There were cargo cults on New Guinea at the sites of crashes of C-47s. No doubt they adopted some images from things they found in the planes. Does that mean these cults were "mixtures of traditional New Guinea animism and Americanism?" I don't think so. There is no serious theology in voodoo, and certainly voodoo does not respect a single secondary Roman Catholic concept, much less a primary one. There was once a 19th century emperor in China who thought he was the brother of Jesus - literally - and he brought horrible disaster to his country. But it can hardly be fairly said his madness was in any sense Christian.

Is Tan. As in the color tan. As in tannic acid - made from the bark of an Oak tree - which is tan - which is valuable for preserving hides - which are tan. Tan was thought to be the color of fire and of the sun. Tan was the source of heat in two senses - fire immediately and the sun for seasons. But Tan is not female - tan is male. HE rules the gods of the day. The female Keltic deity (in the British Isles) is the Mother Earth Goddess - and her priestess is the Lady of the Lake. Offerings to her are dropped in a pond ("lake"). Offerings to Tan are burned, and the smoke carries them up - to the sky - where Tan lives! {I am Keltic. Gaelic is my cultural language. Some of it replaced German when Angelish became English - thus the gods of passion are our adjectives - there are five but I only remember four - Lust - Hate - Envy and Anger. Capitalized because they were proper names. See Ivanhoe for a literary version of this.]

Ya, das boote ist "feminine" auf Deutsch.

There were many gods and goddesses, but perhaps I'm confusing the Brigit Diety with a water or fertility one. I'll ask a celtic scholar I know and get back to you. Not sure about your English replacement theory though. Scottish and Irish Gaelic, Cornish, Welsh and Manx were brutally suppressed by the English (the celtic fringe feeling the impact of empire long before the rest of the world). Anglo Saxon languages have had a far more dramatic effect on the Celtic Languges. Cornish is dead, Manx and Welsh are dying, Scots and Irish Gaelic are in better shape but there are still more men in Scotland who beat their wives than there are speakers of Gaelic. For a country whose population will drop below 4 million, this is sorry state of affairs. As for Santeria not having a theology - no, it's a folk religion and that what makes it so - the lack of systematic theology. So magic, myth, story, possession and intitiation all play a more important role than a 'theological religion". Associating Santeria and Voodoo with catholicism was an act of subversion, and was more or less tolerated by the catholic spanish and french, who, bastards as they were, were not quite as bad as the English, who being protestant would have none of it. The old relgion in Jamaica was practiced in total secret. uchiita PS I find it interesting that the Irish Diety of War (Macha) was a woman. There is a particular legend where she challaged the young men of one particular tribe to fight, beat them all and left them strung up in the forest. The lesson being, that if you make War your god, she will consume you.

