up the...
When Johnny strikes up the band

And Johnny is my main man
He's the keeper of the keys
He'll put your mind at ease
He's guaranteed to please
Back by popular demand

Look around, my little friend
Jubilation in the land
Freddie get ready
Rock steady
When Johnny strikes up the band
When Johnny strikes up the...
When Johnny strikes up the...
When Johnny strikes up the band

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Roland was a warrior from the Land of the Midnight Sun
With a Thompson gun for hire, fighting to be done
The deal was made in Denmark on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for Biafra to join the bloody fray

Through sixty-six and seven they fought the Congo war
Fingers on their triggers, knee-deep in gore
For days and nights they battled the Bantu to their knees
They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese

Roland the Thompson gunner...

His comrades fought beside him - Van Owen and the rest
But of all the Thompson gunners Roland was the best
So the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead
That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen blew off Roland's head

Roland the headless Thompson gunner (Time, time, time
For another peaceful war
Norway's bravest son But time stands still for Roland
'Til he evens up the score)
They can still see his headless body stalking through the night
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun
In the muzzle flash of Roland's Thompson gun

Roland searched the continent for the man who'd done him in
He found him in Mombassa in a barroom drinking gin
Roland aimed his Thompson gun - he didn't say a word
But he blew Van Owen's body from there to Johannesburg

Roland the headless Thompson gunner...

The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night
Now it's ten years later but he still keeps up the fight
In Ireland, in Lebanon, in Palestine and Berkeley
Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun
And bought it

Exictable Boy
Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
Excitable boy, they all said
And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy

He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark
Excitable boy, they all said
And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy

He took little Susie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said
and he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
After ten long years they let him out of the Home
Excitable boy, they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy

Werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's
Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein
Werewolves of London

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
Werewolves of London

He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
I'd like to meet his tailor
Werewolves of London

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
Doing the
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen
Doing the
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
His hair was perfect
Werewolves of London
Draw blood

Accidentally Like a Martyr
The phone don't ring
And the sun refused to shine
Never thought I'd have to pay so dearly
For what was already mine
For such a long, long time
We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder

The days slide by
Should have done, should have done, we all sigh
Never thought I'd ever be so lonely
After such a long, long time
Time out of mind
We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder

Nighttime in the Switching Yard
Nighttime in the switching yard
Get it out on the mainline
Listen to the rhythm of the train go by
Listen to the train whistle whine
Nighttime in the switching yard

See that train...
The midnight train runs both ways

Do it
Doot dat doot dat doot dadoot
Listen to the train whistle whine
Listen to the train
Listen to the track

Veracruz
I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard Maria crying
Late last night I heard the news
That was dying
Veracruz was dying

Someone called Maria's name
I swear it was my father's voice
Saying, "If you stay you'll all be slain
You must leave now - you have no choice
Take the servants and ride west
Keep the child close to your chest
When the American troops withdraw
Let Zapata take the rest"

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard Maria calling
Saying, "Veracruz is dying
And Cuernavaca's falling"

Aquel dia yo jure (On that day I swore
Hacia el puerto volvere To the port I will return
Aunque el destino cambio mi vida Even though destiny changed my life
En morire In I shall die
Aquel dia yo jure On that day I swore)

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard them in the harbor
Saying, "Veracruz is dying"

Tenderness on the Block
Mama, where's your pretty little girl tonight
Trying to run before she can walk - that's right
She's growing up
She has a young man waiting
She's growing up
She has a young man waiting
Wide-eyes
She'll be street-wise
To the lies
And the jive talk
She'll find true love
And tenderness on the block

Daddy, don't you ask her when she's coming in
And when she's home don't ask her where she's been
She's going out
She has a young man waiting
She's going out
Can't keep her young man waiting
She'll be okay
Let her have her day
It's a long way
It's a long walk
She'll find true love
And tenderness on the block

I know how much it hurts to see her go
She has a mind of her own, you know
She's all grown up
She has a young man waiting
She's all grown up
She has a young man waiting
She was wide-eyed
Now she's street-wise
To the lies
And the jive talk
She'll find true love
And tenderness on the block
She'll find true love
And tenderness on the block

Lawyers, Guns and Money
Well, I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck

Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan

Send lawyers, guns and money...

Global Terror Synopsis

2005-06-10T02:30:00.000-04:00

Being an arabic student I often think about what benefits knowing a geostrategic language may incur. I was just sent this article aout the CIA relaxing its security standards for recruiting arabic speakers. Apparently its not that they don't trust them it's for their safety so their relatives don't get threatened, thus compromising the agent. RElaxing the standards really means being more willing to let their families die. But that's the grim way fo looking at it. Continuing onon this trend of darkness, I decided to look at the news and see how much terrorism i could find. I don't know why. I was hoping to see how many countries I could get documentation, at least somewhat believable, about "terrorist activity" in various countries, based on recent news. So here it goes:

Egypt sees a resurgence of terrorism, with a brother, sister, and his fiance killed themseves in attacks.

Oman's Sultan Qaboos pardons 31 coup plotters. This seems more like domestic political jockeying, real medieval style domestic relations. Intellectuals start getting loose lipped with their nay saying and the Sultan whisps them up acuses them of a plot, throws in some terror accussations for possible US funding. then he lets you go to show you that he's really a nice guy. the national holiday is november 18th, the sultan's birthday, how sweet! but i digress.

Kenya not in the middle east, but even black african muslims can become terrorists! blowing up israeli owned businesses...al-qaeda style! or maybe not says Kenyan judge!

Algeria back in the middle east, al qaeda's algerian franchise likes targetting security forces. This time they blew up a truck using an electrical device, killing the 13 guards inside. reminds me of the Battle of Algiers only because it's terrorism in algeria good film, though. Moving on....

Mauritania is blaming algerian al qaeda for an attack on a base. damn you algerian al qaeda!!

Back home in the US of A a new report details why the FBI didn't know 2 of the 9/11 hijackers were living in the states. A shy FBI liason to the CIA and bad computer system. pitiful. I bet that private military corporations defintely don't worry about slow computer systems.

Out in the Levant, Syria is behind Lebanon's terrorism! dun dun dun!!!! so much terror everywhere!!!

Iraq demonstrating the pervasive divserity of terroristsAfricans are 25% of the 400 captured insurgents. Are there a lot of African terrorists? or are they just the ones getting caught? i'm not dwelling on that, what i'm concerned with is the meager400 captured insurgents I have an article right here from January that puts the insurgency at 200,000 fighters and sympathizers!!! by no means, don't frisk and arrest the whole country but (hope my math isn't wrong) .2% of the insurgency is captured??!?!? that's pretty terrrible. let's compare that to the 12,000 civilian deaths (6% of the insurgency's size) since the war began. I guess I'm forgetting that many times there's no one to catch. apparently the word on the salafi street is they're all hanging out in some place called jinnah.

BAck to Africa, the baby killing has subsided enough in Sudan for international peacekeepers to look cute in blue helmets in wartorn Darfur. take that you doped-up janjaweed bastids!

Let's take a KaratAY chop on over to Nuclear Iran those laidback 12'ers can't even keep their hands shackled to dissident writers! tsk tsk! through the wild wild east that is eastern Iran, and intoooo....

AFGHANISTAN!!!! the light at the end of the tunnel. Setting of the Great Game. Clementina Cantoni, hostage vixen, is free after over three weeks of being held hostage by a mere muslim gangster not even a fulfledged taliban member. you're only popular in the terrrorism circles for your looks hun, 'cause you ain't got much to do with the Wo' own Terra!!! soon they'll be able to make a swimsuit calender of former hostages. it could make big bucks.

So I count 11 countries with active terrorism going on. And those are of the few countries i'm actually interested in. for now we need to chill out and take it easy with dear old G.A. DESPRES!!!!

Striking back at the New World Order.

2005-06-09T12:07:00.000-04:00

The recent votes in France and the Netherlands against the proposed constitution of the European Union are not merely political phenomena. They represent significant actions in the development of Fourth Generation war. Why? Because the root cause of Fourth Generation war is a crisis of legitimacy of the state, and the two referenda saw the French and Dutch people against their elites' efforts to empty the state of its content. Understanding what happened in these two votes requires a counterintuitive mindset. Normally, we would think of elites as representing the state and the common people rebelling against the state. That is not what happened here. On the contrary, the elites represent the destruction of the state and the French and Dutch people rebelled in defense of their historic, national states. In effect, the aristocracy was crying "Down with the king!" while the peasants shouted "Vive le roi!" (which happened quite frequently during both the French and Russian Revolutions).

Today's European political elites, like most of their counterparts elsewhere, do not give their primary allegiance to the state. Rather, their first loyalty goes to a New World Order that advocates world government (even the EU is just a way station on that journey), a globalized economy in which European and North American living standards are averaged with those of the Third World, and the general abolition of religions, customs, and traditions in favor of a culture based on commercialism, materialism, and sensual pleasure. Western elites, especially Europe's, add one more element: the ideology of cultural Marxism, the Marxism of the Frankfurt School, which says that the white race (especially males), the Christian religion, and Western civilization are all evils that must be repressed and, in time, eradicated. In the 1930s, the British novelist Aldous Huxley wrote a book about that kind of future; he called it Brave New World. The Western political elites began to transfer their allegiance away from the state after World War I, in response to the horrors the state created at places like Ypres, the Somme, and Verdun. They intensified their new loyalty to the internationalist superstate after World War II, and began the slow, painstaking creation of actual superstates in the form of the United Nations, the World Court, the Common Market (now the European Union), and similar bodies. They expected that in time, the common people – the plebs, the narod, the riah – would follow the wise example of their betters and give their loyalty too to Brave New World. But they were wrong. As the French and Dutch referenda showed, ordinary people would rather offer their loyalty to something real, their historic nation-state, than to an abstract scheme in which they rightly perceive totalitarian tendencies (a number of former Soviet dissidents are warning that the European Union looks increasingly like the Soviet Union). Das Volk prefers its own culture to the poison of "multiculturalism," its own neighbors to hordes of semi-barbaric immigrants and its own customs to regulations handed down by Gosplan bureaucrats in Brussels. How will the Brave New World elites respond to this unenlightened effrontery on the part of the great unwashed? By realizing they made a mistake – the mistake of letting ordinary people have a say about their future. They will hem and haw for a bit, slow things down for a little while and then resume their previous course, this time making sure there are no referenda. Brave New World only holds elections when they offer voters no real choice other than more Brave New World. And so the state's legitimacy will crumble further, and Fourth Generation war will spread, including in Europe. Denied the option of giving their loyalty to their historic state and its way of life, ordinary people will indeed transfer that loyalty, not to Brave New World but to a plethora of causes, ideologies, religions, regions, ethnic groups, tribes, and gangs. And for these new loyalties, they will fight. Like the French Bourbons, the Euro-elites forget nothing and they learn nothing. The future does not belong to them.

Goats and Bug Eyes

2005-06-09T02:47:00.000-04:00

A Picture Post

Gregory Allan Despres is one scarey person. He killed his neighbors in new brunswick and then fled south to the good old US of A. Showed up at a border crossing in bloody clothes with a bloody chainsaw and a bag full of assorted blades. and he looked like that!

"If you don't have any worries, keep a goat!" Those fuckers can climb trees! goats in Morocco climb trees, that's where this picture is from. It makes me laugh.

i do believe any efforts at galavanting in montreal will be fruitful in this outfit, but I want it anyway. It's got a hood! the 100% cotton "New York" Shalwar Kameez.

the quest for world peace

2005-06-07T13:40:00.000-04:00

A professor of mine believes that nuclear weapons are essential to regional stability. When she said this I instantly thought of Africa. No nukes, plagued by war. Of course the downside is that despite wars decreasing, crises increase. i.e. India-Pakistan, USA-Soviet Union. But countries with nukes seem to get skipped over for countries without them when it comes time to invade a country. We knew North Korea had nukes, so we hopped on over to Iraq, to put it bluntlantly. So, therefore, if you support theNPT you suppport the dominance of the few over the many. I will sound like a warmongering, terrorist wannabe, though I am certainly not, but a man like Abdul Qadir Khan are heroes to international soveriegnty and the right for every nation to pursue security in any way it sees fit.

Another essential catalyst to world peace, in my humble is the universal right to self- determination for stateless nations. I am not quite clear on my own personal criteria for what qualifies as a legitmate secessionist movement, but the politics of secessionism is highly infused with each nations own secessionist movements it has to deal with. As an individual I can make a blanket statement suppporting secessionism, but countries, obviously can not. This is a list of many active secessionist and autonomist movements. In trying to find that I found the League of Secessioinist States whose members include: Babylon 5 (Micronational Space Station of), Purple Bunny (Federation of), and Wolfenstein (People's Republic of). I find it kind of irksome that the basque and quebecois are not members yet!

Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner

2005-06-06T15:18:00.000-04:00

As a fervent supporter of seccessionist movements in general, I was quite pleased to learn of the short lived state of Biafra from a Warren Zevon song. A small, failed attempt at self-determination in southern Nigeria by the Ibo (or Igbo) Tribe. The Igbo are the Tribe of the great Chinua Achebe The Igbo in southern nigeria, feeling incapable of assimliiating into nigerian society and later prompted by the killing of some igbo, who had gone north seeking new oppurtunities. So in 1967 they created their own country. Unfortunately they were poorly equipped to fight the ensuing civil war with the Nigerian federal forces. The Biafrans had to hire mercenaries to fight and fly planes for them. Below is a picture of a frenchman in biafra with a kid hold an czech ak-47.

The Biafrans went to pretty extreme measures to acquire military hardware, hijacking planes, converting cargo planes to bombers, etc. In the end nigeria stayed intact and an estimated 1 million Biafrans died.
I was inspired to do some more research on mercenaries when reading the mercenary wikipedia entry. It includes the portion of the geneva convention that deals with the legal definition of a mercenary.

Art 47. Mercenaries

A mercenary is any person who:

(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

The most famous and rcent mercenary company seems to be Executive Outcomes a company started by ex-South African special forces officers. Simon Mann, a founder of Executive Outcomes was given a seven year sentence in Zimbabwe for allegedly conspiring to aid a coup in Equatorial Guinea. South Africans seem to be pretty interested in becoming mercenaries, especially around equatorial guinea. In Sao Tome, near equatorial guinea mercenaries helped to temporaily sieze power from the government. And now South Africans are in Iraq doing secuirty work.

when did haiti have a rule of law

2005-06-03T15:25:00.000-04:00

Haiti, the western hemispheres micro-Iraq seems to be being relatively ignored in the media. Two days ago the UN voted to extend its "peacekeeping" mission by another 24 days. Then the French consul to Haiti was shot dead in his car yesterdayin Port-au-Prince.

At around the same time the US had just ousted Saddam Hussein, Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was beingbesieged in the captial by an army of anti-government gangs surrounding the city. The US sent in Marines to get Aristide out. Aristide, feeding off the world's anger and the unjust, ousting of Saddam Hussein, immediately claimed he was usurped and the country sabotaged. That the condition of Haiti today is a result of only the international communities intereference in Haitian affairs. I'm going to disagree and blame on 200+ years of lacking rule of law, instigated by a vengeful France (way back when) and corrupt tyrannical leaders (papa doc and baby doc). And for the last few years we've had pervasive gangs upholding their own take on "security." Maybe dissolving armies is never a good idea, except in Costa Rica.

fallujah - the day after

2005-06-01T14:21:00.000-04:00

Just grabbed this off of Juan Cole's blog. It's a video of Fullajah taken in January, before the press was allowed in. click the title and then the link to the video is under the trucks. The most disturbing part has them looking at a body bag full of children (atfal) at around the 13th minute. Lots of photos of destruction and graphic shots of dead people. I know I sound like a psychopath but I find it amazing that this type of thing can be largely ignored.

To put it lightly, it's been a pretty crazy few days in Iraq. A kidnapped Iraqi Governor was killed during a US recovery operation That followed an aircraft crash a day earlier. And before that the BOOGIE MAN HIMSELF released his latest hit single. OOOOO0000ooo. And today in Afghanistan there was an "Al-Qaeda linked"suicide bombing killing at least 19 and wounding 50 at a mourning ceremony.

It all makes me think how the UN should be reshaped from the inside out by appointing a warmongering asshole with a hardon for a war with Syria, and involved in shadowy international weapons trade as our UN Ambassador. And the democrats were like who shadowy international weapons trade! And Bush said, don't even think about it turnipheads! then they all got bitch-slapped. And the impossible knot that is US foreign relations gets ppulled ever tighter.

And Dan Balz writes about Deep Throat. I'm not kidding.

who is Gerald Posner?

2005-06-01T00:40:00.000-04:00

so on the daily show tonight the guest was one, Gerald Posner who dished out some nearly racist if not outright racist gentle, congenial tyrade against saudi arabia and it's role in oil prices and terrorism and 9/11. I instantly smelled a rat. I found a slate article that says one of his other books was built on weak sources. More compelling is the article "I was wrong about Bush" explaining how he went from voting clinton twice and supporting Gore, he now supports Bush. hate to sound like i'm over reacting but that's tantamount to apostacy against humanity. Gerald Posner doesn't even speak arabic. I hate to pull that card and make it seem like you need to speak arabic to say anything about the middle east. But i do feel that if you are going to challenge all of our views and sensibilities vis-a-vis an issue, you should at least be capable of speaking the language of both sides.

THE TWENTY-SIX COMMANDMENTS

2005-05-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

The Code Duello, covering the practice of dueling and points of honor, was drawn up and settled at Clonmel Summer Assizes, 1777, by gentlemen-delegates of Tipperary, Galway, Sligo, Mayo and Roscommon, and prescribed for general adoption throughout Ireland. The Code was generally also followed in England and on the Continent with some slight variations. In America, the principal rules were followed, although occasionally there were some glaring deviations.

Rule 1. The first offense requires the first apology, though the retort may have been more offensive than the insult. Example: A tells B he is impertinent, etc. B retorts that he lies; yet A must make the first apology because he gave the first offense, and then (after one fire) B may explain away the retort by a subsequent apology.

Rule 2. But if the parties would rather fight on, then after two shots each (but in no case before), B may explain first, and A apologize afterward.N.B. The above rules apply to all cases of offenses in retort not of stronger class than the example.

Rule 3. If a doubt exist who gave the first offense, the decision rests with the seconds; if they won't decide, or can't agree, the matter must proceed to two shots, or to a hit, if the challenger require it.

Rule 4. When the lie direct is the first offense, the aggressor must either beg pardon in express terms; exchange two shots previous to apology; or three shots followed up by explanation; or fire on till a severe hit be received by one party or the other.

Rule 5. As a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen, no verbal apology can be received for such an insult. The alternatives, therefore -- the offender handing a cane to the injured party, to be used on his own back, at the same time begging pardon; firing on until one or both are disabled; or exchanging three shots, and then asking pardon without proffer of the cane. If swords are used, the parties engage until one is well blooded, disabled, or disarmed; or until, after receiving a wound, and blood being drawn, the aggressor begs pardon.N.B. A disarm is considered the same as a disable. The disarmer may (strictly) break his adversary's sword; but if it be the challenger who is disarmed, it is considered as ungenerous to do so.In the case the challenged be disarmed and refuses to ask pardon or atone, he must not be killed, as formerly; but the challenger may lay his own sword on the aggressor's shoulder, then break the aggressor's sword and say, "I spare your life!" The challenged can never revive the quarrel -- the challenger may.

Rule 6. If A gives B the lie, and B retorts by a blow (being the two greatest offenses), no reconciliation can take place till after two discharges each, or a severe hit; after which B may beg A's pardon humbly for the blow and then A may explain simply for the lie; because a blow is never allowable, and the offense of the lie, therefore, merges in it. (See preceding rules.)N.B. Challenges for undivulged causes may be reconciled on the ground, after one shot. An explanation or the slightest hit should be sufficient in such cases, because no personal offense transpired.

Rule 7. But no apology can be received, in any case, after the parties have actually taken ground, without exchange of fires.

Rule 8. In the above case, no challenger is obliged to divulge his cause of challenge (if private) unless required by the challenged so to do before their meeting.

Rule 9. All imputations of cheating at play, races, etc., to be considered equivalent to a blow; but may be reconciled after one shot, on admitting their falsehood and begging pardon publicly.

Rule 10. Any insult to a lady under a gentleman's care or protection to be considered as, by one degree, a greater offense than if given to the gentleman personally, and to be regulated accordingly.

Rule 11. Offenses originating or accruing from the support of ladies' reputations, to be considered as less unjustifiable than any others of the same class, and as admitting of slighter apologies by the aggressor: this to be determined by the circumstances of the case, but always favorable to the lady.

Rule 12. In simple, unpremeditated recontres with the smallsword, or couteau de chasse, the rule is -- first draw, first sheath, unless blood is drawn; then both sheath, and proceed to investigation.

Rule 13. No dumb shooting or firing in the air is admissible in any case. The challenger ought not to have challenged without receiving offense; and the challenged ought, if he gave offense, to have made an apology before he came on the ground; therefore, children's play must be dishonorable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited.

Rule 14. Seconds to be of equal rank in society with the principals they attend, inasmuch as a second may either choose or chance to become a principal, and equality is indispensible.

Rule 15. Challenges are never to be delivered at night, unless the party to be challenged intend leaving the place of offense before morning; for it is desirable to avoid all hot-headed proceedings.

Rule 16. The challenged has the right to choose his own weapon, unless the challenger gives his honor he is no swordsman; after which, however, he can decline any second species of weapon proposed by the challenged.

Rule 17. The challenged chooses his ground; the challenger chooses his distance; the seconds fix the time and terms of firing.

Rule 18. The seconds load in presence of each other, unless they give their mutual honors they have charged smooth and single, which should be held sufficient.

Rule 19. Firing may be regulated -- first by signal; secondly, by word of command; or thirdly, at pleasure -- as may be agreeable to the parties. In the latter case, the parties may fire at their reasonable leisure, but second presents and rests are strictly prohibited.

Rule 20. In all cases a miss-fire is equivalent to a shot, and a snap or non-cock is to be considered as a miss-fire.

Rule 21. Seconds are bound to attempt a reconciliation before the meeting takes place, or after sufficient firing or hits, as specified.

Rule 22. Any wound sufficient to agitate the nerves and necessarily make the hand shake, must end the business for that day.

Rule 23. If the cause of the meeting be of such a nature that no apology or explanation can or will be received, the challenged takes his ground, and calls on the challenger to proceed as he chooses; in such cases, firing at pleasure is the usual practice, but may be varied by agreement.

Rule 24. In slight cases, the second hands his principal but one pistol; but in gross cases, two, holding another case ready charged in reserve.

Rule 25. Where seconds disagree, and resolve to exchange shots themselves, it must be at the same time and at right angles with their principals, thus:If with swords, side by side, with five paces interval.

N.B. All matters and doubts not herein mentioned will be explained and cleared up by application to the committee, who meet alternately at Clonmel and Galway, at the quarter sessions, for that purpose.

another conspiracy theory

2005-05-20T00:25:00.000-04:00

So, that newsweek article about the Qur'an being put in toilets at Guatanamo Bay. You know, the one that started the protests across the muslim world. The one that newsweek retracted and apologized for. I am convinced of a number of things, which i will preface by saying are based solely on my opinione.
1) The events did happen. Read my man Juan Cole He seems pretty sure of it
2) Newsweek was pretty certain of it. (see above link)
3) The U.S. government, ever the straussians, had Newsweek retract the article to deflect the damage away from the administration and onto the "liberal," "america-hating" media.

I would not be surprised if newsweek is given some large exclusive expose on the whitehouse. This would be in exchange for the flack they're getting now. pretty ingenious. that is all i have to say.

the world will never understand

2005-05-16T12:46:00.000-04:00

In November of 1970 a near blind woman stumbled into a California social services office with her seemingly retarded, and defintely neglected 6 year-old daughter. In reality she was 13 years-old and had been the victim of one of the most extreme and protracted cases of child abuse I have ever heard of. Her father, believing she was retarded and thus needed protection from the horrors of the world (his own mother had been killed in a brutal hit-and-run), the girl was kept from the age of 20 months to the age of 13 in a cage with a chicken wire fence on top in a dark room. The windows of the room were kept a few inches open, but were covered save for a few inches at the top of each window through which she could see the sky and the side of a neighbor's house. By day she was strapped to a potty chair and by night she was kept in a sleeping bag which her father had modified so that it functioned like a straight jacket. The only "toy" she had was a raincoat hung to a wall which was occasionally brought down so she could "play" with it. If she made any sound he would beat her with a stick. Her real name has been withheld, but we know her as Genie. I'm currently reading a book about her, as you might have guessed, titled Genie: A Scientific Tragedy. Genie's father killed himself before he could be prosecuted for the abuse (he had the entire family on lockdown). He left one note to his son:

Don't take that shirt back. It's for my funeral. You know where my blue shirt is. Underwear in hall closet. I love you. Goodbye and be good.
-Dad

and then to everyone else he wrote:

The world will never understand.

It's actually the second book about a feral child that I'm reading. The first being the story of The Wild Child: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser. Discovered in 1828 in a German town, after having been dropped off there, at the approximate age of 16. The only thing he could say was "I want to be a great rider like my father. The first-hand description of him is available in English. His story was made into a pretty cool film by Werner Herzog "The Engima of Kaspar Hauser" Kaspar was eventually taught how to speak and he began relating what had happened to him in his confinement in a cellar. Someone didn't like this for he was murdered.

The last thing I know about feral children is the story of Victor as related by Truffaut's film "L'Enfant Sauvage" Which follows the first impressions of Jean Itard who took care of Victor, as well as his later analyses. The parallels between Vitor and Genie are astounding and well layed out in Genie: A Scientific Tragedy.

Architect of strategy to assassinate Arabs wins big promotion.

