How Potatoes Changed the World, by Eliyho Matz

TOWARDS PINK POTATOES

“A present-day teacher of philosophy doesn’t select food for his pupil with the aim of flattering his taste, but with the aim of changing it.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Peter Winch, translator
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980]; p. 17e.



The potato has been part of the diet of Europeans and North Americans for a long time, at least 400 years. This tuber can be baked, boiled or fried, and I assume that there are hundreds of other ways to prepare potatoes for human and non-human consumption. It seems that all modern life evolved with the vegetable tuber called “potato.” An old Yiddish folksong describes the weekly existence as including the daily consumption of potatoes; not a single day passes without the “kartofle,” or “bulbus.”

The potato enters into the European consciousness via the Peruvian Andes. (I am not going into the famous potato wars between Peru and Chile, each claiming the origin of the potato for its own sovereign state.) The Spanish Conquistadors brought the potato to Europe: Spain, France, Ireland and the rest of Europe from the early 1600’s. The Andes’ high elevation provided the ancient Incas with the agricultural opportunity to develop various varieties of potatoes that the ancient people of the region learned how to preserve so they could survive during the cold winter season. If historically we need to define the Inca civilization, we may as well call it “a potato civilization.” Of course, the Incas are no longer in existence; after a few thousand years of cultivating potatoes and potato products they mysteriously disappeared. Is it possible that the potato had anything to do with their disappearance?

The potato plant belongs to the “nightshade” family of plants, which indicates that the leaf of the plant is poisonous. Is it possible that the tuber itself is a bit poisonous? Or that it has some mind-altering chemicals in it that we do not know much about? According to botanist Judith Sumner, “the thin-walled cells that compose potatoes contain thousands of amyloplasts,” and potatoes were boiled for hours in order to get rid of the poisons.” Furthermore, “the early suspicion that potatoes are poisonous is in part correct; potato cells exposed to light synthesize solanine, a glycoalkaloid that interferes with activity of cholinesterase, and enzyme associated with activity of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.” [Judith Sumner, American Household Botany: A History of Useful Plants 1620 – 1900 (Portland: Timber Press, 2004), pp. 91-92]. The fact is, we do not really know much about the implications of the chemistry of the potato, and the Incas are not here to provide us with details about their historical/gastronomical association with potatoes. We can only guess.

Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Europeans perfected the production of potatoes with few obstacles. Bearing in mind the tragic Irish famine that is associated with potatoes, no such events appeared to happen on the European continent of such magnitude. As a matter of fact, because the potato provided such good nutrition to the continent’s inhabitants, the European population more than quadrupled over the past 200 years. “European populations increased in size as peasants began growing potatoes for their own use….” [Sumner, p. 89]. Moreover, according to historian Tom Kemp, “expansion of demand for agricultural produce, both within Germany and abroad, in the period after 1815 enabled the reorganized agrarian system to prosper.” He continues to say that a combination of political, social and agricultural factors in Germany, including the cultivation of the potato, “…brought a demographic revolution to Germany. Population rose by 59 per cent between 1816 and 1865. In 1820 it had been 25 million…and by 1910 it was almost 65 million. [Tom Kemp, Industrialization in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Longman Group Ltd: New York, 1985), p.85.] In the words of one David Ricardo, “You can make nothing of potatoes but more people, who…will only make more potatoes” [Catherine Gallagher & Stephen Greenblat, Practicing New Historicism (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2001), pp. 133-134].

It is obvious that the leaders in the production of potatoes were the Germans. At the turn of the 20th century, the United States imported huge quantities of potatoes from Germany. American researchers of that period Grubb and Guilford, reported that “during the season of 1911-1912, the United States has imported large quantities of potatoes from Europe. The [US] crop of 1911 was a good many million bushels short of the needs of the nation….’Germany, with an area not more than twice that of Colorado, can and does produce fully two billion bushels of potatoes annually….’”[Eugene H. Grubb and W.S. Guilford, The Potato: A Compilation of Information from Every Available Source (New York: Doubleday Co., 1913], p.3, 5). The Russians and the Poles kept up their own productions and ultimately the potato evolved into a liquid called “vodka.” Variations of spirits likewise appeared in diverse locales of Europe, thus the German potato “schnapps” and its similar versions all over the continent. Cheap food, inexpensive alcohol, and intense sex brought the European population to record growth, then in actuality to intensive and extensive national wars. I would like to propose that the causes of World Wars I and II were directly related to extensive potato production and consumption. One can even attach to the madness of these wars the secret influence of the potato’s ability to bring about mind-change (as mentioned above by Judith Sumner), of which we know very little. After all this is told, the reader is possibly puzzled by these grand strikes on the white canvas producing a watercolor of a picture that might seem fantastic: the Europeans’ consumption of potatoes, which led to their high rate of reproduction and an obsession with drinking potato alcohol, thus causing them to be a bit out of control mentally and producing wars that no one could manage and that begot millions of casualties and tragedies of huge proportions.