All wet? Just as well. Water puts out flames, you know. Cuddly? PTSD? Perhaps you are not big on irony. I sincerely doubt you were trying to make me laugh with the Ship post, but if you were just trying to amuse me, you succeaded. Personally these things are too important for me get all upset because someone thinks I've picked the wrong 'sandbox' to play in. Before I can post anything, I need to understand what it is you mean by 'feminist psychobabble". We must agree on what the terms we use actually mean or the debate will become circuitous. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> As I've said and you constantly ignore, it was your Flamebaiting about the US Govt. and your SICK allusion to BURNing Soldiers that earned you the shot across the bow! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I have friends and family in Iraq just now, (serving in the coalition forces, before you make some kind of comment). If you truelly have respect for these people, then you will question why the US - and UK - government is placing them in harm's way, rather than lending your support unconditionally to what many believe is an act of political opportunism rather than justified military action. Real patriotism is not about believing your country is the best just because you happened to be born in it. A man - or a woman - who loves his/her country will question that nations actions in the international sphere, and set it against the values that the national holds dear. And, loathe as I am to say it, soldiers are paid to take the heat. The 10,000 + civilians who have died since the war began are not. (Before you ask me to site the source, it comes from Amnesty International, who also roundly condemn the fact that the US Gov. has ceased counting the numbers of civilian dead and wounded in Iraq. Because of deliberate defense policy, the true numbers are hard to quantify. When asked about it, General Tommy Franks, US Central Command replied "We don't do body counts". And yet,when it comes to the numbers of military dead, the counting is meticulous. This comes on top of the thousands who died as a direct result of the Gulf War, which breached article 48 of the Geneva Conventions by hitting sewerage, water supply infrastructure and hospitals, and the sanctions against Iraq in the 90s. Now I can give you some papers to chew on for that: From The Children are Dying: Reports by UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Since August 1990, 567,000 children in Iraq have died as a consequence of the sanctions. THE LANCET, Volume 346 Number 8988. Saturday December 2, 1995. After the sanctions, there was a two-fold increase in infant mortality and a five-fold increase in under-5 mortality. The LANCET (a british Medical journal) Volume 346, Number 8988. Saturday December 2, 1995. There are 4,500 children under the age of 5 dying each month from hunger and disease. In Central/Southern Iraq, 27.5 percent of Iraq's three million children (some 900,000) are now at risk of acute malnutrition. UNICEF Report Due to the hazards of the water supply, government statistical office figures show 1,819 cases of typhoid fever in 1989 and 24,436 cases in 1994. Similarly, there were no reported cases of cholera in 1989, but 1,345 cases in 1994. >From "The Children are Dying": Reports by UN Food and Agricultural Organization. Fifty percent of rural people have no access to potable water. Waste-water treatment facilities have stopped functioning in most urban areas. UN Department ot Humanitarian Affairs In rural areas, only half the people have access to a water supply from a network, public tap, or well, and only 34 percent have a sanitary type of latrine. UNICEF Report I am not in anyway calling into question the honour courage and sacrifice of men and women serving in Iraq, except those, of course, who followed illegal orders and breached the Geneva Conventions on PWO treatment. However, the assault against this nation over the past decade, has lead to Iraq being a breeding ground for hate. One Iraqi life is not worth less than a US or British life. If we are morally outraged at the civilian deaths during 9/11, then we cannot afford to be selective in our compassion. Another illuminating paper can be found at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq1003/ - Post War Casulaties. I have no card but the truth card, and the truth is all I'm interested in, not cheep ideological potshots. I am as horrified at death as you are. Let's keep each other honest, my friend. Pax? Uchiita

"Wrong. If this were so, being Jewish or Islamic would not permit one to have a security clearance in the USA or any other country. Also wrong in the sense "dar es Salaam" is not a nation state to which one can be loyal in a political sense." You are refering to current political realities and not to the concepts laid out by the books of the religion in question. I'm aware of the different lines of thought in both religions, and the varying degrees to which to be a Jew is to be a part of a culture, an ethnic group, and a religion (and not necessarily all three). However, even the most superficial reading of the old Testaments reveals that it is a national narrative. Granted, at some point it becomes a multi-national narrative (as the tribe of Judah breaks off and becomes its own nation), but even then the explicit longing of all the prophets is for the the reuniting of the nations under the 'throne of David'. It's the very phyiscality of this expectation which makes Jesus such an unacceptable Messiah. Both the Abrahamic and Mosiac covenents which are central to Jewish faith are explicitly national convenents. First, that God will make of Abraham a great nation (Genesis 15-17), and secondly that God will provide the laws (and be the King over) the Jewish people (Exodus 6:7, Leviticus 16:12). Whatever Judism may be today, it is explicitly in its conception and narrative a national identity. In mainstream Islam and Judism today, these are ideas which are discussed in the same spiritual terms that they are discussed by Christianity, but that wasn't always true but rather is something that political necessity is forced on that body of believers. Judism as a non-national convenant was forced onto Judiasm when the Leviticite tradition was utterly destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Growth of the Rabbianic tradition and of a Judism that was not tied to a particular place (Mt. Zion) or nationality (Israel) was a necessity if the religion was to survive. But if you read the book, it's hard to escape the fact that the original authors deeply tied there faith to a place and a nation. No 4th century B.C. Jew would think of the jewish people in anything but nationalistic terms regardless of were he was living. It's true that the Jews were a very cosmopolitian people even in antiquity, but one must not draw false conclusions about the nature of nationality in antiquity being the same as the nature of nationality today (most especially nationality as practiced by Americans). No 1st century (Moslem calender) Moslem would think about being Moslem in anything but national terms. "Although a Christian, I deliberately associate with Jewish people..." Whoa there. What makes you think I don't? Forget my Christianity for a second, as a scientist it would be nearly impossible to avoid knowing Jews. "Of all the Jewish people I know, the only ones not fun to be around are those who are (as you imagine most are) dedicated to what might be called radical Israeli nationalism..." Heck, of all the Jewish people I know, some of the most fun to hang around are those dedicated to what is (let's be honest) radical Israeli nationalism (those these days it sometimes seems radical to suggest that Israel has a right to exist). That doesn't mean I necessarily agree with their politics, but it does mean I'm not about to let politics or religion get in the way of a friendship. "This is not a majority - even in Israel itself." Well, that may be so, but its still worth noting that a) the current state of Israel is not the same as the ancient state of Israel, and b) there is nonetheless inherent in the conception of the state of Israel the idea of a pan-Jewish nationality. And more importantly, this is all a tangental issue. If Judism and Islam are not nationalistic identities (and I freely admit that they are not necessarily so), then they are also not alternatives to having a particular civic identity and do not explain what the other options one might have to a civic identity than a national one or one based on personal loyalty. After all, you are only arguing that one can have a Jewish identity and a national identity other than Jewish (which I fully admit as obvious). But you then aren't really addressing what you would invest your civic loyalty in as an alternative to a national identity, which is what started this conversation in the first place.