2005-05-16T12:23:00.000-04:00

THE MAN BEHIND the illegal practice of assassinating Arab "insurgents" became head of Israel's infamous Shin Bet security service Sunday. Shin-Bet combines many of the functions of the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Mafia.

Yuval Diskin (pictured), 49, joined Shin Bet in 1978, serving as an operative in the West Bank and in Lebanon. As Shin Bet's deputy chief from 2000-2003, he developed the practice of "targeted killings," utilizing high-tech weaponry acquired from United States. Since 2001, Shin-Bet has killed scores of "militants," as well as large numbers of innocent bystanders.

In 2004, Diskin planned the murder of Sheik Ahmed Yassin. The wheelchair-bound paraplegic was killed in a missile strike while exiting a mosque, along with a half-dozen or so children who were unfortunate enough to be attending services that morning. Yassin had been accused of providing inspiration to Palestinian militants.

In June of 2003, Diskin directed the murder of Yasser Taha, a Hamas member from the group's military wing. Israeli helicopters fired 2 missiles at the family car, killing Taha, his wife Fatima, 25, and their 2-year-old daughter, Asnan. Four innocent bystanders were also killed, while 29 others sustained horrific injuries. A baby bottle and baby shoes were pulled from the burning wreck.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has asked Prime Minister Sharon to reconsider the appointment because "it is appropriate that a body as important and with such dramatic authority as Shin Bet should be headed by a person who has not been centrally involved in violating international and Israeli laws."

"The State of Israel deserves a service head who is not considered throughout the world as someone responsible for violating such a grave law," the committee wrote.
Israel Archives [kokhaviv publications]: Yuval Diskin Appointed ISA [Shabak] Director

sitrep

2005-05-13T01:47:00.000-04:00

Been on a sort of unannounced hiatus. I had some difficulty getting steady internet access, besides being busy. I've decided to invite a friend of mine to make this blog a little more interesting.

For anyone who doesn't know, that was Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, executed April 9, 1980 at the order of Saddam Hussein al-Takriti. The other was Ron Perlman, a relatively famous actor, who most recently appeared in Hell Boy, though I will always remeber him for La Cité des Enfants Perdus.

seperated at birth?

2005-04-27T22:35:00.000-04:00

if you see something, say something

2005-04-21T16:50:00.000-04:00

I just watched, at the recommendation of my father, the Power of Nightmares Part I - "Baby It's Cold Ouside" a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis, about the parallel rise of the Neoconservative movement and Fundamentalist Islam in egypt and the birth of the myth of terrorism as an international network and, more broadly, the role of FEAR in modern politics. Looking at Leo Strauss and Sayyid Qutb and the mutual roots in their political ideology. For Strauss, according to Curtis, it's "that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything—all values, all moral truths. Instead, people were led by their own selfish desires. And this threatened to tear apart the shared values which held society together." For Qutb, liberal ideas had turned people into "tragic lost souls. They believed that they were free. But in reality, they were trapped by their own selfish and greedy desires. American society was not going forwards; it was taking people backwards." More compelling for Qutb, was that these (american) ideas were spreading around the world and flourishing in Egypt.

From there it goes on to explain how in America this caused a movement (led by Rumsfeld, yeah THAT Rumsfeld) to demonize the Soviet Union at a time when Kissinger was working at detente. Then came the political revival of Christian evangelists and then, under Reagan, the continuance of this demonization of the Soviets by blaming all isolated terrorist acitivity in the world on them. In the Middle East Curtis's Egypt Qutb's ideas led to a widening of the scope of targets for terrorist activity after the assassination of Sadat did not trigger an Islamic revolution in Egypt. The idea was that Muslims had been more "infected" by western ideology than was initially believed and therefore their death was liberation and would perhaps instill a mass belief in the need to return to a more islamic way of life.

This documentary, available for download (video and transcript) at the link above, gave me the chills. To get an idea of how the state of US politics was a product of a deliberate movement is mind-blowing. To learn that neoconservatism and its nemesis, radical islam, come from the same conceptions of the world and the way to achieve your goals is frightening. Each movement is simply contextualized into a culture. The culmination of all of this is that we live in a world where politics is dominated by fear. Just look at the fact that the title of this post was (is?) plastered all over New York City, we have boogie men like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and everybody knows what the word "al-qa'eda" means in arabic.

The Extension of Saljuq Authority into Asia Minor and the life of Qilij Arslan ibn Sulayman ibn Qutlumush al-Saljuqi

2005-04-20T02:46:00.000-04:00

Introduction

In the study of the Crusades, there is a tendency to overlook the actions of lesser known individuals as part of larger phenomena. That is, the individual’s impact in their own lifetimes is ignored in favor of their influence on events and figures deemed more important. Looking at an individual sultan, however, especially one who has not been given great consideration can enable us to better understand the political and military motivations and circumstances of Muslim rulers of the day. From this we can get a better understanding of why certain, seemingly implausible events can occur. In the paper, I shall be looking at the life of Qilij Arslan ibn Suleiman ibn Qutulmush as-Saljuqi, the third Saljuq Sultan of Rum. The broad picture of Qilij Arslan’s life has been largely ignored by historians in favor of brief events in which he touches better known people. To provide the context of Qilij Arslan’s life, I shall give a brief outline of the establishment of Saljuq power in Asia Minor in which his father and grandfather played significant roles. This paper, shall provide an outline of the progressive withering away of Byzantine authority in Asia Minor at the hands of Saljuq expansion. This shall demonstrate the potential political gains that the destruction of the Saljuqs of Rum would provide to Byzantium. From there I shall provide a history of the life of Qilij Arslan. By looking at the process of Saljuq expansion into Asia Minor along side the life of Qilij Arslan, we can better understand the initial motives of the First Crusade and the circumstances that facilitated their victories. I do not claim that this individual was responsible for hundreds of years of religious war, nor do I discount the rising tension between Catholicism and Islam since the birth of the latter faith. I hope to show, however, that expansion in Asia Minor at the expense of the Byzantine Empire was a significant factor for the Byzantine Emperor’s support of the Crusaders and that Qilij Arslan’s fate was the culmination of tensions produced by his forefather’s expansionism and a concerted, albeit failed, effort on Byzantium’s part to destroy this rising menace.

The Decline of Byzantine Power and the Establishment of Saljuq Authority in Asia Minor

The exact outcome of the First Crusade was quite unanticipated. Quarrels between the Latins and Greeks during the course of the first Crusade had resulted in the formation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem which was not related to Byzantium. This outcome has modified conceptions of the original motivations of the Crusades, ignoring the role of the military crisis occurring in Byzantium and instead looking at the treatment of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem and the condition of the city under Muslim rule as inspirations for the holy war.[1] As mentioned above, this paper shall look at the role of Saljuq expansion at the expense of Byzantium as an immediate catalyst to and tangible target of the Crusades.

The entry of Turkic people into the Muslim world was not a phenomenon new to the eleventh century, as they had been entering the Dar al-Islam early on in the form of isolated groups of nomads and, after the ninth century, this influx increased through their use as slave soldiers by the Muslims.

The Saljuqs were named after the founder of the dynasty, Saljuq of the Oghuz Turks people in the Syr-Oxus basin.[2] The Saljuqs took advantage of the power vacuum created by the collapse of Samani power in Khurasan in 999 and by 1037 Seljuk leaders were seizing territory around Khurasan.[3] In 1040, Khurasan was taken and the independent Saljuq state was formed with Toghril-beg, a son of Saljuq, as sultan.[4] By 1055 Toghril-beg entered Baghdad and was formally named sultan by the Caliph al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah.[5] Toghril-beg had not achieved this alone; in fact, it was his older brother, Chagri-beg who was the superior warrior. But Chagri-beg, owing to his brother’s intelligence and superior political acumen consented to this turn of events.[6]

It was during these formative years of the Saljuq dynasty that the Byzantines first encountered their threat. As early as 1029, after a failed attempt to seize Mosul, a band of Oghuz fled north to raid Diyar Bakr, on the periphery of Byzantine power, after which, according to Ibn al-Athir, “they turned on the Armenians and the Byzantines” and plundered them.[7] During the decade of 1020, unaware of the rising Saljuq power in the east, the Byzantine Emperor Basil II had been negotiating as well as forcing Armenian rulers to hand their principalities over to the Byzantine Empire after their deaths instead of naming successors.[8] These new territories provided none of the benefits a buffer state could have provided while also providing the Byzantine Empire with more minority populations to deal with at a time when assimilation of other groups into the empire was also waning.[9] Besides this, the incorporation of these territories entailed the demobilization of their indigenous soldiery, veteran soldiers fighting on ancestral land. Thus, we can see that the emperor had effectively removed the soldiers best qualified to defend this frontier at a time when Byzantine military power was waning in the region the Saljuq Turks were had begun to attack.[10] In the anonymous Armenian chronicle of Smbat Sparapet, the author directly attributes the arrival of the Saljuqs in Armenia “because the Byzantines had removed the valiant fighting men of the Armenians and put eunuch military commanders in their places, wanting to keep the Eastern land [protected] by them.”[11]

By the 1040’s the situation had become quite grave for the Byzantines in Asia Minor. In 1045 a Saljuq raid reached Lake Van and Kars.[12] In 1048 Toghril-beg sent his half-brother, Ibrahim Yinal, to conduct a raid on Byzantine territory. This raid hit deep into Byzantine territory reaching Malazgird, Erzerum, Qaliqala, and even Trebizond. In this incursion a Georgian senior officer of the Byzantine army was among the tens of thousands of prisoners taken and thousands of wagons of booty that were seized. To rescue the Georgian, the Byzantine Emperor had sent an ambassador to Toghril-beg with a ransom of 300,000 dinars and gifts worth another 100,000. Toghril-beg released the officer without accepting the ransom or gifts and sent his own ambassador to Constantinople. Though the emperor refused to pay an annual tribute to Toghril-beg, an agreement was reached in which the emperor agreed to repair the mosque in Constantinople, allow the imam to perform the daily prayers, and have Toghril-beg’s name read in the khutba.[13]

Before more progress could be made on the Byzantine front, Toghril-beg began having to deal with internal strife. Besides his brother, Toghril-Beg had relied heavily on two specific relatives: his half-brother Ibrahim Yinal and his cousin Qutulmush, grandfather of Qilij Arslan.[14] At one point, however, Ibrahim Yinal had abandoned his post in Mosul, disobeying the orders of the Sultan. Toghril-beg himself led an army from Baghdad to defend Mosul and its environs from an impending attack. While on the march he learned of Ibrahim Yinal's open rebellion with the support of the Fatimids, thus he returned to Baghdad so the he could personally pursue the rebel. Ibrahim Yinal was defeated and Toghril-beg had him strangled with his own bowstring as punishment.[15] Qutulmush had supported Ibrahim Yinal’s rebellion, and after the rebellion failed he put forth his own claim to the sultanate. Toghril-beg died while his vizier was attempting to put down Qutulmush’s rebellion and thus he had to abandon the siege to see to the matter of succession to the throne.[16]

Tughril-beg left no children and the heir apparent was to be Chagri-beg’s son, Suleiman. This was not only contested by Qutulmush, who maintained his claim to the sultanate, but Alp-Arslan, one of Suleiman’s brothers sought the throne as well.[17] Support for Suleiman’s ascension appears to have been ineffectual, for the matter of the sultanate came to be decided in a pitched battle between Qutulmush and Alp-Arslan. In this battle Qutulmush fell from his horse, fracturing his skull and died.[18] Thereafter, Alp-Arslan assumed the throne of the Saljuq Sultanate on April 27^th, 1064.