Since the history of Jews has been my interest for many years, I will take a detour here to talk about East European Jewry. The introduction of the potato into the diet of Eastern and Central Europe, southern Russia and Poland, where Jews had resided for at least one thousand years, resulted in a quick rise in the general population, and in the Jewish population as well. It is difficult to explain the numerical rise of the East European Jewish population without taking into account the cultivation of potatoes in the vast fields of the Ukraine, Poland and Russia where the Pale settlement Jews endured over many generations. In sort of a fantastical way inspired by a fabled miracle, the potato entered Jewish religious life via the latke, or potato pancake, which has been consumed voraciously on the Chanukah holiday since its introduction in the mid-18th century. Hopefully, no one is naïve enough to suggest that the Maccabees in ancient times ate potato latkes, or levivot, or any other potato products. So we eat potatoes, and we multiply. It is difficult otherwise to figure out the increase in the Jewish population without exploring the arrival of potatoes in Eastern Europe. Jews were in tune with the other Europeans. Of course, the drastic increase of the European population led to an increase in violence in general, and to the infamous anti-Semitism in particular, which came to a boiling point in the 1880’s and caused Jews to start immigrating to America and to other Central European states. Jewish Haskalah (education) and various ideologies, among them Zionism, evolved in Eastern Europe at that time. According to historian Barbara Kreiger, a Jewish man by the name of Meshullam who lived in Palestine and converted to Christianity in the 1850’s “…planted the potatoes, which some travelers assert were unknown in Palestine at the time….The success of Meshullam’s potatoes was a momentous occasion…” [Barbara Kreiger, Divine Expectations: An American Woman in 19th-Century Palestine (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1999), p. 45] The introduction of the potato to what was then known as Palestine should be considered for its impact on the future population growth and the mental condition of the Palestinians and eventually the Zionist settlers who arrived in the 1890’s, and on the future conflict in the region.

By the early 1900’s, the potato revolution on the European continent was in full swing, and eventually, among other things, led to the Holocaust. But here an explanation is needed. The German love-affair with potatoes and potato production is a well known fact. The largest producers of potato crops by the turn of the 20th century, the Germans developed multiple uses of potatoes as food products, animal products, and alcohol and became the world’s largest consumers of potato products, all the while totally unaware of the consequences the potato would hold for them. For this population, i.e., one that was not hungry but rather well fed with potatoes, followed into the rise of Nazism led by Adolf Hitler, who advocated, among many other crazy ideas, lebensraum (in this case meaning expansion into the vast fields of Poland, the Ukraine and Russia) and the extermination of Jews. Of course, the conquest of the vast territories of Poland and Russia, especially the region where Jews were settled, ended with the Holocaust and the possibility of the Nazis (Germans) to grow more potatoes in this lebensraum. It may appear to be a bit naïve to look at the German experience during World War II and link it to potatoes, but it is inevitable in my mind not to ignore this connection. As a matter of fact, it is worthwhile to look at Gunter Grass’ renowned book and subsequently the great movie The Tin Drum to realize that his story begins with two people having sex in a potato field. I am not sure how Grass’ conscious and subconscious viewed the field of potatoes in the creation of this scene. Of course, Grass is controversial, especially recently, with his memoir, Peeling the Onion [Michael Henry Heim, translator (New York: Harcourt, 2007)], in which he admitted that as a youth, age 15 or 16, he became an SS volunteer. In any case, in the memoir, which I think represents a decent way for him to ask for forgiveness for his participation in the Nazi era experiment, he mentions potatoes at least 15 times. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for him to call his book “Peeling Potatoes” and thus close a chapter in German national and personal shame and consciousness.

