1) How interesting!   A manifest America-hater, like Iqbal, is very adept at parroting endless vacuous 'charges' against the USA, but cannot entertain any counter-arguments about any of these charges.  The eternal problem of 'cognitive dissonance' among fundamentalists (both of the religious and of the nonreligious variety).  But, when it comes to bringing 'democracy' to Pakistan, who does he turn to?  Who does he want to make the effort ("pressure") to remove the presumed obstacle, i.e. the army of the second largest muslim country in the world.......?  Who does he expect to do again the heavy lifting?   The UN, the EU, China.....? No, of course not.  It is of course again the duty of.....the Great Satan himself.      As if the Pakistani army were the sole - or even the major  - real obstacle to democracy in Pakistan, instead of the 'cultures' of Pashtuns, Sindhi, Baluchis, etc.... 

2) Even more pathetic is his latest parroting of the naive-left notion that "the Profet cannot compete with consumerism".   He is certainly right that numerous muslims want to emigrate to America and the EU for "economic opportunities", and not for "christian culture", nor for democracy and individual freedoms.  Yet one doesn't see them emigrate to East Asia, for instance, were there are also great economic opportunities. 

The reality of course is that there is no correlation between wealth and tolerance.   Indeed, empirical observation shows the opposite.   The most recent spate of jihadism of the last quarter century or so, did NOT originate in poor isolated Indonesian islands or economically backward villages in Arabia or the Indian subcontinent.  On the contrary, it is the direct result of  great 'wealth' deriving from natural resources (oil and gas) in the Middle East.  And the most dangerous planners and executioners of jihadism are to be found among those presumed "opportunity-seeking" muslims in the west and among the 'elites' in the muslim world itself.

3) Consumerism, by itself, is not generally going to turn Chinese and muslims into 'democrats'.  And rich totalitarians are much more dangerous than poor ones. European history has demonstrated that clearly enough.      

1. -oiznop:"but the pacifist Chirac policies of the last kabillion years of his joke of a presidency have ruined France"

and Bush's warmongering policies have economically benefitted the US, right ? At least 200 billions down the toilet, 3000+ dead american soldiers, all of that is just fine, right ?

It was Chirac's socialism and the socialism of the previous presidents combined with their insane immigration policy that have ruined France and I shouldn't have to tell you that Bush and the top Republicans (just like the top Democrats, funny eh?) also have an insane suicidal immigration policy of open borders that not only will demographically destroy the nation but enables all kinds of would be terrorists to enter the country through Mexico.

1. -oiznop:"And his comment about Iraq. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong again. Iraq has been a terrorist harbor for years. We went in there because there was a profound almost bipartisan feeling that Saddam was a major threat to the U.S. interests in the region."

as if a 'bipartisan feeling' was a good reason to invade a foreign country, waste at least 200 billions and thousands of american lives. Nevermind what you read in the Weakly Standard, Iraq wasn't a 'terrorist harbor', there was no Al-Qaeda haven there. The only terrorists Saddam helped were maybe the palestinian ones by giving rewards to the families of suicide bombers. And do I really have to remind you that the official reason to invade Iraq were those non existant WMDs or did you just conveniently forgot about them ?

1. -oiznop:"if neo-conserviatism, an ideology that allows all people the freedom to flourish without the intrusiveness of more and more governement oppressiveness and policies/ bureaucracies doesn't work"

huh ? how's the kool-aid Oiznop ? "without the intrusiveness of more and more governement oppressiveness and policies/ bureaucracies doesn't work", what planet are you living on ? the more the US government invades the world to bring so-called democracy the more it will have to clamp down on its own population and stifle democracy and freedom at home. Read some of Jim Bovard's books and articles, you seem to have no idea what's going on in america.

And I'm not even talking about the use of force to keep a heterogeneous country together with all those mexicans taking over the south west and having these ideas of secession and the latino gangs replacing black gangs and committing even more crimes which will lead to a call for more police and more state surveillance, and all those illegals getting into public schools and receiving subsidies from american workers or getting free medical care in hospitals or importing all kinds of exotic diseases that were eradicated a century ago, all of that because the federal government that is supposed to protect the nation has not done anything to shut down the southern border and deport the mexicans (unlike Eisenhower who did it in the 1950s) and this inaction has been deliberate.