Byzantium’s brief respite from organized attacks by the Saljuqs during this tumultuous period came to an end with Alp-Arslan’s rise to power. After Toghril-beg’s agreement with the emperor, Turkic nomads, checked by neither Toghril-beg nor Byzantine forces continued to move against the empire’s Anatolian possessions, even reaching as far and successfully capturing Siva in 1960.[19] Alp-Arslan was quick to pick up where Toghril-beg left off, taking the city of Ani in 1065 and parts of Georgian territory to facilitate better control over his vassals in Azerbaijan. The Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes sent an expedition in 1068-1069 to Syria and the upper Euphrates to bolster the frontier fortresses. This mission was fruitless however, as it did nothing about the presence of Turkic nomads within Asia Minor and the expedition suffered many losses on its return home.[20]

The watershed moment for the beginning of the decline of Byzantine power in Asia Minor is generally held to be the battle of Malazgird in 1071. But as we have seen, the military decline of Byzantium in this region predated this famous battle. In 1071, determined to eliminate the Saljuq threat in one fell swoop as well as to reclaim Armenia, Romanus Diogenes led an army into Asia Minor. The force behind him, however, was heterogeneous, disunited, and overwhelmingly mercenary. The largest contingent of the host was composed Cuman Turks, and the other soldiers feared their defection. The Byzantine army divided into two forces near Malazgird with the emperor continuing onwards towards Malazgird and the other force, composed of the Cuman Turks with Franks, moving towards a nearby fortress. Alp-Arslan, near Aleppo when he heard of the Byzantine advance, hurried to meet the host. Upon the arrival of Alp-Arslan’s army, the Cuman Turks and Franks fled; the former having joined him the night before the battle. In the ensuing battle the emperor was left to fight for himself and was eventually wounded and captured, the first in the history of the empire.[21] As a result of this battle, Romanus Diogenes was deposed and became a monk, but during his return to Constantinople, the new emperor had him blinded and he died from his wounds on August 4^th, 1072.[22] This battle did not mark the decline of Byzantine power, but it completed the ruin that had been progressing for half a century. The Byzantine forces became incapable of repulsing invaders, Turkic raiders began staying in the territory they now raided unchecked, and local populations ceased paying taxes to the Byzantines.[23]

The new Byzantine government, under John Ducas, made a number of mistakes vis-à-vis their possessions in Asia Minor. Firstly, they never regained control over the forces under the command of Romanus’ lieutenant, Philaretus, who would go on to take control of Edessa, Antioch, and Cilicia, independent from the Byzantine Emperor. The new administration did not believe that the Saljuqs would actually conquer Anatolia, and thus did nothing to prevent them from crossing the upper Euphrates.[24] A similar pattern to the events surrounding the establishment of the Saljuqs in Khurasan began to occur.[25] That is, as Byzantium became more and more incapable of defending the local populations against Turkic nomads, those populations began submitting to the raiders.[26]

In 1073, in an attempt to check the pervasive raiding, John Ducas sent a contingent of Frankish mercenaries under Roussel of Balliol into Anatolia. Unfortunately, Roussel abandoned his orders and instead set out to establish his own control over the region. John Ducas marched out against Roussel with another army, including yet another contingent of Frankish mercenaries.[27] Roussel called upon a local Saljuq for support against the Byzantine emperor. Following the victory at Malazgird, rather than continue onto the rest of Asia Minor, Alp-Arslan chose to eliminate the Shah at Khwarazm. He gave the task of maintaining military affairs on this north-western frontier to Suleiman ibn Qutulmush.[28] Alp-Arslan would die after being stabbed by a man taken prisoner during this campaign in November 1072, but the issue of the succession of Malik Shah, his son, was not an issue as he had reconfirmed him as the heir many times to prevent internecine quarrels after his death.[29] Some historians have wondered why Alp-Arslan had appointed to such an important task the son of the man he fought to become sultan. Though we can never fully understand the nature of this relationship, we can better understand this appointment from Ibn al-Athir’s account of the battle between Alp-Arslan and Qutulmush, in which he writes that Alp-Arslan wept for his death and greatly mourned the loss.[30] In 1073, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush and Roussel of Balliol defeated and even captured John Ducas, who, himself, was replaced as emperor by Michael VII Ducas. Following this victory, Malik Shah appointed Suleiman as governor over Rum. Following this appointment, Michael would then seek the help of this same Saljuq to enter Byzantine territory and capture Roussel. After capturing Roussel, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush turned on Michael and refused to hand the prisoner over until a ransom was paid.[31]

Another member of the Byzantine nobility, Nicephorous Botaneiates, living in Asia Minor began to realize that resistance to the invaders was futile without a strong central government and in 1077 he marched against Constantinople with a small force of Greeks. To supplement his troops, Nicephorus Botaneiates called upon a certain Suleiman ibn Qutulmush to assist him in his march towards Constantinople. As they marched across Asia Minor, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush was allowed to place his own forces in the various garrisons they passed. Suleiman ibn Qutulmush and his contingent remained in Asia as Nicephorous Botaneiates moved on to Constantinople, shortly after this, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush seized Nicaea. This pattern of reliance on Turkic soldiers combined with the Byzantine administration’s withdrawal of native forces to the European territories made it so that, by 1081, nearly all of central and western Asia Minor was in the hands of the Turkic tribesmen.[32]

Suleiman ibn Qutulmush had been initially assigned the task of administration of this region so as to simultaneously bring the Turkic raiders under the control of the Saljuqs while preparing for the eventual resumption of hostilities against Byzantium.[33] Through his own devices, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush had taken advantage of the internal strife within Byzantium to enable himself to acquire many of his possessions diplomatically. In 1081, Alexius I Comnenus became the new Byzantine Emperor and the decade of civil war was brought to an end.[34] In 1082, Alexius made Suleiman ibn Qutulmush a Byzantine lieutenant and allowed him to take the territory of Philaretus.[35] Soon after, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush marched from his capital at Nicaea to Antioch and captured the city.[36] Possessing much of Asia Minor and now the city of Antioch, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush declared himself independent of the dominion of Malik Shah, thus he founded the Sultanate of Rum.[37]

Suleiman ibn Qutulmush’s southern advances aroused the suspicion of the Syrian rulers, particularly the Malik of Syria, Tutush. During an attempted siege of Aleppo, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush met Tutush in battle and his army was destroyed. In despair, Suleiman Shah killed himself. Unhappy as he was at the challenge Suleiman ibn Qutulmush had posed to his power, after his destruction, however, Malik Shah was concerned with the potential chaos that might ensue as quarrels for the throne broke out. So Malik Shah marched from Isfahan to resolve these matters of administration. Malik Shah confirmed the rulers of various cities in the region, captured a number of other cities, and he also replaced the administrator of Nicaea that Suleiman ibn Qutulmush had appointed before leaving for Antioch, thus consolidating his power in Syria and Asia Minor.[38] It was in this year of 1086 that Qilij Arslan ibn Suleiman ibn Qutulmush, only seven years-old, was taken hostage by Malik Shah to Isfahan.[39] Malik Shah’s attention would now turn away from Asia Minor for the remainder of his career and the Sultanate of Rum would remain a dormant part of Malik Shah’s vast empire. On October 14^th, 1092, Malik Shah’s vizier, the famous Nizam al-Mulk was killed by an Isma’ili near Nihavand. After the assasinaion, Malik Shah went to Baghdad and in early November he became ill from eating bad meat. On the 20^th of November, Malik Shah, the greatest of the Saljuq Sultans was dead.[40]

Historiography of Qilij Arslan

Before we begin to look at the life of Qilij Arslan, it is important to get a picture of the historiography of this Sultan. As mentioned above, little attention is given to the broad picture of his life. This is not helped by that fact that as a Turkic ruler, his name is transliterated from either the Turkish or the Arabic. The lack of an accepted standard of transliteration has also produced no fewer than three variations of spellings of the name Qilij Arslan. For the purposes of this paper, I shall be using the Arabic spelling.

Another problem encountered in researching is a tendency in primary Crusader sources to refer to Qilij Arslan as Suleiman. Some sources take care to refer to him as the young Suleiman, son of the old Suleiman. Others, however, pay no heed to this misnomer. This is especially telling of the source material for early secondary sources on the matter as they continue this trend of referring to Qilij Arslan by the name of his father, thus seemingly condensing their lives into one. A similar problem arises in sources which do not distinguish between Qilij Arslan and his grandson of the same name.

The title of Qilij Arslan appears to be a matter of debate as well. Arab sources refer to him as a Sultan while some Christian sources refer as simply an Emir. This can be attributed to ignorance to the hierarchy of titles. Ibn al-Athir, in his description of Qilij Arslan’s conquest of Mosul that he had the khutba given in his own name and that he fought for the Sultanate in his last battle.[41] Carole Hillenbrand goes so far to say that the title of ‘sultan’ was applied to Qilij Arslan retrospectively by sources, though she provides no support for this claim.[42]

These points are mere obfuscations of the truth in the information they provide. The true problem lies in the paucity of information surrounding the man. This is not to say that the scarcity of information on Qilij Arslan, or the early years of the Saljuqs in general, is abnormal. Much of the early history of the of the nomadic Turks in Anatolia is poorly documented. Ibn al-Athir and Ibn al-Qalanisi, two Muslim chroniclers, renowned for their documentation of this period both pay little attention to Qilij Arslan, going so far as to gloss over major battles in his life in single sentences, if at all.[43] Muslim sources certainly provide a more in depth look at events in Qilij Arslan’s life, but I will venture to say that most sources on this Saljuq share the common feature that he is treated as nothing more than a stumbling point in a bigger series of events, having no lasting effect on history.

Qilij Arslan ibn Suleiman ibn Qutulmush

When Malik Shah died, Qilij Arslan was in Khurasan. As often was the case after the death of a ruler in the Muslim world, quarrels broke out over the succession to the throne. It was under these circumstances that Qilij Arslan was either set free or escaped from his bondage. Little is known about this first year of freedom, except that within the year he marched to Nicaea, his father’s old capital, at the head of a force of the Oghuz Yiva tribe and took over the government from Abu ‘l-Ghazi, the administrator put in place by Malik Shah.[44] According to Anna Comnena, Kilij Arslan left Khursan with his older brother and they entered Nicaea “where the inhabitants gave them an ovation and received them with the greatest joy.”[45] During the interim period between his father’s death and his escape from Khurasan, the Sultanate of Rum had collapsed, the individual tribes, the Danishmends, Mangujekids, Saltuqids, Chaka, Tengribirmish begs, Artuqids, and Akhlat-Shahs, had each been vying to establish their own independent states.[46] This situation was most certainly exacerbated by the intrigues of Alexius Comnenus, who worked hard to playing each groups jealousies off one another.[47]

Shortly after arriving in Nicaea, Kilij Arslan was took the daughter of Emir Chaka, who hoped to secure Kilij Arslan as an ally against Byzantium, as his wife.[48] Chaka represented the most significant threat to Byzantium after the removal of Suleiman ibn Qutulmush. He had built a strong naval fleet and utilized Greek mercenaries, rather than Turkic ones, to add to his strength at sea which he intended to use to take over the Byzantine empire.[49] Chaka’s designs put enough pressure on Alexius Comnenus that the latter knew he had to end this threat. In 1094, Qilij Arslan received a letter from Alexius pointing out to him that Chaka was “too worldly wise and well informed not to see that the Roman Empire is not for him.” The letter went on to warn Qilij Arslan that he was, in fact, Chaka’s true target. Qilij Arslan immediately marched with a large army to Smyrna, Chaka’s capital, and invited to Chaka to a banquet in his tent. When Qilij Arslan saw that Chaka was intoxicated, he drew his sword and plunged it into Chaka’s side, slaying his father-in-law.[50]

In August of 1096, weary of their lawlessness, the emperor Alexius had the People’s Crusade boated across the Bosphorus and into Muslim land.[51] The leader of this expedition was a hermit from Amiens named Peter. Though he was a renown orator, he had poor control over the army. At first Qilij Arslan let the army be, but as they ran out of resources in their immediate vicinity, they began to make incursions into his own territory. At one point the environs of Nicaea were raided and an initial attack by the garrison at Nicaea was repulsed by the crusaders. This encouraged another contingent of the People’s Crusade to make a successful attempt to take the castle of Xerigordon, south of Nicaea. Qilij Arslan besieged this castle and it submitted after eight days as the only source of water was outside the castle’s walls. Those in the castle who apostasized were spared, the rest were slaughtered. When the main body heard of this, they rushed to avenge their comrades. This contingent made it three miles from the camp before an ambush sent the entire host fleeing in minutes. The retreat led Qilij Arslan’s troops directly to the camp and those who could not flee were slain indiscriminately.[52]

After eliminating this threat, Qilij Arslan marched with his army into Anatolia to Malatya, which had come under the control of his great rival, the Danishmend, and he laid siege to it in late 1096.[53] It was not until April 1097 that Qilij Arslan received word of the arrival of another, larger body of Christians from across the Bosphorus.[54] Though it was certainly not the intention, the debacle of the People’s Crusade was essential to the success of actual force of the First Crusade, led by European nobility. For had he not been able to dispose of this first host with ease, Qilij Arslan would not have so greatly underestimated the power of the second. In May another messenger arrived at Malatya to inform Qilij Arslan that Nicea, where he had left his wife, children, and treasury, was being besieged. A temporary truce was reached between Qilij Arslan and the Danishmend so that the former could take care of the invaders.[55] Qilij Arslan sent a small contingent ahead to attempt to relieve the besieged, but it was unsuccessful. On the 21^st of May, Qilij Arslan, at the head of his army, launched an attack from south of Nicaea in hopes of forcing an entry into the city, but this attempt was also unsuccessful.[56] The losses on both sides were heavy, but it was the crusaders superior numbers in close quarter combat that handed them the victory.[57] After the failed attempt to relieve Nicaea, Qilij Arslan told the inhabitants of the city to act in their own interests.[58] The decision to abandon his capital with his wife, children, and treasury must have been a difficult decision for Qilij Arslan, but it was made easier by Alexius Comnenus who was still playing out his policy of divide and conquer. For, while the Crusaders were besieging the city, Alexius was still working to maintain good relations with the sultan against the Danishmend emirs, we must remember that the emperor had convinced Qilij Arslan to kill his own father-in-law. Thus, to the great dismay of the crusaders, on June 19^th 1097, Nicaea capitulated to the Byzantine contingent and the captured sultana was entertained as any member of royalty would be treated in Constantinople, loading her with gifts and sending her back to the sultan without a ransom.[59]