Fast-food and slow food restaurants serve huge amounts of fried, baked and mashed potatoes. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the largest producers of potatoes are the Chinese and the Indians. We are not going to analyze here these nations’ mental conditions with such vast production and consumption of potatoes. There are a few more issues concerning potatoes. The American society is absolutely committed to the consumption of potatoes. In a vast product line as well as distribution, the potato has had an impact on our waistlines as well as our mental capabilities of thinking. Since the potato belongs to the night-shade family of plants, in which the leaves are poisonous, is it possible that the spud that produces the leaves has some poison in it, or, as botanist Judith Sumner and others suggest, at least some kind of mind-altering chemicals? Is it possible that in the future we will be able to produce organically a new type of potato that will be pink and will not have the toxic chemicals associated with the current potato? The future is pink.

I would like to apologize to the readers of this article for not having the time to use major libraries in my research on potatoes. Following is a short list of sources of interest about potatoes and potato usage:


Adam, Hans Karl. The International Wine and Food Society’s Guide to German Cookery. Publisher: Bonanza Books, 1967.

Bernand, Carmen. The Incas: People of the Sun. Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Bushnell, G.H.S. Ancient Peoples and Places: Peru.

Conan, Terence and Kroll, Maria. The Vegetable Book. New York: Crescent Books, 1976.

Lemnis, Maria and Vitry, Henryk. Old Polish Traditions in the Kitchen and at the Table. Warsaw: Interpress Publishers, 1979.

Midgley, John. The Goodness of Potatoes and Root Vegetables. New York: Random House, 1992.

Nelson, Kay Shaw. The Eastern European Cookbook. New York: Dover Publications, Inc; 1977.

Roberts, Annie Lise. Cornucopia: The Lore of Fruits and Vegetables. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1998.

Rysia. Old Warsaw Cook Book. New York: Roy Publishers, 1958.


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A Note:

For the past eighteen years I have resided in the Berkshires of Massachusetts in the town of Great Barrington, and I must apologize for my fixation on potatoes. However, I always remind myself of another author who lived in this region many years ago who had his own fixation. His was on whales, his name Herman Melville. It seems like this mountainous region produces writers with fixations. Unlike Melville, who did not tend his own whales, I do grow my own potatoes, especially Yukon Gold.

eliyho_matz@yahoo.com

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Barry Rubin: Robert Kagan Really Is Muslim Brotherhood's Useful Idiot

From the American Thinker:"What are we going to do -- support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East?" Thus spake Robert Kagan in advocating regime change in Egypt.

But that raises an interesting question. How many dictators is the United States supporting in the Middle East? Not many. Of course, to the Islamists the kings of Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and all the small Gulf sheikdoms are dictators. Do we regard them as such? If not, there aren't many potential dictators left.

The United States gives some help to Algeria, but that country isn't an American client. So what's left in the dictator category? Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority (though its government has outstayed its term)  and some others have governments picked in free elections. That's about it.

So with Tunisia gone, and the regime's fall welcomed by the United States, Egypt was the only dictatorship the United States was supporting. And indeed, the U.S. government overthrew two dictatorships -- in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and helped make them into (imperfect) democracies.

So was one remaining dictatorship too many? At any rate, Kagan's charge is false, unless he'd like to see the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood overthrow the monarchy with U.S. help.

On the other side, of course, there are a lot of dictatorships:  Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iran, and the Gaza Strip. Those dictatorships have proven to be pretty durable. Their number is increasing.

Almost everyone has forgotten how the regime that rules Egypt got started in the first place. Kagan's argument parallels what American policymakers said then: Why support a corrupt monarchy when there are these shiny young idealistic officers who will win over the people and thus be more effective bulwarks against Communism. I don't want to give the impression that the 1952 coup was mostly America's doing, but U.S. support was a factor.

The result was disastrous: Gamal Abdel Nasser became leader of the radical Arab faction and turned the Middle East upside-down for two decades.  

In Iran in 1978-1979 the administration of Jimmy Carter applied what we might call Kagan's rule:

"What are we going to do--support dictators for the rest of eternity because we don't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East?"

And so the United States helped push the Shah out of power in the belief that a popular democratic government would emerge, the Iranian people would be happy and they would thank America. There was no need to be afraid of Islamists "taking their share." The resulting regime has turned the region upside down now for three decades. 

Now the United States is doing the same thing. Fearful of being tarred with supporting a dictator (King Farouq, the Shah) it wants to get rid of the old ally and bring in a new democratic model. Certain that the old regime's fall is "inevitable," Washington helps it along. Scoffing at the fear of radicals (nationalists in Egypt's case; Islamists in Iran's case), the United States opens the door wide to them, certain it will be rewarded for that generosity.

