The Evil Leading the Naive
This is pretty interesting. Remember the bombings in Istanbul? Well, here's what caused at least one of four suicide bombers to do what he did:

Susan Block, a California sex therapist who hosts a syndicated radio show and HBO's "Radio Sex TV," wrote an April 15 column titled "The Rape of Iraq" for the antiwar Web site Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org).

The column used rather elaborate metaphorical language to compare the conquest of Baghdad to rape.

Televised expressions of gratitude by the Iraqi people were being used to justify "the Anglo-American rape of Iraq," Miss Block wrote: "As the rapist would say, 'I gave her what she really wanted.' She needed to be raped. She wanted to be violated."

Such metaphors apparently don't translate well.

On Oct. 22, Yeni Safak, an Islamic journal in Turkey, published an article that said "thousands of Iraqi women are being raped by American soldiers. There are more than 4,000 rape events on the record."

Where would they ever get that idea?

The journal cited "Dr. Susan Block" as its source.

Oh.

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey responded by condemning the Turkish journal for publishing "outrageous allegations based on a U.S. 'source' best known for her pornographic Web sites and erotic television program," according to the Globe.

In fact, you can see one of her crazy-ass pornographic web sites for yourself. Complete with a radio show that "touches you where no where no other radio can", her "terror journal" that refers to 'Jerry bin Foulwill', and an offer for phone sex when you try to leave the page. So what's the point of all this?

Whatever the source, Ilyas Kuncak of Istanbul was enraged by the reports, according to his son, Nurullah Kuncak.

"Didn't you see? The American soldiers raped Iraqi women," the son told the Globe's correspondent in Istanbul. "My father talked to me about it. Thousands of rapes are in the records. Can you imagine how many are still secret?"

On Nov. 19, Ilyas Kuncak drove a car bomb into the Istanbul headquarters of the British bank HSBC, his suicide attack part of four separate al Qaeda-planned car bombings that also destroyed the British Consulate and two synagogues in Istanbul, killing 27 and wounding more than 400.

That's right. Block couldn't shut up, and she ended up inspiring an act of mass murder.

Here's where it gets really interesting though: If I really believed, for a single moment, that another civilization was supporting the mass rape and slaughter of mine, I can see how I could be inspired to an act of terrorism.

I sent this to a Canadian friend the other night, James Lileks' "Interview with a Terrorist". In it, he has a mock discussion with a terrorist held at Gitmo, comparing our latest accomplishment (a robot on Mars) to their latest accomplishment (an exploding dildo). The conversation devolves into the terrorist wondering how to kill the microscopic Zionists on Mars, because everything Lileks tells him gets filtered through his rhetoric and brainwashing.

My friend's response: "That's silly. They're not that stupid!" Yet, Lileks was apparently right on, if you look at the above article. This is exactly how some of these people draw their conclusions about the world.

The left would have you believe that terrorists join up because of things the US really did. "They're mad because you've got troops in Saudi Arabia!" "They're mad because you buy all their oil, and they, uhm, uh, don't want to sell it, or something." That's a heaping crock of shit, though, now isn't it? No normal person goes on a mass murdering rampage over simple politics. Is there any reason to believe Arabs are less rational than we are?

However, it makes perfect sense when you consider that many Arabs are taught to believe that Israelis make candy from the blood of Palestinian babies, that American Marines have to kill their wives and children to become Marines, and that we knowingly and willingly worship Satan.

None of those things are true, of course, but people angry enough to strapping on bombs aren't the kind of folks who sit around smelling wine corks while they philosophize about the prophets. They have to be way too angry to reason or carry on discourse.

Yet, that's what their leadership does. You note, though, that Osama never hijacked a plane himself. In fact, in a video later, he laughed at the people who did. Saddam demanded a fight to the death, but surrendered meekly, almost laughingly, despite being armed.

What you have here is a case of people who are naive enough to believe the lies they are told about the West being used as tools by the people who are evil enough to use them to further their agendas. Evil is the word. There's no equivalency here.

There's one other dynamic at work that I want to point out, though, something that I notice almost every time I get into a debate with a liberal college student:

For her part, Miss Block says she is horrified and tells the Globe she never meant her charge of an American "rape" of Iraq to be taken literally: "I am appalled to be misquoted and even more appalled that the story inspired someone to such violence."

That last part begs, for me, the same question as it did for John over at Right Wing News. If she really believed what she said, that the war in Iraq had the same motivation as one of the most brutal crimes, why is she appalled to it inspired outrage? If she really believes it's the same, shouldn't she be thrilled at any brutal outrage and resistance? Or does she think rape is just peachy?

No, most likely, she either doesn't believe a word of what she wrote or doesn't have the knowledge to know whether she should believe it or not. She's just parroting what she's heard elsewhere. She's talking out of her ass, just like the morons with the "Bush=Hitler" signs, or Oliver Willis, when he calls Bush part of "the American Taliban" for trying to stop kiddy porn. It's always the same: Ignorance or sensationalism. (In "Dr." Block's case, she was trying to add a sexual overtone to something quite straightforward to entertain her smutty readers. Sex sells, etc.) They go to these ridiculous protests to destroy property and scream at each other like a drunken outdoor frat party. If you argue with the college-aged ones too much, they run out of rhetoric and sometimes literally burst into tears. This has happened to me many times now. Again, especially at the college-level, they think it's a game: They burn flags, blame America for everything, call us the greatest threat to world peace blah blah blah, then act surprised when everybody thinks they're traitors, like it's a social event, just a show. The same dynamic is at work, though: The leaders of these groups are part of a movement that's murdered 100 million people, but the followers (Marx's useful idiots) don't really grasp that. They're just there for the party.

It's a problem.