From Nicaea, the crusaders moved across Asia Minor towards Antioch. The Byzantine emperor had watched the Muslims fight over the city since 1086, when Qilij Arslan’s father had captured the city, and he hoped that he could use the crusaders to recapture the city for Byzantium, and from there reclaim all of Asia Minor for the empire.[60] Unfortunately the new menace to the Muslims inspired an alliance to be forged between Qilij Arslan and the Ghazi ibn Danishmend, the two strongest Turkic princes in Asia Minor. On its way to Antioch, the crusader army decided to break up into two groups and take different paths to Antioch, making the problem of gathering supplies slightly easier.[61] On June 30^th Qilij Arslan and Ghazi ibn Danishmend were waiting to ambush the crusaders by Dorylaeum. The following morning they attacked the first contingent of the crusader army, encircling it and casting down a hail of arrows.[62] Bohemond, leader of this contingent of the crusader army, quickly set up the defenses and waited for the arrival of the main body.[63] Qilij Arslan must hoped to surprise this smaller contingent and send it fleeing, instead the crusaders refused to break formation, forcing Qilij Arslan and Ghazi ibn Danishmend into close combat until the arrival of a larger force.[64] With the arrival of the second body of the crusader army, it would be the larger horses, superior armor, and fear of annihilation that would send the crusaders to victory. Qilij Arslan and Ghazi’s forces were scattered and the former had to even leave his royal treasure in his camp to the crusaders.[65]

After the loss of his capital and his royal tent, Qilij Arslan thought it prudent to allow the Crusaders to pass. Before they reached Antioch, the crusaders paused briefly at Konya, Qilij Arslan’s new capital, which was deserted at the time of their passing.[66] Qilij Arslan would not confront the crusaders directly for a number of years. In fact, after his defeat he withdrew from many of his cities temporarily and went so far as to destroy as much of the roads and any possible victuals the crusaders might take.[67] The next time Qilij Arslan would do battle with the crusaders followed the capture of Bohemond of Taranto at the hands of Ghazi ibn Danishmend. This was because a force of crusading Lombards took it upon themselves to liberate their hero, Bohemond, from Ghazi ibn Danishmend. In June 1101 this force would take Ankara from Qilij Arslan, but the Sultan would not let their victory go unavenged. He had maintained his alliance with Ghazi ibn Danishmend and would help him against this new army which was marching towards the Danishmend’s capital. The danger of this new advancing army was so strong that Ridwan of Aleppo, a bitter enemy of both Qilij Arslan and Ghazi ibn Danishmend did not hesitate to join them against the crusaders.[68] This force of crusaders was met at Merzifun in August with an ambush which soon turned into a day long slaughter at the hands of the Muslims.[69]

This would be the first of three massacres that the crusade of 1101 would suffer from the alliance between Qilij Arslan and Ghazi ibn Danishmend. The victory at Dorylaeum had confirmed for the Crusaders the divine support of their venture and the invincibility of the Frankish army.[70] This series of massacres would reconfirm their mortality. Another army, headed by William II of Nevers, decided to march on Konya, Qilij Arslan’s new capital. On the way, however, they were met by the allied Turkic forces who fell upon the crusaders so fiercely that it was slaughtered leaving the Count of Nevers to escape with only a handful of knights.[71] Within a week a third army appeared along the same root. Besides being in the height of summer, Qilij Arslan had destroyed all the provisions they could have taken en route. Thus, already beleaguered by a harrowing journey, this third army was slaughtered as well.[72]

Unfortunately, these victories did not convince the former enemies that their strength lay in their unity, for by the following year, Qilij Arslan took Malatya which had been in the hands of the Danishmends.[73] A year later, relations between the two would completely break down when Qilij Arslan, ever the aspirant, demanded of Ghazi ibn Danishmend half the ransom he had been offered by Alexius Comnenus for the release of Bohemond. This had the odd effect of causing Ghazi ibn Danishmend to forge a deal with Bohemond himself. Bohemond promised the Danishmend to pay 130,000 bezants as well as ally with him against Qilij Arslan and Byzantium.[74] This would solidify the hatred between the Saljuqs and Danishmends until the former destroyed the latter in 1075.[75]

From 1102 until 1107 Qilij Arslan was no longer concerned with the crusaders and instead turned his attention to the reforming his power. In these years he took Harran, Mayyafaraiqin from Duqaq, the malik of Syria.[76] Also in this period, the emir of Diyarbakr also submitted to Qilij Arslan’s authority.[77] In late 1106 or possibly early 1107 he took Mosul from Jekremesh.[78] In that year, Qilij Arslan appointed his own qadi to Mosul and had the khutba read in his name in place of the name of the Saljuq sultan at Baghdad. Ibn al-Athir describes Qilij Arslan’s rule as equally harsh towards all of his subjects.[79] Unfortunately, Qilij Arslan chose the wrong enemy in fighting his fellow Muslims and made the same mistake as his father, Suleiman ibn Qutulmush. For by the end of 1107, the Emir Jawali al-Saqawu with the support of the Artuqid Il-Ghazi and Ridwan of Aleppo went to battle with Qilij Arslan by the Khabur river.[80] This force attacked Qilij Arslan before his reinforcements could arrive. Badly outnumbered, Qilij Arslan put his faith in his skill in battle and led a charge straight for Jawali’s contingent. Qilij Arslan rode straight for Jawali and struck him with his sword. Fate was against him however, for the blow merely cut through Jawali’s armor without touching his skin. Now Qilij Arslan, knowing he was defeated, turned in flight and attempted to ride his horse across the Khabur. Unfortunately, the horse tread to deeply into the river and Qilij Arslan met his ignominious end, drowning in a failed retreat.[81]

Conclusions

As we have seen, nomadic incursions and Muslim expansion beyond the Tarsus and anti-Tarsus mountains and into Asia Minor was consistently at the expense of the Byzantine empire. This impact was direct in the form of raids and territorial possessions as well as indirectly in the form of losing vassals. Another important consequence of Saljuq expansion into Asia minor was related to Byzantium’s use and progressive dependency on mercenaries throughout the eleventh century.[82] Two features of this stand out to demonstrate the negative consequences of not only Saljuq expansion, but the role of Byzantium in the Saljuq rise to power as well. Firstly, the use of Turkic mercenaries in Asia Minor contributed to the loss of Byzantine authority through their betrayals at decisive battles like Malazgird. In the civil wars that followed the battle of Malazgird, as I have already mentioned, the Saljuqs, fighting for various parties to the Byzantine civil war, were permitted to put their own troops in the garrisons they passed on their march to the Bosphorus.[83] This was instrumental for Suleiman ibn Qutulmush’s consolidation of power in Asia Minor. Secondly, Turkic nomads had been an important of the mercenary corps of the Byzantine army since the tenth century.[84] Also during this period, hostilities with its neighbors became increasingly pervasive.[85] This meant that throughout the eleventh century, the Byzantine army included contingents of mercenaries extracted from regions the empire was at war with. Mercenaries, soldiers who, by their very nature, are more loyal to the purse and their private interests than to their actual employer, become increasingly less trustworthy when they are fighting their own. Indeed, as we have seen at Malazgird the Cuman Turk mercenary contingent defected to Alp-Arslan in the night before the battle, while the Norman mercenaries simply fled when the time for pitched battle came. The Emperor should have been aware of the possibility of the Cuman Turks defecting as they were members of the Oghuz Turks like the Saljuqs, while the Norman flight is simply an example of the perfidy of economic soldiery.[86]

Though the expansion of the Saljuqs and other Turkic nomads into Asia Minor had had grave consequences for Byzantium, the conquests were piecemeal and simply fragmented the region. Suleiman ibn Qutulmush had worked to consolidate Asia Minor under one administration, but in his endeavors he threatened the power of too many of his rivals, including the world conquering Malik Shah. After the death of Suleiman ibn Qutulmush, there is a general consensus among historians that the Sultanate of Rum, lacking a central administration and even a leader, began to go into decline. By 1095, it is believed that Byzantium was well aware of the decline in power of the Sultanate, this at a time when the empire was experiencing a sort of revival under Alexius Comnenus.[87] In 1091 or 1092, a forged letter was sent to the west claiming to be from Alexius requesting troops.[88] From the state of Asia Minor just described, the obviousness of the appeal being a forgery becomes more apparent. The appearance of the virile Qilij Arslan at this time, however, was almost certainly a major worry for the emperor, for the sultan worked solely to reestablish a unified control over Asia Minor.

Up until this period the ranks of the army were drawn largely from Turkic nomads north of the Black Sea, but experience had wizened the Byzantine administration.[89] We have already seen a precedent for the use of western soldiery by Byzantium against the Saljuqs and Alexius Comnenus decided to increase their use for his campaign to reassert control over Asia Minor. Thus, in 1095 at Pope Urban’s council at Piacenza, amabassadors from the emperor were allowed to speak to the assembly. In this they greatly exaggerated the threat of the Turkic people in Asia Minor to the empire. Alexius had been successful in containing the threat diplomatically as we have seen in his interactions with Qilij Arslan. However, the emperor was greatly in need of mercenaries[90] From here Qilij Arslan’s, and the Muslim world’s for that matter, initial view that the Crusaders were simply another worthless mercenary, although certainly more religious minded, contingent of the dying empire would seem quite logical.[91] In fact, Alexius Comnenus hoped to use the Crusaders specifically to recapture his possessions in Asia Minor, but misinterpretations of the his needs by Pope Urban inspired a very different movement.[92] The events at Nicaea are an example of the emperor’s use, through diplomacy, of the Crusaders to this means, but circumstances beyond his control as well as beyond the scope of this paper caused this dynamic to collapse.

To say that the course of events described in this paper were the cause of the crusading movement would be a gross exaggeration of their impact. To deny that these events were a catalyst is to claim that the entire Crusading movement was wholly religious in its intentions, which is blatantly false despite what any revisionist historians may claim. Qilij Arslan was the first target and victim of the Crusaders upon their arrival in Asia. What the Crusaders did not know and thus, did not intend, was that as the saviours of eastern Christendom, he was the target all along. This goal was cast aside for more a grandiose and certainly more romantic venture, the conquest of the Holy Land.

His name was Qilij Arslan

2005-04-15T01:27:00.000-04:00

The "book" on crusades, in english that is, is Sir Steven Runciman's "A History of the Crusades," a 3 volume work that has essentially formed the imagined history of the Crusades for nearly all anglophones today. Runciman, an expert on the Byzantines, used this as a starting point for his history. He draws from primary sources in many languages and uses his knowledge of Byzantium to set up his framework of analysis. Runciman looks at the role of the Byzantine Empire as a hub in the Crusades, it's role in calling for the Crusaders' aid, in plotting against them with the Muslims, besides heavily relying on Byzantine sources as support for other primary sources, as well as describing all events, ultimately, in relation to their impacts on Byzantium, its decline, and the Great Schism. Besides the Byzantine slant, Runciman looks at the crusades from a more modern, secular approach. Thus, favoring monetary and personal prestige as core motivations of the Crusader Nobility rather than the religious.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, a crusades apologist, believes that Runciman's perspective is too skewed by the distance of time and modern conception of human behavior. He insists on understanding and looking at the Crusades as they were understood by its participants. Riley-Smith attempts to refute the "second son" idea of the Crusades, that they were the product of landless second sons of nobility who went to a foreign land in hopes of the riches their older brothers would inherit. Riley-Smith argues that this is a harsh generalization and that they were in fact religious minded people who honestly believed they were fighting for God. (sidenote: Riley-Smith has written a nasty-toned article on Usama bin Laden's evoking the crusades)

I believe that this too is a generalization and as I said above, that Riley-Smith is an apologist. Massacring the population of Jerusalem in a matter of hours so that certain squares are knee deep in blood that's piety. Thirty-five year-old, corpulent, and crass dukes should not marry infants to steal the possessions from her mother, the queen. German villages should not be pillaged because a juggler would not reveal the secret behind his magic trick.

I believe that more effort needs to be done to understand the political and military circumstances of individuals. I certainly favor runciman, but looking at the broad picture of muslim/christian relations can only explain something so far. I believe more exhaustive work needs to be done to understand the motivations behind the political and military careers of individuals involved in the crusades. Looking at the actions of a single Seljuq and his emirs in the early 1090's can help us understand the immediate motivations behind Emperor Alexius Comnenus' openness to the Crusaders and why he would conspire against western "allies" with his muslim foes. Looking at this same Seljuq's actions we can undestand why at one time he and his army were capable of sending an entire Crusader host into the hills while at another time, with the help of numerous others of equal power he was incapable of destroying forces he continued to outnumber.

My country makes me sad

2005-04-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

If a wayward, Left-Wing American were to take it upon himself to, say, kill anti-Abortionist Pharmacists refusing to dispense Birth Control and Emergency Contraception would newspapers refer to him as "movie-star handsome"? I don't believe they would. I find it strange that as we learn that Eric Rudolph will be entering a guilty plea, stories come out about right-wing nutter pharmacists bringing their morals behind the counter. Prosecutors are citing the need to obtain the locations of various as-yet undiscovered caches of explosives as the reason for allowing Eric Rudolph to escape the death penalty.