Is Robert Kagan an Agent of the Muslim Brotherhood?

After reading this Washington Post column threatening to punish Egypt if it successfully puts down the current Muslim Brotherhood coup attempt, one might reasonably think so...

Of course, Kagan may not be a conscious agent, or in the pay of the Muslim Brotherhood. In which case, he must be be a fellow-traveller, dupe, stooge, or useful idiot.

Andrew McCarthy on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

From National Review:

But we have to mind that. History is rarely a Manichean contest between good and evil. It’s not a choice between the pro-Western shah and Iranian freedom, but between the shah and Khomeini’s ruthless Islamist revolution. It’s not a choice between the pro-Western Musharraf and Pakistani freedom, but between Musharraf and a tense alliance of kleptocratic socialists and Islamists. Back in the 1940s, it was not a choice between the British-backed monarchy and Egyptian freedom, but between the monarchy and a conglomeration of Nasserite pan-Arab socialists, Soviet Communists, and Brotherhood Islamists. And today, the choice is not between the pro-American Mubarak and Egyptian freedom; it is a question of whether to offer tepid support to a pro-American dictator or encourage swift transition to a different kind of tyranny — one certain to be a lot worse for us, for the West at large, and for our Israeli ally: the Muslim Brotherhood tempered only, if at all, by Mohamed ElBaradei, an anti-American leftist who willfully abetted Iran’s nuclear ambitions while running the International Atomic Energy Agency.

History is not a quest for freedom. This is particularly true in the Islamic ummah, where the concept of freedom is not reasoned self-determination, as in the West, but nearly the opposite: perfect submission to Allah’s representative on earth, the Islamic state. Coupled with a Western myopia that elevates democratic forms over the culture of liberty, the failure to heed this truth has, in just the past few years, put Hamas in charge of Gaza, positioned Hezbollah to topple the Lebanese government, and presented Islamists with Kosovo — an enduring sign that, where Islam is concerned, the West can be counted on to back away even from the fundamental principle that a sovereign nation’s territorial integrity is inviolable.

The Obama administration has courted Egyptian Islamists from the start. It invited the Muslim Brotherhood to the president’s 2009 Cairo speech, even though the organization is officially banned in Egypt. It has rolled out the red carpet to the Brotherhood’s Islamist infrastructure in the U.S. — CAIR, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Society of North America, the Ground Zero mosque activists — even though many of them have a documented history of Hamas support. To be sure, the current administration has not been singular in this regard. The courting of Ikhwan-allied Islamists has been a bipartisan project since the early 1990s, and elements of the intelligence community and the State Department have long agitated for a license to cultivate the Brotherhood overtly. They think what Anwar Sadat thought: Hey, we can work with these guys.

There is a very good chance we are about to reap what they’ve sown. We ought to be very afraid.

BTW, the Muslim Brotherhood has it's own English-language website: http://www.ikhwanweb.com.

US State Department Discusses Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Role

From today's daily press briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

QUESTION: Yeah, what about the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, again --

QUESTION: How about Ayman Nour?

QUESTION: Are you talking to the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: This is not our process. This is not our list. We do not have a favorite candidate or candidates. We are not going to anoint any successor to President Mubarak. These are decisions to be made by the Egyptian people as part of a transition that occurs in Egypt. Our point is this transition, this process to fundamental change needs to begin now. If any figure wants to play a role in this process, they can come forward. If any group --

QUESTION: Does that include the Muslim Brotherhood? Does that include the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: If any group wants to come forward and play a role in a democratic process, a peaceful process, that is their right as Egyptians. It’s not for us, the United States, to dictate this.

QUESTION: What about the Muslim Brotherhood? Can you talk about the Muslim Brotherhood and whether there have been any contacts with them and whether you think that the Muslim Brotherhood should be part of any political process? You say you’re not going to anoint anybody, but what if a figure from Muslim Brotherhood emerges as the primary candidate to lead the country?

MR. CROWLEY: Again --

QUESTION: Specifically on the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: We have not met with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: Have you spoken to --

QUESTION: Okay. Can – no, but what if – should they be part of a political process?

