Defeated By Pornography

I have been hinting around about what our Grand Strategy should be in the War On Islamic Fascism. Some of the hints can be found at: Islam vs American Morality and In The Long Run Their Struggle Will Be Hopeless and The New Middle East. So what should our strategy be in plainer terms? We should be undermining Islamic fascist culture. How? There in lies a tail.

Let us start with the BBC.

Up to 70% of files exchanged between Saudi teenagers' mobile phones contain pornography, according to a study in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.

The study quoted in Arab News focussed on the phones of teenagers detained by religious police for harassing girls.

So who is winning the battle of mobiles?

"The flash memory of mobile phones taken from teenagers showed 69.7% of 1,470 files saved in them were pornographic and 8.6% were related to violence," said report author Professor Abdullah al-Rasheed.

So sex is more popular than violence by a factor of better than 8 to 1. Excellent.

The Opinion Journal has some early news from the battle for Iraq.

In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.

What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?

"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

Around him, the crowd roared its approval.

That was a definite vote of confidence for my proposed strategy.

Ralph Peters takes a look at strategy in information warfare.

For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.

We live in an age of multiple truths. He who warns of the "clash of civilizations" is incontestably right; simultaneously, we shall see higher levels of constructive trafficking between civilizations than ever before. The future is bright--and it is also very dark. More men and women will enjoy health and prosperity than ever before, yet more will live in poverty or tumult, if only because of the ferocity of demographics. There will be more democracy--that deft liberal form of imperialism--and greater popular refusal of democracy. One of the defining bifurcations of the future will be the conflict between information masters and information victims.

We can already see who the victims are. They are the people whose information on every subject has been restricted. The people who have no immunity to the torrent.

The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.

Information destroys traditional jobs and traditional cultures; it seduces, betrays, yet remains invulnerable. How can you counterattack the information others have turned upon you? There is no effective option other than competitive performance. For those individuals and cultures that cannot join or compete with our information empire, there is only inevitable failure (of note, the internet is to the techno-capable disaffected what the United Nations is to marginal states: it offers the illusion of empowerment and community). The attempt of the Iranian mullahs to secede from modernity has failed, although a turbaned corpse still stumbles about the neighborhood. Information, from the internet to rock videos, will not be contained, and fundamentalism cannot control its children. Our victims volunteer.

I think that is one of the real keys. Our victims volunteer. My original idea was to have our government print up a bunch of pornoraphy and distribute it in the Middle East. I thought that there was no way this could become a government program. Too many Americans with loud voices would object. Fortunately with the advent of computers and mobile phones we do not have to print anything. Nor does our government have to have its fingerprints on the job. There is more than enough free porno on line to satisfy the immediate demand. In other words Open Source Pornography to the rescue.

Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can't wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather "Baywatch." America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no "peer competitor" in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted--men and women everywhere--clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.

We are addicted to their oil, it is the engine of our prosperity. They are addicted to our culture, the engine of their defeat. Strategy Page looks at the turmoil our communication technology is causing among the Arab/Persian masses:

May 3, 2007: One reason for Islamic terrorism is there are too many Moslems. At least in the sense that the economies of Islamic countries cannot create enough jobs for all the young people coming of age. Consider that for the last fifty years, the population of all Moslem countries has tripled. That's population growth that is more than double the rate of the world as a whole, and about ten times the rate of Europe. It's about five times the rate in the United States.

Many of those unemployed young men are angry, and making war is a typical activity of angry young men. But the women are not too happy either, and this is becoming one a major threat to Islamic terrorists. In Islamic societies, women's activities are greatly restricted. One thing they are encouraged to do is have lots of children. Many women in Islamic countries are rebelling against this. You don't hear much about this, because women don't rebel in the same loud, headline grabbing way that men do. What unhappy women often do is stop having children. Not so easy to do, you think? Well, think again.

That is the wind up. How about the pitch?

While Islamic countries tend to have very low levels of education, especially for women, the introduction of satellite television and DVDs has enabled even illiterate women to learn that there are other options. Ignorance is an excellent form of control, but when the ignorance is lost, so is the control.

Thus in most Islamic countries, the women are having fewer children, and making more noise about economic and educational opportunities. This resonates with some of the better informed Islamic men. One reason the West, and other parts of the world, have enjoyed much better economic growth than the Moslem countries, is that they have added large number of educated women to their work force.

Losing control of the women is something that makes Islamic conservatives very angry. Murderously angry. This is a vicious, lethal battle taking place largely out of the media spotlight. But, long term, it is destroying the source of Islamic terrorism.

Yep. I think the Saudi statistics bear that out.

Matthew Parris discusses the end of the End of the American Empire. He says that it is premature to blow taps for America.

Writing in The Spectator two weeks ago (‘Why there will be no future Pax Americana’), the distinguished essayist, author and thinker had sniffed the wind and concluded that it is all up for what he calls the US ‘imperium’. Islam has been Washington’s undoing, he believes, and after six short decades as top dog of the world, America is already stumbling and set to lose her predominance.

So does Islam really have the appeal its adherents claim? I don't think so and neither does Mr. Parris.

Have we not noticed how incompetent are Islamic governments and organisations the world over? Has it not occurred to us that if al-Qa’eda really were as wily and resourceful as we tell ourselves they are, and if their tentacles really did extend as wide and deep as some say, they would be on the advance — not battled into a stalemate by Western security and intelligence? If I were an al-Qa’eda activist I could have blown up Parliament or shot at least one of a range of prime ministers by now. Al-Qa’eda’s failure to infiltrate or penetrate Western structures has been complete.