Eric "movie-star handsome bomber" Rudolph is the man responsible for the 1996 bombing of Olympic Park in Atlanta. The ruining of Richard Jewell's life. The bombings of abortion clinics and a gay club adding up to 2 murders and 120 wounded. Quite a hero for oppressed Americans. (sarcasm) Some are hung up on why he did it. The AP brings up the role of sympathizers in his eluding escape for five years, and the "worry" of him giving up their names. Slate's "The Explainer" looked at the plausibility of Eric Rudolph surviving on Appalachian lizards. In short: not plausible, he obviously had support of locals. The authorities have said they are aware that Rudolph will not give them information about his accomplices that are still alive, if any at all.

It speaks to the decency of pro-choicers that pro-life heroes are murderous, terrorist scum. But why? Why do all of the articles above seem to include a tone of inevitability, and, thus, a sort of assumed rationality, behind his actions.

As Americans we must understand that living under an occupation is an inspiration and rationalization behind picking up arms for the occupied. Hell, America and Quebec picked up arms against their occupier. Occupation is one of the most absolute infringements on democracy. In the context of American democracy and open debate there is no rationality behind turning a legislative issue into an armed struggle.

I'm ashamed of my country for yet another reason today, as I learn that so little will be done to stop yet another terrorist network. This time we can't hide behind the "fact" that it is a sophisticated, international network, hiding in some of the most inaccessible and alien lands of the globe. This time its our soil. Just like every time another one of Usama Bin Laden's deputies gets captured; we are supposed to believe that with Rudolph's guilty plea we have seen the end of right-wing domestic terrorism. Knowing that prosecutors are at the whim of Mr. Movie-Star Handsome with regards to his accomplices, all of them accessories to murder in the least and knowing that to find the tempered version of Rudolph's politics I need only look to the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I expect nothing of the sort.

Indian Larry

2005-04-09T21:38:00.000-04:00

I've just learned from a friend of mine that famed motorcycle legend "Indian" Larry Desmedt died last year. My friend had told me she recognized the name from when her father had gone to his funeral. Admittedly I only learned who he was when I met him while working last summer in late July 2004. I asked him if he knew anything about motorcycles (he had been having a conversation about cars with another customer) and asked him what would prevent a bike from supporting a sidecar. He told me I had just asked him about one of the few things he didn't know about motorcycles. I just thought he was a nice biker dude. After Indian Larry left, the customer he had been talking to alerted me to the fact that he was a legend in the biker scene. I felt pretty silly about asking him if he knew anything about motorcycles. I tried to help Indian larry find a picture of a "cartoonish yet spooky" castle (his words) for a tattoo that he wanted to get. He seemed very keen on the idea, but, unfortunately, he never got it because he had died a month later.

Lock and Load

2005-04-06T19:59:00.000-04:00

War in the Arab-Israeli conflict is interesting because it seems as though different wars are being fought by each party. The dynamic I see is one of limited war and total war. The Arabs have been fighting a limited war, one with limited goals. Now some may say that this is bogus as many Arabs fight for the destruction of the state of Israel and that the ultimate goal of the Arab side is the destruction of the state of Israel. Pre-1967, yes, post-1967, however, the goals of the wars have been limited to short time goals. i.e. The restoration of territory lost in 1967.

"We [the Palestinians] tried seven years of intifada without negotiations, and then seven years of negotiations without intifada; perhaps it is time to try both."

-Marwan Barghouti

This is in line with the bombing across the Suez between Egypt and Israel after the 1973 War which ended with the 1979 peace deal. No, I'm not saying that fighting achieved peace, but I do believe that limited violence is a very good bargaining chip in negotiations. That said, the intifada has not been limited in its objectives and targets. That said, one of the most significant limitations on Israel since 1948 and the Zionists in Palestine since 1918 has been Jewish population growth in the region. Forgive me for sounding a bit crass, but what good would conquoring more Arab land be if there weren't enough Israelis to populate it? (Nowadays we mustn't forget the good ol' Shahab-3!!!) Yes, there are so many other factors to look at, but I do believe that if Palestinians could show that violence is a tool rather than a state of being, peace could be achieved. A failure to demonstrate this has helped validate and legitimize the unrestricted war being waged by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people.

Barghouti, a man serving 5 life sentences plus 40 years as well as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, believed that only soldiers should be the targets of attacks. He also recognizes the state of Israel within the 1967 borders. So does Israel-based Peace Now. These are Israelis not the all-too-easily dismissed Satmar Jews, the bane of Zionists and Zionism.

i'm afraid

2005-04-02T17:06:00.000-05:00

Exhibit A: read this article about the first super hero comic book in the Arab World. Nice little story about superhero comics coming to the middle east.

an excerpt from the end of the article:

"Middle East Heroes is not entirely a Middle East product, however.

Although published in Egypt, most of the art is done outside of the country - AK Comics has a studio in the US, and other work is done in Brazil.

Meanwhile many of the stories reflect events in the modern world in this key region, especially the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The heroes' enemies include the United Liberation Force and the Zios Army, who are "still clinging to their extreme views". Both enemies want complete control the City of All Faiths.

Mr Nashar said that this was "not deliberate - but it's hard not to be inspired by what is going on. It's part of our life - art from life, and life from art," he said."

Now I turn your attention to Exhibit B where we learn that the US Army is to produce Mid-East comic! So now there are going to be two superhero comics in the middle east. One, the product of Arabs (somewhat) and the other, the product of the the US Army's Psychological Operations. I wonder which will be better. More improtantly, I wonder which will have a wider distribution.

Hello BiroBidzhan

2005-03-28T23:06:00.001-05:00

shi'at ali

2005-03-27T04:25:00.000-05:00

So my theory is that shi'ism is the only form of islam capable of withstand westernization as well as the west in general. I've said this before, but I really feel it is true. I would like to know what it is about Shi'i ideolody that gives it the strength to maintain itself in the face of a "more modern" civilization.

Iraq 'n the Cradle

2005-03-23T12:47:00.000-05:00

The US found an insurgent training camp and killed a whole bunch of them. Many were foreigners. Another 24 insurgents killed in Baghdad. Christopher Hitchens has an article on Slate about how the looting of weapons storage areas in Iraq was not looting but a systematic and deliberate removal of evidence of the existence of WMD. Saddam was a ruthless dictator it sounds too benevolent of him to tell his people to take the weapons he had amassed and use them to fight the inevitable US occupation. Hitchens seems to imply this. I'd be more willing to believe that large groups of iraqi soldiers, realizing pitched battles were pointless against america, took it upon themselves to steal weapons, let them spread across the country/region and save the fighting for later. We're in the middle of later right now. We really get a good idea of who these people are when we read about women being decapitated for not wearing veils.

When Equality is Racist

2005-03-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

So the Muslim Students Association of McGill is currently fighting for a space to pray in. They negotiated with McGill to get the space they currently have in 2002 and now the administration won't allow them to keep it for the next year. The administration has done a lot to win this fight, including sending an email laced with lies to the ENTIRE STUDENT BODY, in which they tried to turn popular opinion against the MSA.

Muslims need to pray 5 times a day. That said, Muslim Students need a space on campus to pray in when at school. The precedent for this has already been set.A lot of people have said that it is unfair for Muslims to be given their own space by the school. They also say that the school is not affiliated with any religion and giving a space would breach the secular barrier. I'd like to point out two things.

1) Equality justifies oppression of the less fortunate since it serves as logic behind deeming many equalizing measures as unfair. Equality can only be achieved by parity. Muslims must pray 5 times a day, most students do not need to pray this much and even more do not pray at all. Equality means religious students don't choose between school and religious practice while non-religious students don't think at all. Parity accounts for this.

2) Secular funding of religious institutions does not consitute a breach of the seperation between church and state so long as the intention of that funding is to further secular ideals. Peaceful diversity and equality are secular ideals. Giving Muslims a prayer room would mean Muslims won't be forced to make undue moral sacrifice to attend a univeristy and possibly even be driven away from it. This also explains why number 1 is ok for a secular institution.

day maker

2005-03-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

-this whole "military" thing was a mistake, i think sometimes
-oh yeah, why?
-well, because im in afghanistan

Land Mines

2005-03-18T20:41:00.000-05:00

The UN has made a video against land mines. It features American children playing soccer getting blown to smithereens by mines in the their soccer pitch. It's alarmingly effective at giving you an idea of the horrors of mines. Unfortunately, the ad won't be broadcast in the United States.
The discussions on this are pretty ridiculous. I found this one from Baptist Board which features some really intelligent commentary (ha!).

People sight the graphic and shocking nature of the commercial spot for why it won't be aired but I believe this is exploitation of the infamous "wardrobe malfunction." I think it neglects the importance of landmines to US military strategy. I know that mines guard US bases in Afghanistan and I'm sure they are used in Iraq as well. This ad is shocking enough to spark a reaction by the US public. George Bush has enough problems to deal with and doesn't needed the added pressure of a vigorous anti-mine voice in the american public. But then again I might be making up another conspiracy theory.

out of touch

2005-03-15T20:37:00.000-05:00

Bush calls for Hezbullah to disarm
haha. yeah right.

Conspiracy Theory

2005-03-12T15:03:00.000-05:00

All kinds of smack is getting talked between Italy and the United States over Guiliana Sgrena, whose car was shot at after being rescued from Iraqi insurgents. They killed the secret agent, Nicola Calipari that had negotiated her release.

Sgrena had said the Iraqis told her the US didn't want her to be released and she needed to be careful because they would try and kill her. I think that the Iraqi insurgents allowed false information to be leaked about an insurgent attack in the area that she would be driving. The US picks up on this chatter, soldiers, already loose cannons, are now primed and ready for a fight. Along comes Sgrena and Calipari's vehicle speeding down the road. BOOM. Now another major strain is added to the coalition alliance. It's brilliant. Is it too brilliant for Iraqi insurgents? Isn't the whole point of the war on terror that terrorists are extremely clever and conniving and only full on war can stop them?

oh lebanon

2005-03-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

1) Lebanon protests Syrian prescence
2) Bush gets involved
3) Lebanon protests in support of Syria

What the hell is going on? I'll tell you.

Lebanon lacks a strong, centralized state. Lebanon does NOT and has NOT lacked a system of governance that insures cooperation between the various sects. That system was labelled consociationalism by Arend Lijphart (pronounced: Lie-p heart) and included:
1) Government by Grand Coalition - government has at least 3 parties working together
2) Proportionality of representation
3) Mutual Veto - any sect can veto any decision
4) Sectoral autonomy over internal affairs - welfare, education, etc.

This system required two other aspects to be effective:
1) a degree of fluidity and inbuilt reform requirements - it didn't
2) a strong state to implement and protect against the backlashes from the lack of #1 - it didn't

Bada Bing Bada Boom. 1975 rolls around and its Civil War! Muslims wanted a readjustment of the system to accurately portray the population in the proportional representation. The proportion based on a census from 1932. Since then the Christian majority had been obviously superceded by the Muslims. The Muslims wanted change, the Christians didn't.

Palestinians got involved, Israel got involved in the south, Syria got involved in the rest. By 1990 the Ta'if Accords were signed an peace was had. Israel has since left but Syria has not. The Maronites hate Syria, the Shi'ites (who are more accepting of the Allawi faith of the Syrian president) recognize or, at least, fear that Syrian presence is necessary for peace as the Lebanese government is incapable of maintaining peace between the populations.

Surprisingly, I'm gonna side with the Shi'ites on this one. Lebanon and Syria need to stick together. If not for the sake of peace in Lebanon, than for the maintanance of some sort of united from agaisnt Israel. If Syria no longer has a say in Lebanese politics, Lebanon will be strongarmed into a peace deal with Israel. Hizbullah won't let this happen and isn't.

Can't go into it now as it would require a multi-volume work to fully convey this, but western intervention into the Dar al-Islam, has really undermined Sunni Islam. Shi'ites have never had power really. The few instances of power include the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt (909-1107) and the Islamili (we call them Assassins) strongholds scattered across Syria and Persia. The latter were partners with the Crusaders. Now people are talking of a new Shi'i Century! Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon! Syria (sunni majority population, Allawi leadership) is partners with Iran against foreign (US) intervention in one another's country. And, as we have seen Syria and Lebanon are inextricably linked. The world is surely to hear more from the Partisans of Ali.

to comment on the last post

2005-03-09T14:38:00.000-05:00

You can read!!!
You scored 77%! Now what does that make you?

I pity you for having to deal with the A/S/L crowd. We should combine
forces to defeat those who make saying things like "The R U A Short
Chick W/Big Tits?" perfectly acceptable. Bleargh.