MR. CROWLEY: No, we have had no contact with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: But should they be part of a political process? They obviously have a following in the country.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, again, that is up to them. They are a fact of life in Egypt. They are highly organized. And if they choose, and if they choose to participate and respect the democratic process, that is a – those are decisions to be made inside Egypt. The army obviously will play a role in this transition. There are a broad variety of political figures, political groups, political actors that can participate if they choose. These are decisions to be made inside Egypt.

QUESTION: Have you met – have you asked to meet the Muslim Brotherhood?

MR. CROWLEY: No.

QUESTION: Why not?

QUESTION: Wait. P.J. --

QUESTION: Well, it’s obvious that the --

QUESTION: I mean, you’ve met with other opposition members. Who – can you say who you’ve met with? Ayman Nour, you’ve met with – can you give a decent --

MR. CROWLEY: I don’t have a list here. We are doing an aggressive, active outreach to a broad range of figures. We have always done that. We’re going to continue to do that. We’ve been very active in the last few days. I can’t detail all the people we have and have not. You asked a specific question. We have not had contact with the Muslim Brotherhood.

QUESTION: But why don’t you meet with the Muslim Brotherhood? What’s the reason not to meet with them?

MR. CROWLEY: I’m – we will meet with figures. If we meet with anyone along those lines, we’ll let you know.

QUESTION: Do you give conditions before you meet with people?

QUESTION: Are you saying that the reports about the meeting with – that Ambassador Wisner has had with the Muslim Brotherhood representatives is false?

MR. CROWLEY: I was in touch with Ambassador Wisner on the airplane as he was coming back. He had two meetings, one with President Mubarak and one with Vice President Suleiman.

QUESTION: So is the report false or is it not false?

MR. CROWLEY: I mean, I’m just telling you he had two meetings. So if you’re saying, "Did Mr. Wisner meet with the Muslim Brotherhood," the answer is no.

QUESTION: Why is it obvious that the army is going to play a role in this transition? This is a democratic transition. Shouldn’t it be led by civilians only?

MR. CROWLEY: Again, it’s not for us to determine who wants to participate. The army is a respected institution within Egyptian society. You’re going to go through fundamental changes in Egyptian society. The army, as a respected institution, can play a role in this. But again, these are decisions to be made inside Egypt.

QUESTION: P.J., could you share with us the future --

QUESTION: But why didn’t – wouldn’t it have made sense – wouldn’t it make sense to leave Frank Wisner on the ground a bit longer? You keep talking about the private advice you’re giving the government. You sent this trusted emissary over, he had two meetings, and he came back. Was there nothing more for him to do?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we have an Ambassador, Margaret Scobey, who conducts our day-to-day business with the Government of Egypt. She is doing a brilliant job. She is engaged with members of civil society. She is engaged with political figures every day. And she will be our point person on a day-to-day basis as --

QUESTION: Should we --

MR. CROWLEY: -- Egypt goes through this transition.

QUESTION: Should we interpret that, then, to mean that Wisner accomplished what he was sent there to do? Or that the response was such that there was no point in him staying any longer?

MR. CROWLEY: Ambassador Wisner has a longstanding relationship with President Mubarak and other key leaders within the Egyptian Government. We thought it was useful for Ambassador Wisner to go over and have a two-way conversation as a means of providing his perspective to President Mubarak given their friendship, and also to bring back his judgment as to what the situation is at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government. He will report back to the President and the Secretary when he lands.

Martin Kramer: Obama's Egypt

From Martin Kramer's Facebook response to a recent story on The Atlantic online:

Did White House staff really get a briefing informing them that "Egypt wasn't a Muslim country" and that "Hosni Mubarak was a Coptic Christian of a certain sect"?

US NGOs Become Haiti Election Issue

As a result of the election, Haitians have begun a revolt against NGOs, according to today's Washington Post:

Haitian officials speak of being "overrun" by "an invasion" of NGOs. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said that foreign NGOs operate in Haiti with little regard to government planning and that their presence, while necessary, can actually undermine long-term recovery efforts. By funneling most aid dollars through the NGOs rather than the government, which struggles with a legacy of corruption, the NGOs condemn the country to a cycle of dependence, he said.

Michel Martelly, the popular carnival singer who has become a top contender in the chaotic presidential election, promised that if elected, his government would rein in the NGOs and change how they do business in Haiti.

"We will allow them to function, but I will tell them what to do and where to do it," Martelly said in an interview. "We are going to impose a system to oversee what is done. We are going to get control of them."