The more problems the more the need for a state to "fix" those problems and that's exactly what's going on in the US on a national scale and things are getting worse year after year and that's because the level of awareness of the dumbed down flagwaving AmericanIdol watching american people is almost at zero. Instead of bashing european leftists you should spend your time fighting the so-called conservatives and the media that are destroying your country.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"The simple test of how Muslims are perfectly compatible with western secular society is the fact that they have lived in western societies for centuries, and up until recently, no history of violence."

it's all a question of proportion. As Le Pen often says when muslims were only half a million in France there was one mosque and that's all they needed but as they grew in numbers and as the french people lost its national soul, as they became leftists, ethnomasochists and relativists the foreigners began asking for more and became more brazen. Nobody has respect for the weak and that's especially true in arab/muslim cultures.

This is what we are witnessing in France : the ethnic and cultural demise of the majority in favor of the fast growing arab and african minority. The weakness of the former gave way to the strength of the latter to the point where they openly spit in the faces of whites and they don't react for fear of being "racists". I can read regularly stories of gang rapes, gratuitous murders in schools (one white child was recently beaten to death by two african kids and the media did all they could to suppress the ethnic angle of the story going as far as to rule this murder as being accidental before the inquiry was even over), of cars being burned (more than 45,000 cars were set on fire in 05 but the leftist media buried this figure) and all sorts of ethnic crime on independent french blogs. The race war doesn't stop for even for a day or two but the media as usual keeps the cover on all of this, pretending that France is OK and that there are only a few incidents here and there.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"It is people like you who forget to mention that the VAST MAJORITY of French Muslims are integrated and make a valuable contribution to French society."

those who work and keep quiet nevertheless vote for the socialists and they always vote against the nationalists, just like muslims and non-european immigrants of all kinds do in all other white countries, so no they don't make a valuable contribution to French society in any way. And besides they were imported (in the 1960s and 70s) as a ploy by the big corporations to reduce the salaries of the french workers.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"Young French immigrant culture mimics US African-American /Hispanic gang culture. Don’t believe me? Check out the clothes, the hairstyles, the rap music, the obsession with hip-hop and breakdancing, the cars they drive, the attitudes of some of the kids. Why is this you may ask? To a large extent, this is almost certainly due to the similar socio-economic hardships experienced by groups in the French population."

here we go, the socioeconomic hardship mantra. Come on, how many dumb masochistic decultured whites are wearing the same stupid clothes and the same blingbling as blacks, in Europe as in the US ? "the cars they drive", yeah they drive cars that the average french can't afford to buy ! oh the poor oppressed immigrants - they're so poor that they waste the little money they have on stupid worthless symbolic material possessions. They have adopted this dumb inculture of immediate gratification, flashy clothes and gloryfication of criminals not because they're poor but to distance themselves from the majority, to feel good about their status of outsiders involved in a cultural and ethnic war against whites.

and by the way, one researcher quoted in an article in The Guardian, concluded that the self-esteem of blacks has nothing to do with their socio-economic status :

Black teens score high in self-esteem

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4025363-102285,00.html

--> In an article in the US journal Psychological Bulletin, an African-American psychologist shows that whatever the effects of racism, poor self-esteem is not one of them. Except for the very young and very rich, blacks have higher self-esteem than their white counterparts, she demonstrates, and have had for years.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"imagine what the press would have said if he'd lost control and presided over riots for three whole weeks!"

imagine why the french press didn't attack him as much as they should have. The media did what they could to cover up lots of things during the riots because they thought that if they showed too much and told too many truths the Front National would benefit. The only people who were injured during the riots were the policemen and they were ordered by Sarkozy not to respond to 'provocation', that is to absorb the blows, the bricks, the molotov cocktails and the bullets and not even try to arrest the assailants.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"Sarko's objectives concern himself and the lobbies that are financing his massive ego trip into orbit. Shit, the Israelis have already released postage stamps with this guys face on it!"

true ...but how does that make Royal a better candidate ? The only difference I see if that she wants to appease the arabs by giving them the money she will suck out of french workers' pockets. With a name like yours I understand you favor the policies and candidates that benefit the ethnic interests of your cultural/ethnic group or that go against the ethnic interests of whites but neither Royal nor Sarkozy is good for France. The only one that was worth voting for was Le Pen.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"In fact he's only ever done this - EVER! Then scmoozing big business to avail of State contracts."