Be angry about this language decay. Like this dude.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 47% on literate

Link: The can you read Test written by mitsukomori on Ok Cupid

I talk good, me better then you

2005-03-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

Hwaet! I have an excellent grasp of the english language. As a native speaker, one would expect this. As a student at a "prominent" university I had expected this to be a less than remarkable trait nor a claim to some sort of prestige. In fact, grammar and language account for next nothing at my school since Monteal is a bilingual city, thus it is has been deemed to be unfair to subject all students to the same standards of grammar and spelling in English. Furthermore, there are no standards of grammar and spelling in exams and the standards are of surprisingly menial importance within the context of papers. Students are also given choice to write in english or french in most classes. Thus we can now see that language skills have been institutionally marginalized by the university. Nevertheless, I would expect native English speaking students to be capable of writing intelligently and with some academic style. Unfortunately this is not the case.

You're in university, learn words that embody entire concepts rather than sounding like a plebe. How can you be in university and write in a style with the intellectual depth of a Curious George story? I thought I went to university to learn but the majority of the student body wants me to believe I'm here to get shit-your-pants drunk (an enemy of mine does this on a regular basis) and spread STDs to girls I neither respect nor am attracted to. When I'm not doing that I should be sleeping through my classes recovering from a coke binge. Then, when shit is about to hit the fan, I'm supposed to stay up for a few days, rattled on speed, teaching myself the material I could have learned in class . Some say I'm boring for not wanting to live like this but I tend to believe I just have a little more self-respect. Wagner was right, decadence does ruin everything.

al-kaafirun! la'anat allah 'aleihim!

Love in the shadows is the only kind

2005-03-06T02:50:00.000-05:00

Love is the psychological manipulation of will. More specifically it is manipulating another's will so as to narrow the concept of choice. I thought of that a couple days ago and thought it sounded nice.

I feel like Meursault from Camus' "L'Etranger." He was a social reject, assimilating to the role each individual wanted him to be. Yet in each instances he is utterly inadequate in fulfilling the needs of each person. He only fulfills this face-value immediate need for response, but everyone finds difficulty in describing him as a positive individual or influence. I aliken it to two puzzle pieces, they fit together out of their reciprocal difference. The relationship seems firm and true but it is actually quite tenuous - the pieces will come apart if you knock them off the table.

I was told yesterday to view the world positively and in terms of my potential to make contribution to it. This gets to the crux of my problem, I'm smart enough to realize I'm impotent to the tides of the world. Qilij Arlsan may have instigated the Crusades. I'll do none of the sort. I resent the limitations of our time.

Druze

2005-03-05T01:30:00.000-05:00

I met someone from Lebanon today and I asked him if he knew any Druze and he told me that he was one. I've never met a Druze before, or at least haven't explicitly known about it.

To the Druzes, Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-'Amr Allahi (lit: Ruler with/by the will of God) 996-1021 a.d. was divine. The man is a pretty interesting figure. He held a lottery for all of his subjects and the winner might receive anything from thousands of dinars to being beheaded. He would roam the forests aimlessly in the middle of the night. Out of modesty he only road a donkey. At one point he instigated a riot between the garrison of Cairo and the local population. The riot became so bad that forces had to be sent into the city to quell the violence. All the while, al-Hakim casually road his bondkey amidst the fighting, flames, and pillaging throwing money and reciting poetry. He eventually walked through the city gates and into the Sahara and was never seen again.

al-Hakim bi-'Amr Allahi's life can be divided into the seven ages of man, with the final riot leading up to his death representing the end times. Has far as heretical Muslim sects, this is one of the more far fetched. Just as compelling as Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj who believed that the greatest monotheist was in fact Iblis aka Satan! This was based on his disobeyance of Allah by refusing to bow before Adam.

bil-'arabi

2005-03-04T17:05:00.000-05:00

La uredu en eskuna fi hathal medina li'enneni esh'aru bil-wihda fehaaf. sowfa tezaalu wihdati b'ada en ahsula 'ala imra 'in fa uredu en uhibba imra 'an wa uredu en tuhibbani imra'a wa uredul hubban fe hayaati jiddan.

Hel yumkinukum en tefehemu jumlaati? La athunnu en yumkinakum!!

...we made friends

2005-02-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

I'm back in my "favorite" city. It was interesting that leaving new york city was the hardest its ever been and this time I didn't have a pretty girl crying as I left. I told me father and step-mother at dinner last night that I dreaded today and every day thereafter. Today is over and I still dread tomorrow. I genuinely dislike New York but apparently not as much as I hate Montreal. And the winter.

Sick then Bored

2005-02-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

Two years ago during this very vacation I missed my plane home due to some sort of day flu or food poisoning. It was not nice. Yesterday I had a less severe version of this same dis-ease. I woke up to the smell of my mom frying vietnamese egg rolls and thought I was going to be sick. My mom insisted I was hungry but I knew otherwise. As I was trying to read some of the second volume of the Venture of Islam I proceded to feel increasingly ill. I spent all of yesterday in quite a degree of agony and was hardly able to think. Today I am much better.

I read this interesting article about uncensored television debates that are part of governmental reform in Qatar, homeland of Al-Jazeera as well as Central Command. The article briefly discusses some of the paradoxes of politics in Qatar. Namely that although there is a constitution and universal sufferage, the Emir is untouchable. Or that the nation is home of Al-Jazeera, America's least favorite Arab news network while also being a base for American military operations in the Middle East. I think its brilliant and shows that authoritarian rulers can maintain power by creating extra-political venues to vent political frustration. I feel as though America is like this. American political activism is all talk. Nothing changes.

A ring, a knife, a clip, a pipe, and sandals and lovers

2005-02-18T01:38:00.000-05:00

Today was a crazy day. I got up after very little sleep and attempted to walk to school with so much shit that I gave up, hopped in a cab and went to the train station. Got on a train to New York and this Israeli guy proceeded to take over the car I was in by watching Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob on his laptop without any headphones so everyone in his half of the car could "enjoy" it. Then he proceeded to hit on all these girls by explaining to them that he had fulfilled all of his life's goals already (due to a seemingly endless supply of money as he had listed a number of things that are otherwise not possible) and thus, at 26 was now attending college. After an hour of his incessant noise I had to switch cars as I knew his blatant disregard for other passengers would have gotten me angry if I spoke to him.

Then I spent like 5 hours talking to a girl from my high school that goes to McGill. We had many classes together in high school but had never been actual friends. Since university I had seen her all of two maybe three times in passing. Being stuck on a train together certainly contributed to our civility/camaraderie, but it was surprising and refreshing to get a long well with someone.

Then I got into New York after a 10-hour trip turned 12-hour trip to be greeted by my wonderful Mother. I went home and received my much anticipated birthday presents! You may be able to guess what I got by my subject.

Then I finally received some closure on an emotional level.

Expectations lead to almost inevitably lead to disappointment, but this break isn't looking too grim after all.

On Solaris

2005-02-17T00:57:00.000-05:00

I just saw the film Solaris. I had been compelled to watch it upon reading somewhere about another sci-fi film being as essential to science-fiction as are Blade Runner and Solaris. The trailer for the film makes it seem kinda shitty, but its pretty cool andmakes you think. It's like Blade Runner mixed with 2001 and George Clooney and some cool ambient music. The movie brings up the idea of our memories of other people and how we can never truly remember some one as they are. Possibly because the only person you can really know is yourself and sometimes we don't even get that right.

You heard it here first!

2005-02-15T00:43:00.000-05:00

Mercenaries for Hire at Ebay
I have class with the first guy. As of this post I'm also the top bidder.

Delta-ed Life

2005-02-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

So according to a friend of mine I went from looking like someone in the Baader-Meinhof Gang to looking like a right-wing extremist. Achieved entirely through buzzing my hair off last night in a desperate act to end my bad hair day troubles.

It wasn't last Monday, It was this Monday (today) that brought me full circle after a three year experiment in maturation. I talked to a pretty lady named Francine. She had braces and said my name like my mom does. In two weeks I meet the one called "Phillip." And my oh my, Wednesday I meet some random shrink. So apparently I am quite good at identifying my problems, but I function like vicodin, which doesn't get rid of pain so much as it makes you able to just take it. I do the same thing with emotions. I know exactly how I feel all of the time but do nothing about it. In her words: "my jar is full."

On less personal matters I believe I have deciphered the metaphor of the Lord of the Rings. Some say its a metaphor for the World Wars others say that it can be even be applied to the US and Iraq! The true metaphor requires an in depth knowledge of the colonial experience as well as the nature of Middle Earth itself.

So what is this metaphor you ask? Well, the Lord of the Rings is a metaphor for the transition from colonialism to independence. If you are familiar with the history of the Middle Earth, then you would know that the elves and wizards had settled Middle Earth thousands of years (literally) before the events of the trilogy. Considering that all of the elves and wizards leave at the end of the war as well as the fact that the war is essentially a struggle for who (man or Mordor) shall ascend to power with their (the elves and wizards) departure from Middle Earth. Man and Orc symbolize the proxies of the great powers and whose ideology shall be the legitimized-by-force ruler in the post-colonial realm.

And the Internationale plays a little softer...

2005-02-13T22:09:00.000-05:00

Checked out Al-Hayat's list of who won what seats in the Iraqi and read that Ittihad Ash-Sha'ab (literally: Union of the People) the Communist party only received 3 of the 275 seats! I'm not a communist, but I'm saddened by such disinterest in secular politics. That's not to say I'm surprised, however.

Imagine if we had as good coverage on the progress of any political negotiation as are getting of the NHL lockout. Seriously, though, we're getting a daily progress report on television sometimes in both the sports shows and the regular news! Imagine Iraq today in the framework of an NHL disagreement. The Kurds would be the owners and the Shiites would be players. The Sunnis? Unemployed referees, hockey announcers, and hockey writers.

We can drive around with the top down

2005-02-13T01:38:00.000-05:00

I watched two execution videos today. I think it is important to see them. I wonder if George Bush watches them. If I were president I would want to see stuff like that. I'll never be president, though.

i need a new shovel

2005-02-12T10:06:00.000-05:00

'Cause i've hit rock bottom and have begun to dig!

Blammo

2005-02-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

So up here in Quebes there's all this talk about this Wal-Mart being closed. This Wal-Mart is in the process of union negotiations, one of only 2 in the country. So there's nothing good about this store, one opens and the Wal-Mart Effect sets in. They close a store and its only out of malice.

I think it's pretty disgusting that there is so much happening in Iraq right now that things like 20 truck drivers' charred bodies being dumped on a road in Iraq can be totally glossed over. Things will only get worse as this trend of kidnapping reporters grows.

Turned States' Evidence

2005-02-09T18:34:00.000-05:00

I have two nagging problems right now. One is that on my walk to school there is a drug dealer. I say my walk because not many people exploit Montreal's prolific alleyways. So yes, on my walk is a crack or heroin dealer who is pretty much always selling his works to local homeless junkies or scared looking rich types in nice cars. It's really the homeless junky thing that bothers me. Homeless junkies in Montreal are hyper-agressive and in-your-face, like the FOX TV of homeless. They also are particularly noxious in appearance (one who "lived" in my neighborhood two years ago exhibited all of the symptoms of a severe tropical, parasitic infection!) So yeah, I really wish i could put a stop to this dealer.

The second nagging problem is the following: As an american I may say all that I want about how much better my country is than this one. But for all my nay-saying Canada has one thing I do envy and that is free health care. As I approach the days where I will have to pay for my own health care in my own country, I have become very sensitive to the use of the health care system. Which brings me to a certain "friend" of mine who is a pharmacology major and is exploiting the canadian health care system to get bogus perscriptions for ADD and anxiety medications. My idiot roommate is thoroughly impressed by this and wishes he could suck his dick for some of the pills. I, on the other hand am fully disgusted by this. Partially because I actually believe that psychiatry works, despite its openness to frauds. To exploit this inherent goodness in the mental health system is repulsive.

Thus, I am brought to the subject of this post, which is: Should I be given the oppurtunity to end these injustices, (drug dealing and health care exploitation) I will. But it is a product of my disdain for humanity and my love it. It's not the content of what's being done, its the implication. Knowing where the source of the filthy scum that fill my streets and alleys makes me want to act. And witnessing such decadence and disrespect for a privilege that not even americans are given makes me want to act as well!

The Battle for Muslim Minds

2005-02-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

My father emailed me a review from Powell's Books of Gilles Kepel's new book "The Battle of for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West" He argues that Islamism is dead and that violence is a last ditch effort to make the masses aware of their cause. Apparently, this guy is saying that Islamism rose in the '60's and '70's, from the generation of Muslims (read "arabs") that took their independence for granted and had grown to the resent the now oppressive secular regimes. Unfortunately this is blatantly wrong on a number of levels.

Firstly, Marshall Hodgson, author of "The Venture of Islam" (3 volumes) is a historian who writes about Islam as ever-being an international precence which both super-imposed and integrated itself onto local traditions. So while Muslims around the world have always been different they have had the fabric of the Umma to unite them. That aspect of Islam exists today much as it exists in Judaism.

Second, Islamist movements really grew in the 1800's. That's when Wahhabism started in Nejd, the Mahdiyya in Sudan, etc. Even with the rise of nationalisms in Muslim countries during the first half of the 20th century, though the strength of these pan-Islamic movements waned, it had never been abandoned. So the resurgence in pan-Islamism in the 60's and 70's should be understood with this in mind, not that a class of disenfranchised, anti-secular yahoos came up with islamism because they were bored in post-modernity.