There is a reason for this. Islam, in its more fundamentalist form, doesn’t work. Serious, committed Islamists are most unlikely to succeed within any structures but their own. Their own, meanwhile, are notoriously inefficient and corrupt. Only by lucky coincidence have much of the world’s known petrocarbons been found beneath Islamic nations, giving them what temporary influence they wield. How can any culture which despises modernity, hates mobility, distrusts individual liberty and autonomy, persecutes those who deviate from cultural or ideological norms, imposes a kind of brutal conformity on the way people live, love and work, and at a stroke disempowers 50 per cent of its people (women) from proper education and from all career opportunity so that every boy-child it produces is being brought up by a person who knows little of the world and only a fraction of what the boy must learn — how can such a culture bestride the 21st century, as Selbourne fears Islamism will do?

Which is not to say that Islam can't cause a lot of trouble. It can, but is it something with appeal to the Western World? I don't think so. Islam prescribes the most minute details of a person's life. The West says: tear down the Walls. Minimize the restrictions. Enlarge the limits. Which will ultimately be more popular?

Wretchard at the Belmont Club takes a look at the issue and our secret weapon:

And that, come right down to it, is why some Muslims believe in the power of Allah. Allah strengthens the will of his adherents past any breaking point. They are willing to go past death itself. And they say to us: with our rifle and our belief in Allah we can defeat you with your laser guided weaponry and your belief in Harry Reid. Come to prayer. Come to Islam.

We have a secret weapon. Come to Brittany. This is a weapon more fearsome than any 20 divisions of soldiers backed up by 10 CBGs.

The munitions are delivered at the speed of light. The targeting precice and once a target is located follow on rounds are almost automatic.

We are making them desire and pay for the liquifaction of their culture. Every dollar we pay for oil, not only buys physical weapons to be used against us but aso buys them our best weapon to be used against themselves and our weapons have better targeting and a negative cost for delivery. We profit from their desires. How much more American than that can you get? It tuns out much more.

Memri TV has a video clip from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International about Saudi women stripping for Web Cams. They also have a transcript of the show.

Reporter: Behind closed doors and far from any supervising eyes, they remove their shame and turn their backs on all customs and traditions. Girls display their bodies in chat rooms on the Internet, in most cases, free of charge. As soon as one of these girls places the camera in front of her, she begins to strip, displaying her seductive charms to more than 300 young men of different ages. Some believe that the phenomenon of stripping over the Internet may be understood within the framework of social hypocrisy, especially since they believe that our religious and educational discourse does not attribute importance to the strengthening of self-restraint, and prefers the appearance over the essence. This drives some people to play several roles and wear several masks.

The liquifaction is well underway.

Reporter: On the other hand, many believe that web stripping has not reached the proportions of a phenomenon, and that these are merely isolated cases. They emphasize that the vast majority of our girls protect their modesty and respect the customs, and traditions. These people believe that web cams can be useful tools. They can be used to maintain family ties, and can have educational applications, in lectures and conferences, for example.

Many young men and women believe that the endless prohibitions drive them to hide behind closed doors, and surf in relations that rebel against all costumes and traditions, in search of love, in some cases, and in order to satisfy their urges, in other cases, especially since the Internet gives them the opportunity to openly declare their repressed desires without fear.

Young Saudi woman in shopping mall: The girls misuse the web cams. They take them into their rooms, and even their families do not know that they have cameras, or what the girls use their laptops or web cams for.

Young Saudi man in shopping mall: A girl can buy a web cam for a very cheap price, 70-75 riyals. She takes it to her room, closes the door, and begins the show.

As one of my favorite bands has said, "On with the show".

Yep it is just a few isolated incidents and outside agitators causing all the trouble. Sure it is. The subject is well known and yet no one knows who is involved. I believe that. Sure I do. Hasn't any one explained that when family members surf the 'net supervision is required?

I'm going to let Dr. Sanity have the last word.

If there was ever in history a better example of the paranoid fear of female sexuality, I can't think of it. You don't have to be much of an expert on Islam or Muslim culture to be able to observe that it has evolved into a societal structure whose primary purpose is to contain and manage female sexuality.

This containment has not only become a key aspect of the worship of their god; but it also is a key factor in individual personality development; as well as the main pollutant of all possible social interactions within the culture.

The men of Islam are obsessed with sex beyond even the wildest imaginings of the Western male's mind. And the obsession is far from healthy and even further from reality.

We frequently joke about men's preoccupation with sex and female body parts in the West, but our fascination with "T&A" is nothing when you consider that the Muslim world is literally consumed by female sexuality and with their fear of it. It is ironic that both Muslim men and women are under the mistaken impression that Western society is oversexualized compared to them, when in fact, it is practically impossible to be more obsessed with sexual matters than they are in Muslim communities.

It is unhealthy. However, in an information resticted society such obsession is inevitable.

It looks to me that their defeat by pornagraphy is inevitable. I might also add that I have been doing some field research for this article (yeah, right) and it appears that pornography by Arabs are increasingly frequent on the free amateur pornography sites. A sub theme in all this is that American music is popular as background on about half the videos that have any music. It is not just sex. Democracy, whiskey, sexy is more popular than Islam. Which means that what ever military action we take is just a holding action while our culture does a number on them.

H/T Little Green Footballs, and Instapundit, and The Daily Brief, and Instapundit again.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

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