I've got news for you: the french socialists do the same when they're in power. And even when they're not in power. The so-called right gives them gifts, i.e. giving a former Communist Party member some job here, replacing an independent minded troublemaker by a Socialist Party member there. The Socialist Party and the UMP, the so-called left and the so-called right, have been working hand in hand together for 30 years trying to keep outsiders and nationalists out of power while enriching themselves and destroying the country.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"Her problem is that France has become as shallow as everywhere else - you are no longer judged on your record, but on whether you are a flashy media performer and speaker instead."

come on, do you speak french ? Have you actually heard a speech by Royal ? She's totally shallow and sometimes one has to wonder if she's not a bit retarded. The other night on TV she tried to play Mother Theresa or Jesus or whatever with a handicapped guy by telling him (paraphrasing) "oh my poor fellow, I'm with you, don't worry the Socialist Party will do something for you and all the handicapped of France". She's a dumb shallow cardboard leftist

1. -Sam Iqbal:"If he calls them 'racaille' in public (in English 'scum'), who knows what he calls them in private?"

this 'racaille' thing is a myth : an arab woman during the riots asked him "What are you going to do to stop the scumbags ?!" to which he responded "don't worry I'll take care of the scumbags" but the first part of the "incident" was erased from the collective memory by the media.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"But what they truly despise is the European Union."

wrong. US presidents since Eisenhower have been in favor of a united Europe, a Europe where the laws and political decisions would be centralized so that they would only have to corrupt the EU center of decision to be able to push Europe in the direction they wish or to neutralize all of it without having to apply pressure on individual countries. The US government is for centralization everywhere and against national sovereignty especially when it comes to big countries like France. The opposition between the EU and the US is an opposition between two control freaks. Both of them have to be defeated

1. -Sam Iqbal:"because of the EU's sane and humane social and environmental priorities."

wrong. Economic socialism makes the middle class poor while the rich and the investors go elsewhere and moreover the EU isn't doing anything to stop the masses of immigrants from african and the middle east from coming in and getting their social security cheques paid for by the european workers who are continually squeezed by taxes of all sorts. The EU and the national governments who are anti-nationalists are in effect dragging down the standard of living of european peoples, just like the US government by allowing mass immigration/invasion from Mexico and elsewhere is impoverishing the american middle class.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"its uncompromising separation of Church and State"

ethnomasochism now being the almost official european religion I object to this conclusion of yours.

1. -Sam Iqbal:"They cannot abide its shrewd and sensible regulation of capitalist enterprises while not diminishing the power of the free market."

yeah like the restaurants tax that a country like France doesn't even have the legal power to modify. I guess the more those big bad capitalist restaurateurs are unhappy and regulated the better european societies are, right ?

1. -Sam Iqbal:"They utterly despise the EU's embrace of a binding international criminal legal code."

the EU's push for an international criminal court is an image thing mostly. For example Germany participated in the bombing of Serbia in 1999 yet its leaders aren't going to be tried in some criminal court. wrong again

1. -Sam Iqbal:"A vote for Royal is a vote for France and the EU."

for the EU yes, but for France ? I don't know on which planet you're living but Royal is all for dissolving France into the EU and for importing more millions of immigrants and distribute what's left of the collective wealth of France. She, like all leftists, wants to destroy her own nation. She, like all leftists, HATE nationalists a 1000x more than capitalists. They would rather vote for a completely corrupt "ex-commie" ex-Mandela/ANC activist turned "conservative" piece of garbage named Jacques Chirac than for a sincere nationalist like Le Pen who unlike all the other candidates would preserve France's sovereignty and protect the french nation from unlimited immigration combined with socialism.

The leftist media built up this phony duel between two so-called opponents but the difference between these two is a difference of image and essentially nothing else. Let me remind all of you who think Sarkozy is a 'rightwinger' what he stands for (if he stands for something at all, one can't tell for sure because he changes his political shirt to fit the audience he speaks on front of):

this man is no more a conservative or a nationalist or no less a leftwinger than Royal but he projects the image of being some kind of rightwinger because the media transformed him into a big tough homme-de-la-Droite hated by the extreme left. Why did they do that ? To prevent the Front National from becoming more popular, the only authentic nationalist party that stands for:

-national sovereignty and national identity

-economic freedom for the average man and for small and medium businesses

-intellectual freedom for everyone

[btw how many of BJ readers speak french ? Belien does but even if he's honest he doesn't read the right websites that's for sure]

Sam Iqbal: "However, let’s go back to the 1980s in Britain (admittedly, I was a small child back then) but even I can remember the after-shocks of long-term unemployment, the riots, the burning cars, the crime waves, the burgeoning drug market, gun-crime, the sink estates, the destruction of local government, the widening income gap, the erosion of community spirit, the insecurity, the rise of the 'McJob' and the tidal wave of snarling selfishness that swept over British culture."

Some of us can "go back" to the 1970s (and, say this quietly, much much earlier), when a combination of incompetent governments, complacent management and bullying unions made the UK the "sick man of Europe", and a laughing-stock with other European countries. As the late, great Bob Monkhouse said, "They're not laughing now".