NEA Chair Rocco Landesman Tells It Like It Is

The National Endowment for the Arts Chair himself has said it...and it's greatly to his credit:

Examine our arts infrastructure. There are 5.7 million arts workers in this country and two million artists. Do we need three administrators for every artist? Resident theaters in this country began as collectives of artists. They have become collectives of arts administrators. Do we need to consider becoming more lightly institutionalized in order to get more creativity to more audiences more often? It might also allow us to pay artists more.

BRAVO ROCCO! BRAVO!

More at Linda Essig's CreativeInfrastructure blog.

Groundhog Day Verdict: No Shadow This Year

Via the Huffington Post:

Punxsutawney Phil emerged just after dawn on Groundhog Day to make his 125th annual weather forecast in front of a smaller-than-usual crowd who braved muddy, icy conditions to hear his handlers reveal that he had not seen his shadow.

Including Wednesday's forecast, Phil has seen his shadow 98 times and hasn't seen it just 16 times since 1887, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, which runs the event. There are no records for the remaining years, though the group has never failed to issue a forecast.

Two years ago, Phil's forecast also acknowledged the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl XLIII win the night before. This year, Sunday's game was mentioned in the forecast but no winner was predicted between the Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, who meet in Dallas for Super Bowl XLV.

"The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl," Mike Johnson, vice president of the Inner Circle, said just before the forecast was read, drawing cheers from the clearly partisan crowd gathered on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in this borough of about 6,100 residents some 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.

In reality, Pennsylvania's prophetic rodent doesn't see much of anything. The result is actually decided in advance by 14 members of the Inner Circle, who don tuxedos and top hats for the event.

Marc Ginsberg on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

From the Huffington Post:

Given its status as an illegal organization, there are only rough guestimates how many Egyptians would identify themselves as either members or support of the Brotherhood until its cells emerge from their secret hiding places.

That poses a real dilemma for anyone trying to accurately predict the Brotherhood's political strength in any free and fair election, of which there hasn't been any in Egypt.

Moreover, since 1928, its virulent paleo-jihadi salafist ideology remains a cornerstone of its political charter. It's Arabic motto remains unchanged: "Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope... Allahu akbar!"

And despite efforts to sanitize its salafist rhetoric, the Brotherhood is patently undemocratic in its rigid orthodoxy. Although banned, it fields candidates for Egypt's parliament as "independents" and have, by objective observers, accounted for garnering at least 20% of the parliamentary vote in 2005. No one knows what would happen if it were permitted to field more candidates in a free and fair election.

It's preoccupation with Egypt's parliamentary elections is merely a means to an end. The Brothers have been consistent in their goal to use whatever political avenues avail themselves to monopolize power, and then, pass whatever man-made laws are necessary to usher in Allah's ultimate law on the land.

Also, let us not forget that the Muslim Brotherhood is the primary benefactor and best friend of the terrorist organization, Hamas, which it spawned. However it may be cloaked in inoffensive-sounding language, the Brothers share Hamas' unmitigated hatred of Jews and Israel. And it is the hub of a largely underground radical Islamist political wheel, with many spokes in each major Arab nation... a true transnational Islamic political apparatus.

This is just the tip of a deep, foreboding iceberg. It would be short-sighted and naive for anyone to assert that as currently constituted, the Brotherhood has defanged itself to accommodate its future to a globalizing, more peaceful moderate Islamic institution.

Nonie Darwish on Egypt

From the Huffington Post:

I am therefore not optimistic that the current uprising will bring democracy. Many Egyptians believe they can combine democracy with Sharia Islamic law. That is the first unrealistic expectation. Sixty percent of Egyptians want to live under Sharia law, but do not understand the ramifications. Many chant "Allahu Akbar" and "Islam is the solution." But the truth is, Islam can be the problem.

The most dangerous law in Sharia that stands in the way of democracy is the one that states, "A Muslim head of state can hold office through seizure of power, meaning through force." That law is why Muslim leaders turn into despots in order to survive. When a Muslim leader is removed from office by force, we often see the Islamic media and masses accept it and even cheer for the new leader who has just ousted or killed the former leader, who is often called a traitor to the Islamic cause.

That was what happened to the Egyptian King Farouk in 1952. The assassination of Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, followed many fatwas of death against him for having violated his Islamic obligations to make Israel an eternal enemy. He became an apostate in the eyes of the hard-liners and had to be killed or removed from office. This is the reality of what Sharia has done and is still doing that causes political chaos in the Muslim world.

