Surfing the blogosphere today, I came across an interesting confluence of posts. Interesting to me, at least. I promise to post more photos of our Maximum Leader and Jacob later for those that find this boring.
Where was I?
Oh yes, here it is. Always on Watch had a post with lots of discussion about how members of Hamas are being educated in the US. This was picked up by Gates of Vienna (a very worthy blog) and carried further. Laurence Simon, who deserves, but has yet to be given a place in the heavens of the Feline Theocracy, had a post earlier about Hamas and the Palestinian banks.
Here’s the gist of it. Members of Hamas are going to our colleges here in the US. Meanwhile, back at home, Hamas is threatening their own banks that don’t pay the nation’s civil servants. Always on Watch objects to the US training a future generation of Hamas businessmen who will use their knowledge to come back at us with guns and bombs.
First of all, if the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is any guide, the Hamas students are not getting their money’s worth. If they’re learning economics, it certainly can’t be capitalism.
1. Threatening banks until they hand out cash is a surefire way to wreck your banking industry. As soon as investors find out that their bank is handing out cash at gunpoint, they’ll sprint for the nearest bank and take all their money to keep it from being appropriated. That’s called a run on a bank. It’s a VERY bad thing.
2. As has been noted numerous times by Laurence Simon, blowing things up and waving guns around is a poor way to generate profit. It works if you’re a Viking and you’re about to raid the coast of Medieval England, but if you’re in Hamas and are on the short end of 25-1 kill ratios when you attack Israel, it’s another VERY bad idea.
3. Right next door, Jordan is showing everyone how to do it right when you’ve been dealt a bad hand. Caught in the crossfire between Israel and the Arabs, blessed with a country nearly free of natural resources, they’re playing every conceivable angle to get trade and loans from the West, the Arabs and everyone in between. Zarqawi may have come from there, but he was an exception, not the rule. Meanwhile, Hamas can’t tie their shoes without screaming obscene threats against Israel. If the Hamas folks are studying marketing, they certainly don’t seem to be learning it.
Secondly, if our goal is to transform the Arab world into a modern, liberal democracy, we’re going to have to interact with them as much as possible and accept the chance that some of them will remain unreformed at the end. If you demand a 100% conversion rate as an evangelist in order to start, you’ll never begin. And evangelists are what we are.
We are preaching the gospel of free trade, free markets and free people. Sometimes the cannibals eat the missionaries. It’s a risk you take when you try to change a culture. If you won’t accept that risk, then you need to change your goal.
Technorati tags: hamas education business economics Jordan
3 comments:
We are preaching the gospel of free trade, free markets and free people. Sometimes the cannibals eat the missionaries. It’s a risk you take when you try to change a culture. If you won’t accept that risk, then you need to change your goal.
As I see the problem, bringing the enemy here hasn't worked out as well as we thought it would. I attribute part of that failure to the multi-culti movement, in the worst sense of "multi-culti." I also believe that it's not wise to give enemies access to some of the material available at our univerisities (nuclear material).
We've been quite lucky so far, with regard to nuclear material. But not completely. Have you ever read Mahdi Obeidi's The Bomb in My Garden? And the information and materials he obtained went back to the Middle East in Saudi's diplomatic pouches.
if our goal is to transform the Arab world into a modern, liberal democracy
We cannot do the transforming; we can only deliver the message. And as we've already seen, devout Muslims opt for shari'ah law. More information about the conflict within Islam here.
In any event, thank you for commenting at my blog and for the mention here.
We cannot do the transforming; we can only deliver the message
Well said, sir. I bow to your superior wisdom.
As for the rest, well, it's an imperfect world. The best you can do is have a goal then create a plan and continually monitor the cost-benefit trade-off. If you want to move to kick these guys out, then you need to change your goal or at the very least, consciously commit to a different tactic.
No question, some of our own people are getting in the way. The Kos Kids aren't likely to help the Hamas students learn to love America and comprehend free markets. Nor are the Democrats, for that matter, at least until they regain power.
Hamaaaaaasssssss are evil thru and thru and anyone who negotiates with them are deceiving themselves..they better watch their backs!
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