And I'm afraid in the burning-cars league, the Brits have always been outclassed by the Americans, the French and many others.

I notice you adduce the so-called "Unicef report" to bash the UK and the USA. It wasn't a Unicef report. It was a report written by one man with, shall we say, a bit of an agenda. It was based on many completely fatuous assumptions, and really not worth the paper it was copiously printed on.

Did you catch the "rabid Zio-con" Ziauddin Sardar's excellent documentary on Channel 4 this week, about the battle between Pakistan's army and the mullahs? Just because there is a lot of prejudiced anti-Muslim smoke it doesn't mean there isn't any real fire underlying it.

http://tinyurl.com/36p9je

@ Oiznop

1) In case you might think that 'Iqbal' is a European leftie, think again.  A careful reading of his latest rant reveals all the hallmarks of the committed perverse self-hating follower of the American radical-left (or far-left).  He clearly is incapable of making distinctions among conservatism's different schools.  While he is obviously horrified by the neocons' foreign policy, even though these are 'former' lefties with a do-gooder mentality of wanting to improve the world, fight 'poverty' and all of that, one wonders if he is even aware that neocons are pretty much to the 'left' of traditional conservatives in terms of social and economic policies.   But, as we know, he is good at listing 'charges' - not analysing nor explaining them - and parroting media mantras.   

2) One point we disagree on is China.  While I share your hope that China will go "full-fledged democratic before the end of the century", I do not see any evidence of that.  Nor do I think is such a belief supported by the lessons of recent history of the past two hundred years or so.  While democracies generally are better capable of producing wealth than autocracies and totalitarian systems, economic wealth does not in and of itself lead to 'democracy' (which requires cultural change).   And wealthy totalitarians are much more dangerous than poor ones. 

....Sammy, your tirade is truly that of the prototypical brainwashed angry leftist, who consistantly believes that the political left is for the downtrotten, minorities, the oppressed, and the working class.  That is a major league crock that dates back to the depression. You are the prototypical liberal who believes that anything anyone says against your view is racist and divisive, when in fact it is the policies of the left that create the racism, divisiveness and bitter feeling among the world's people. Now then, with that being said, and without  dissecting your Marxist rant piece by piece, I ask you, if neo-conserviatism, an ideology that allows all people the freedom to flourish without the intrusiveness of more and more governement oppressiveness and policies/ bureaucracies doesn't work, what is your soloution? Of course, vote for Ms. Royale Socialist, so we can get more government cheese at the expense of those who work to earn their money. So we can subsidize the poor oppressed muslims who take the welfare and spit in the face of their host nation by not intergrating and not abiding by the laws of the land, and who have some who plot to destroy via the means of terrorism. So we can turn yet another EU lap dog nation into a nanny state that will continue to decline due to these leftist policies. Sammy, I really feel sorry for you. Again, you are the prototypical angry something for nothing leftist who can't see the forrest before the trees.  It is this thinking that will bring down France, and if we let it happen here, the USA.  China and India will have nothing to do with it. They are tasting capitalism, and they like it!  In fact, I would not be surprised if China goes full fledged democracy before the end of this century.  That may be a streatch on my part, but it could happen.  Oh, and one other thing, the EU does NOT run the world. Much to your dismay I am sure. That will never happen. So any international "code of conduct" they come up with is irrelevant as far as this American is concerned. 

Hate to tell ya (because it sounds like you have been living in a cave), but the pacifist Chirac policies of the last kabillion years of his joke of a presidency have ruined France, and has made them the butt of jokes here in the USA.  Nicholas Sarkozy, and a little neo-conservatisim maybe just what the doctor ordered to turn France around. You are probably just to blinded by the numerous governemnt goodies that you're probably receiving (federally subsidised medicine and pensions perhaps? Can't privatize! That would make people go to work! GASP). Oh, by the by, USA 4% unemployment, France, what is it, 30% unempolyment? Looks like we dittoheads have the upper hand. Go ahead, vote for Ms. Royale Socialist. And watch as France sinks further into economic decline and into the hands of the ever growing radical muslim population. Then we will see who will be sorry. Then we will see who comes running to the dittoheads to bail them out! 

Very Truly Yours:

A Bush Toadie....;-D...

Sarkozy? He makes me chuckle. The man is another neocon dual citizen Bush toadie and France better get ready to have her pensions and medicine privatised and her sons off to silly Israel first wars.
I can't believe that the French fall for this dittohead line the way they do in the USA. Oh well. They'll be sorry.