Sunday, May 25, 2008

Patton on Arab Muslims

“To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of thee Arab.  He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept developing.”

- General George S. Patton in War as I Knew It. 

Discuss.

(9) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2026 hrs
Culture + Military

  1. Great generals are not necessarily great statesmen.  That’s why we keep the jobs separate.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 26, 2008 at 0720 hrs


  2. While that statement is undoubtedly true, it’s not really applicable to the statement by Patton above.  That statement was said in his diary.  I don’t think that people are required to be statesmen in their diaries.

    Posted by Owen on May 26, 2008 at 1030 hrs


  3. Depends on who he means by “we.”

    Posted by jesusisjustalrightwithme on May 26, 2008 at 1053 hrs


  4. That statement was not true. It was ignorant.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 26, 2008 at 2109 hrs


  5. I am presently reading Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith and Fantasy and that is an attitude that has been expressed by Americans and other westerners since our first involvement with the middle east during the Barbary Wars.

    I highly recommend the book.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 26, 2008 at 2116 hrs


  6. It’s no different than Churchill’s statement in his 2-volume book “The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of Sudan”:

    How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

    “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

    This was written in 1899.  Sound familiar?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 26, 2008 at 2318 hrs


  7. Keith, Please… elaborate.  Patton considered himself so smart, I would love to see someone deconstruct him.  Of course, if your reasoning is that the ignorance is self evident… eh, it is what I expect from you.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 27, 2008 at 0932 hrs


  8. Labeling adherents to a religion in that fashion is not an intelligent viewpoint. A good many Christians, if we can call them that, have a violent streak—Hagee, Coulter, Robertson, etc. Should we condemn Christianity because of them?

    Also that statement about development after 700. Islam gave us principles of math and science that we more advanced than western society at the time and beyond.

    Patton should have confined his assessments of things to woopin’ ass.

    Seems to me Muslims didn’t have much to do with starting WWI and WWII.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 27, 2008 at 1521 hrs


  9. Good thoughts…cool.  But to answer:

    Christians do not have violence as a major tenet of their religion.  It has been interpreted that way at times, but it was never dogma.

    One could argue, as many great inventors give credit to their wives, that your second paragraph is a point in my argument’s favor.  Pure science and math has been deemed man’s milieu, and kept so in Muslim countries.  Without a wife to suggest the practical, all society has received from Muslim thinkers are the abstract.  can you name, or even google, an important invention that has come out of a full Muslim nation in the last 300 or so years?

    This was definitely his strong point, but he was so good because he studied people and cultures to figure out how they thought so he could then out think them.

    Neither did Christians, what’s your point?  As a matter of history, neither the Germans under Hitler, nor the Japanese were big on Christianity.  And WW1 was not fought because of religious views either.

    I am still not convinced he was ignorant.  In fact, if you do not think the Muslim nation has ‘arrested development’ or that they still degrade and own their women, I would still lean to you being the ignorant one.  American Muslims are not the norm.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 27, 2008 at 1604 hrs


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.