The following line from the review pissed me off "...he also insinuates that top Bush officials knew Iraq had no significant weapons of mass destruction or terrorism ties -- a remarkable suggestion to make without supporting evidence." In my humble opinion, this may be remarkable, but it is disgusting to say Iraq HAD weapons of mass destruction and terrorism ties without supporting evidence.

He attributes the Iraq War in part to the fact that the "strategic planners" in the Bush administration were "culturally incapable of grasping an actor that was not, in the final analysis, a state." Eat your fucking heart out Robert Kagan!

Most importantly, Kepel's argument, as mentioned above, is that Islamism is dying. How does he explain al-Qaeda's popularity? Quite well, by blaming the role of the Bush administration in providing a need for Bin Ladens and Zarqawis, Zawahiris and Attas. To use the terminology of the Prophet (PBUH), Bush took all the attention away from the Greater Jihad (the struggle for understanding and learning of Islam) and shifted it to the Lesser Jihad (the armed struggle for Islam). We live in a time where most Muslims have the luxury of abandoning the latter and relishing in the former and yet are driven to the exact opposite.

On Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

2005-02-07T23:32:00.000-05:00

So I've been on this little kick on anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Zionism and how people don't distinguish the two. Someone mentioned to me about Merriam-Webster having defined anti-semitism partly as anti-Israel and I was inspired to do a little hunting. I found this article about Defining Anti-Semitism, which brings up the issue of the Merriam-Webster 2004 international edition. m-w.com has omits Israel from the entry as do my 2003 collegiate dictionary and oxford english dictionary. The Forward has an article about the ADC demanding merriam-webster remove that part of the definition. I guess it has since been changed.

This, however hasn't prevented the State Department from being a little crafty with its own definition of anti-Semitism as explained in the opening of the amazingly comprehensive Report on Global Anti-Semitism. They say: "The demonization of Israel, or vilification of Israeli leaders, sometimes through comparisons with Nazi leaders, and through the use of Nazi symbols to caricature them, indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy concerning a controversial issue." To me this seems a bit extreme and should imply that any use of Nazi symbols to caricature anyone should be anti-semitism.

But then there is Norman Finklestein who just came out with a new book called Beyond Chutzpah on the misuse of anti-semitism. A quote from the synopsis: "Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted."

Anti-Zionism and Sniping

2005-02-07T02:44:00.000-05:00

Anti-Zionist Jews Photo Gallery

I was trying to find information on Anti-Zionist Jews and I got this crazy gallery with a cool sounding quote, unfortunately I don't understand some important parts of it:

If Zionism today means Greater Israel, not only am I a post-Zionist, I am an anti-Zionist. If Zionism is Netzarim and Kiryat Arba, I am an anti-Zionist. I do not accept the type of Zionism that took Judaism, with all its dazzling beauty, and turned it into the worship of trees and stones. When I look around today, my feeling is that Netzarim has become an altar, God has become a Moloch and our children have become sacrifices: human sacrifices to terrible idol worship. - Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset (I only have this link as a print link so watch out)

"A failed Israeli society is collapsing" Avaraham Burg's apocalyptic critique of Israeli society. This article is the subject of the previous link. This is where I think this feller stands: He wants reform within Israeli domestic and foreign policy. And he wants peace with the Palestinians because the perpetual conflict will ultimately end badly for Israel. Some of it is a bit extreme. Admittedly I only learned about him from this google search. So I don't know much about him at all.

"The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state in the Middle East, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly." Whoa there cowboy!

"It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive" Here, Here!

"Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture." Empathy breeds peace.

For a little more light reading, go for John Allen Muhammad's Opening Statement. A 20 minute rambling nonsense. He represented himself, I was tipped off about this by Slate in an article raising the issue of self representation and the constitution and a systemic disadvantage to the weak minded in the court system.

Redundant Emotions and Behaviour

2005-02-06T18:46:00.000-05:00

I think I'm on to something with this full circle thing. Situationally everything has changed, obviously. I'm in a new city, I have new friendships to deal with and my the state of my old relationships has obviously changed as well. But emotionally and behaviourly I am emulating my 18-year-old-self perfectly. I thought those days were behind me but nope, I still have to deal with my head.

Amusement parks used to have those wheel of death sort of things that spun around super fast so you were pressed against the sides and the floor would lower so you were jsut sticking to the walls. I never went in one but they seem pretty cool. I don't think they're legal anymore because a while back at some amusement park, maybe even coney island. One of the panels came off and physics dictates that the even centrifugal force that had kept everyone pasted to the wall was now escaping through this hole. So all the people on the ride just started to fly out of the ride.

I swear I can feel the panels rattling.

One thing thats good about my taste in music is that I love everything so I can deeply enjoy what to some is nothing but noise. I'm doing that now with Marilyn Manson. I'm just so angry and to quote Mr. Manson "I wasn't born with enough middle fingers" Damn.

You're not here to make my sad songs more sincere

2005-02-06T01:14:00.000-05:00

My life is going to come full circle as of this monday. This is of my own doing and of my own will. This is what I need to do. I thought I was going to wait at least a week but now I realize I can't wait anymore. I need to act. I can no longer be as self-reliant as I have been in the last 3 years.

The descent of Sobreity and non-Toxicity

2005-02-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm sober I can comfortably say that I will never have a party here again. There was nothing wrong with my party. I was quite pleased with the people who came of those that I had invited. Of those that were not invited, that is where the issues arose. Looking back on it, I was a coward and a fool and I can't believe I had allowed some things to happen that did.

I used to be made of steel, but now I'm made of paper mache, crushed glass, and clock springs; what a down grade. I'm in trouble.

Strange dreams and bad vibrations

2005-02-05T03:21:00.000-05:00

Got strange vibrations from my evening. Regret? Anger? Contempt? Malice? I couldn't put my finger on it. Someone sabotaged my toilet.

Besides that, more generally, I feel as though I've lost my direction. I really have no structure in my life. I'm undisciplined and nomadic. And yet despite this I feel as though I need a release and unconstrainment. I sort of have an idea of what that release entails, but I think I've been underestimating what or how much I'm trying to escape or forget. My general assesment is that I need to make my world view a little more positive and dwell less on what I dislike. But that would take the fun out of things wouldn't it? I really wanted to kill tonight.

I could make a career of being blue. I could dress in black and read Camus

2005-02-03T15:14:00.000-05:00

Couldn't go to my Abisaab classes this morning. I wished that I did, I love that lady and those classes (arabic and history of Islamic civilization in the medieval era). I could have gone had not my roommate brought a group of drunken and drugged out monkeys to the apartment at 3:30 last night. I turned the power off on them and it did nothing. Who'd a thunk?

I really want to meet someone, anyone similar to myself. I don't think I will though. Damn it. Last night, with Ella, we discussed how it is automatically assumed that if I became really rich I would do crazy things with my money. I came up with the idea to get a private island in the shape of my outstretched hand (each finger would be a peninsula). But I wouldn't have it made like The World in the U.A.E, instead I'd buy a large island and have it eroded into that shape. One finger would be devoted to hunting. Another would be an airstrip. I'd try and make it so that the center of the palm would be the peak of a mountain.

I pretty much only listen to the Magnetic Fields now.

21

2005-02-02T11:48:00.000-05:00

I think I'm suffering from an overdose of urbanity. I really want to go to the wilderness. But my image of the wilderness is full of purpose and hardly natural. That is, I have no real will to go spend time in the wilderness for the sake of spending time. I wish I could go out on a long hunting expedition, killing many animals from helpless does to dangerous bears! They, all of them shall fall!

Time stands still, all I can feel is the time standing still...

Anger

2005-02-01T19:20:00.000-05:00

For some obvious and not so obvious reasons I've been fairly angry for the last month. This is a general, nagging anger geared towards no one; just a general sentiment. Today, most people were pleased with the brief reprieve from the deep cold, I chose to take the far more long sighted view that this brief repreive was just that and thus part of a broader pattern of the teasing torture of winter. This has been my easiest winter in Montreal and yet I've never been more sick of the winter. Still, I took the oppurtunity to walk in the street this morning and pretend the snow was melting because tomorrow was spring. I even wore sneakers and a lighter jacket!

I listened in on this conversation at school today where someone mentioned that canada post lost seven boxes of textbooks, a $7000 value, en route to a university in Baghdad.

Metal on Skin, Skin on Metal

2005-01-31T13:04:00.001-05:00

So I tried to use my new straight razor last night and it didn't go so well. Astonishingly enough, I didn't cut myself at all. In fact, I didn't even shave. I couldn't figure out how to do it and I ended up just rubbing the blade across my entire face without anything happening. It was actually quite good because I got a feel for how to hold the blade and the proper motions to make. This morning I went ot the local barber shop and got a haircut and he used a straight razor on my neck and side burns and I saw that the angle I was holding was wrong. So I went home and tried again, and I've figured it out! I feel so vintage.

Kerry blames defeat on Bin Laden. I blame Kerry's defeat on the democratic party's inability to form effective electoral strategies. In this article he says that his approval rating went down immediately after Bin Idiot released his video and that he couldn't win in an election dominated by 9/11 and the "war on terror." Excuse me Mr. Kerry-Heinz, but he realeased this tape, shouldn't the heretical islamo-fascist, terrorist that has been the epicenter of the "war on terror" not be able to issue statements as he has the world's strongest army coming after him? Hasn't terrorism proliferated in ways unseen since the days of Carlos the Jackal since Bush became the modern day crusader. For fear of being too Michael Moore-ish, I won't rattle off a butt load of other terror related things that Bush has failed. I don't want to be too un-American!

Overcome in 60 seconds

2005-01-30T15:06:00.000-05:00

So i think the fact that I just finally unpacked my things after my return from New York City a month ago means that I've made some sort of transission. A much needed shift. Part of this shift has been a marked interest in secrecy. I found myself unwilling and displeased with being photographed last night. Bizarre. I think this is more directed at casual aquaintances. I mean, what secrecy is being achieved by pooting my thoughts on the internet. So I guess I'm being pretty particular about my "secrecy."

Anyway, another social issue that has arisen lately for me has been the balance between my beliefs and my friends. Without getting into real details, I'll pose the following question: Is it wrong to allow mutually exclusive ideologies to deter oneself from a totally compatable friendship? I feel as though I allow the differences I see between our beliefs to spill over into a general interpretation of all his behaviours as disingenuous and patronizing. This issue of "do you make friends with your enemies?" is something we deal with the all of individual relationships and different levels. But sometimes you can't jsut agree to disagree.

With that note, I make the following empirical state based on entirely unfounded assumptions: We'll never have another U.S. president with facial hair.

death to animals

2005-01-29T16:30:00.000-05:00

I hate to sound like a complete nerd, but I just took out two bucks in two bullets one from 201 yards and the other from 232 yards. The objective was 150 yards and for the past few days I hadn't been able to do it. I kept shooting from too close or just missing. I had to sight my weapon but the longest target in the firing range was 75 yards. For a while I was using unsighted or mis-sighted firearms as well as firearms that were jsut inappropriate to teh task at hand (medium range in a long range environment). I figured out how to sight the highest calibre bolt action rifle and, BOOYAKASHA! two bucks in two bullets. i love you cabela's deer hunt 2005 season

Another Eventless Day Passes

2005-01-29T01:53:00.000-05:00

Today really was a non-day. I went to my one class and did nothing else. I walked to school, stayed for an hour and left. I haven't left my home since, and nothing especially significant has occurred. I'm getting bored of this and it is my own fault.

Treatise on the General Decline of Affairs and the Solitude Found in Coldness

2005-01-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

I look at my life, the news and the weather and one thought comes to mind: the end is nye. Seriously, between the tsunami, the hurricanes, the bitter cold, the landslides, and the floods, it seems as though Mother Nature is trying to out do mankind willingness to destroy, well, mankind. I really feel like we're on the home stretch to the end of the world. I'm resigned to the inevitable newscast announcing the end as is the premise of the film Last Night. I really loved that film. It followed the last 12 hours until the end of the world, in a situation where everyone has been well aware of this fact for some months.

The weather in Montreal is quite cold. Hitting -20 to -30 Celsius with the wind chill factor. I don't know Celsius but it really feels cold. My eyelashes accumulate ice and and my knuckles feel like alligator skin and, most importantly, I feel at home. However uncomfortable I get in the extreme cold, I have always been most comfortable walking in it. The joy of the solitude of the deep freeze makes me feel as though an experience has been soured when someone offers to walk with me. There was a big snow storm in New York when I was in the 4th grade and school was cancelled for a day or two. During those days I had dug this entire igloo in the mound of snow in our yard. I seriously spent many hours in that thing during the few days that it lasted. I didn't even do anything, I just sat and waited and thought. I don't know why. The bottom line is, I really just want to hunt giant bears.

first post

2005-01-26T20:20:00.000-05:00

this is a test