Many in the Muslim world lack the understanding of what is hindering them, as well as the foundation for forming a stable democratic political system. I fear that my brothers and sisters in Egypt will embrace extremism instead of education. I worry that they will continue to rise and fall, stumbling from one revolution to another and living from one autocrat to another while seeking the ideal Islamic state that never was. The 1,400 year old Islamic history of tyranny will continue unless Sharia law is rejected as the basis of the legal and political systems in Muslim countries.

Anyone Remember the Iranian Revolution?

I couldn't believe the National Review Online editorial today supporting the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt, just "not yet." Unbelievable.

Does anyone there remember how the Iranian Revolutions progressed from 1979 onwards? Khomeni waited in the wings while "progressive" forces squabbled and fell. All he had to do--much like Lenin--was pick up the pieces, then brutally crush any opposition.

To me, the return of El Baradei to Egypt, no doubt with Western support, sounds very much like Carter administration praise for Bani Sadr around the fall of the Shah. The US and western European powers were looking for a mythical "third way."

Did that work out well for the US? Think carefully...

Now the Muslim Brotherhood is coming out of the shadows in Egypt, the Islamists are flexing their muscles in Tunisia, Lebanon has come under the sway of Hezbollah.

American moves to bolster the Muslim Brotherhood are coming to fruition. How this is supposed to bring about world peace is beyond me.

If Mubarak doesn't crack down hard, he won't be around much longer in Egypt--and neither will the USA, IMHO.

In that case, Obama would go down in history as a worse US President than Jimmy Carter, if that's possible...

Happy Birthday, Robert Burns!

Sincere Sympathies to our Russian Readers...

News reports of a suicide bomber attack in Moscow are deeply upsetting. My sincere sympathies to our Russian readers.

I only hope this might lead the US, UK and EU to stop their support of Chechen and Islamist guerrilla fighters in Russia, the former USSR, and around the world.

Unless and until the US fully cooperates with Russia and China to entirely stamp out Islamism, just as the Allies stamped out Nazism--including ending overt and covert Western support for Chechen and Uighur terrorism--IMHO, Islamism will remain a serious threat to world peace...

Republican Plan to Cut USAID Funding Would Hurt Taliban--IMHO, a Very Good Thing

According to The Hill blog, the Republican Study Committee has proposed cutting funding for the US Agency for International Development. I think that this is a very important step towards beating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It has been reported that the "hearts and minds" campaign run by NGOs and USAID since 9/11 has funneled billions of dollars to the Taliban and allies of Al Qaeda--no doubt some of it ending up in the hands of Osama Bin Laden, despite denials, since dollars are fungible (as proven in the NEA and PBS debates of the 1990s).

For example, Jean MacKenzie has covered this problem for years in the Global Post. Her conclusion is that the Taliban is a business partner for USAID that cannot be dumped.

If major donors cannot hope to control their partners even in Kabul, they have very little possibility of being able to do much in war zones.

No matter how unpalatable the Talban’s more repressive practices might be to most Afghans, they are a reality that must be dealt with. A weak, corrupt government and a foreign presence whose commitment seems to be waning precipitously cannot provide much of a defense against an insurgency that shows few signs of flagging.

I wrote a series of pieces on Taliban funding a little over a year ago, and for a while I became a favorite interlocutor for USAID officials, Congressional staffers, and others involved in the process. With something close to desperation, they would all ask the same question: how can this be stopped?

I was unable to provide an answer.

We cannot expect those who risk their lives to bring development projects to some of the most insecure areas of the country to forego the small measure of safety they try to purchase by negotiating with the Taliban. Nor can we hope to catch it all — there are simply too many bureaucratic nooks and crannies where payments to the Taliban can be hidden.

One sure way to defund the Taliban, given the failure of USAID to stop paying protection or bribes to the enemy would be for Congress to defund USAID. Shut down the NGOs in Afghanistan who support them. End America's failed "hearts and minds" campaign, and its subsidies to Islamists, terrorists, mafias, warlords and Al Qaeda sympathizers, as well as misguided American charity workers.

If the US military wants to pay off a warlord, it will be their call, not disguised as a "humanitarian mission" -- IMHO, USAID has given humanitarian intervention a bad name in any case.

Ending funding for USAID may not win the war, but at least it would end a US taxpayer subsidy to our enemies. That alone would be a step in the right direction.