"This is a relationship that conservative Cold Warriors now no longer wish to recall: They seemingly suffer from amnesia on the subject of their former comrades." I don't know about conservative Cold Warriors, but I wish to recall it. I had the oppurtunity to meet one of the Afghan muhajideen fighters in the U.S. in the late 80's. His son's feet had been twisted into pretzels by a soviet land mine (but it was a miracle he still had feet). He had come to the U.S. seeking physical theraphy, and he had become close friends with the nurse who happened to go to our church. The son of the nurse and the son of the freedom fighter (and I think he deserves the title) played together. The man came and attended our church one Sunday out of respect for his Christian friend. Yeah, I think it would be very good to recall our friendship with the Afghan muhajideen especially in these troubled times. It would also be worth noting that the U.S. was most particularly interested in supporting native resistance to the soviets, and not in recruiting foreign groups to fight in Afghanistan. The foriegn resistance groups (which would include Osama Bin Ladin's groups) were almost entirely funded through donations from various high placed Saudis. I'll freely admit that the CIA is oft times incompotant, but they weren't that stupid. "Mamdani points out that during the Reagan presidency, the American, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence agencies shared the objective of uniting the most radical anti-communist Islamist movements worldwide in a jihad against the godless Soviets. Islamist radicals were thus recruited from the entire Arab-Islamic world, including Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and such Western countries as the United States and England. Provocatively, the author asserts that the Reagan administration "rescued right-wing Islamism" from a "historical cul-de-sac" and, moreover, that it helped create a terrorist infrastructure worldwide where one did not exist." Right there I stop listening, because it's clear that the author's bias is too bad to be even worth bothering with. Notice the slight of hand that occurs in the above paragraph: "the American, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence agencies shared the objective of uniting the most radical anti-communist Islamist movements worldwide in a jihad against the godless Soviets...the Reagan administration "rescued right-wing Islamism" from a "historical cul-de-sac" Somehow I doubt that the CIA put its goals in quite those terms, but make no mistake that the Saudi's did put there goals is precisely those terms. I find it funny that the author puts the principal onus on the U.S. (and not merely the U.S. but Ronald Reagan) for organizing the Jihad, when in fact the Saudi government funded the Afghan resistance every bit as generously as the U.S. did. Nor was the U.S. the principal fund raiser behind the "mosques, madrassas (schools of Islamic learning) and proselytizing institutions." In the case of the U.S. grant to the university of Nebraska to provide textbooks, I wonder who wrote the textbook. Allow to make as a wild guess that it was a chair in Islamic studies endowed by the government of Saudi Arabia, since during the same period the government of Saudi Arabia wasn't limiting its prosletyzing to the far East. Let's be frank. What rescued Islamic fundamentalism from the cul-de-sac of history was oil revenues, not any military aid provided to Afghanistan by the American government. "Mamdani also skates dangerously close to drawing a moral equivalent between U.S. foreign policy and al Qaeda." I'd say so.

