Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Last Refuge of Scoundrels

Victor Hanson notes this about our al Qaeda enemies and their Islamic "purity":

We sometimes think religion trumps human nature. It doesn’t. Remember the Rafsanjanis of Iran: under the cloak of religious zeal, that crooked clan wormed into businesses and ministries like a Costra Nostra family bent on cash and perks. So too with al Qaeda in Iraq. They are criminals first, pseudo-fundamentalists second. The military knows that well enough since it has seen their pornography, syringes, shake-down schemes, and petty criminality etc. “Al Qaeda” gave a lot of young criminals cover to steal cars, take over houses, and take young girls.


You might say that false Islamism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

You might say that, that is, if you (or some friend or family member of yours, more precisely) weren't besotted into intellectual incoherence by silly Third World-centric theories that hold any scum from those lands--no matter how bloodthirsty--are morally superior to Westerners in general and Americans in particular.