I don't think Islam is at all nationalistic, above all not in the modern sense of the word or even in the Jewish sense of the word, for Islam is remarkably universalistic. The "ummah" includes all who believe, and qualities that identify nations (location, language, ethnicity, race, whatever) are remarkably unimportant. That's one of the good things about Islam. Yet if it's not nationalistic, one might make a case that it's imperialist. For the "ummah" is supposed to grow and to win. Jews, as Celebrim rightly points out, have had a good 2000 years to learn how to be a nation without a nation, to turn everything into ideas and symbols and to make their peace with being a minority, that is, being powerless (although this was learned much earlier with the Babylonian exile). Another way to put it is that Jews have learned how to be history's "losers" and still stand tall and move on. Islam has never learned to deal with losing, which requies major mental retooling. It's not easy, especially since Islam's golden days were spectacular. That's my impression, any way. So Muslims are forced to either wallow in resentment or chose among a number of generally poor options for how best to get back on their feet. Ataturk offered one. Nasser another. The Baathists a third. Are there more? That's what Muslims seem to need. Good alternatives to being better than Caliban and just howling in resentment. I am optimistic that American Muslims will come up with some sort of 'reform' Islam that will enable them to make their peace with being Americans and Western. There are already signs of it.

Before I can post anything, I need to understand what it is you mean by 'feminist psychobabble". We must agree on what the terms we use actually mean or the debate will become circuitous. Like I said: As a professional courtesy I'd wait to attack your "MOUNTING" Theory until you provide your references. As you'll recall, you proffered said construct as a license to use the "Sexist Card"! Still waiting Ms! Suggest you reread your "Mounting Theory" post for a good example of Feminist Psychobabble! Or if you'd prefer "Ms-information"! http://www.florida-cracker.net/archives/000124.html I have friends and family in Iraq just now, (serving in the coalition forces...uch So do I, and that's only three reasons why I took offence with the particularly obnoxious imagery you used to introduce yourself here! Real patriotism is not about believing your country is the best -uch You wouldn't know "real patriotism" is it jumped up and bitya on the kiester! Or you wouldn't be offering aid & comfort to the enemy by attacking the US & UK goverments with enemy propaganda! And, loathe as I am to say it, soldiers are paid to take the heat.--uch Yeah! I had you pegged as card-carrying member of the Madeline Albright(dim) school of anti-USMilfors! Make sure you Dance with the PRK dictator while you're over there in Korea! The 10,000 + civilians who have died since the war began are ...the true numbers are hard to quantify...uch 10,000 is that all? I thought we nailed a lot more of those AK47 carrying SOBs! This comes on top of the thousands who died as a direct result of the Gulf War... Maybe you missed(pun not intended) it, but it was the UN, France, Russia, George Galoway etc., in cooperation with goofy Hans Blix, and Saddam & Sons who bled the "Oil for Food" program dry! But of course it's so much more popular in the 3rd world Cesspool Salons to blame the USA! ...the assault against this nation over the past decade, has lead to Iraq being a breeding ground for hate.--uch Ah ha I see, soooo the 30+ years of Saddam's Love-In had nothing to do with breeding "Hate"! Thanks for the enlightenment! One Iraqi life is not worth less than a US or British life. --uch Amen/women to that! Saddam has made them worth MUCH less! However, the USA is making great strides toward increasing their Net Worth as well as Self Worth. I have no card but the truth card- uch Don't sell yourself short kid! In addition to the Sexist Card, you play the Socialist Propaganda Card as well as any putz I've ever seen. I am as horrified at death as you are. The Grim Reaper doesn't scare me -- all of us have a date with the recyclers! What really scares me is that if people like you get the power to actually sell your world view to the gullible masses of useful idiots! Thank God there's 7 young females with my blood in their veins, to offset the Ms-information you're pandering! On Watch -- Let's Roll

I'm not sure wheter scholars (like Uchiita) have already read this or not, but the links to these military classics should give some starting point for becoming familiar with military thought: - Sun Tzu: http://www.sonshi.com/learn.html - Clausewitz: http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/PrincWar/Princwr1.htm - Various http://www.bellum.nu/wp/warphi.html - Interesting articles http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/