Guenther Grass, the German novelist and Nobel prize-winner, has been oh-so-very-keen to moralize all his life. Everyone must tell the truth, that is his message, and Germans especially must tell the truth because for ever their country will be associated with Auschwitz. Truth-telling for him meant criticizing the United States at every opportunity, defending the Soviet Union as far as possible, and pointing an accusing finger at fellow Germans for covering up their Hitlerite past.
To be sure, The Tin Drum the novel that won him the Nobel Prize always looked more like a cover-up of Nazism than a critique of it. Its line is that Hitler was an evil magician who cast a spell over helpless Germans. In simple reality, Hitler was a politician who told the Germans exactly what they wanted to hear, and they voted him into power, and then fought for him to the bitter end. Germans believed that they were making a rational choice in backing Hitler, and to ascribe the compact they made with him to magic is to apologize for it.
And now it emerges that our oh-so-moral Grass was a member of the SS, a fact that he has been carefully concealing since 1945. So much for truth-telling, and forcing his fellow Germans to confront their ugly past. His biographer, a specially disillusioned man, says that the revelation now puts in doubt from a moral point of view anything he has ever told us. Indeed so. Grasss constant attacks on the United States and the free world, for instance, turn out to be mere repetitions and embellishments of everything his SS instructors will have taught him about the wickedness of democracy and capitalism. His name will be associated for ever with hypocrisy.
#1
Let me borrow from something I posted in another thread on another of my favorite blogs:
Grass, at age 17, joined the SS, a fanatical pagan anti-Semitic organization dedicated to nationalistic socialism (what do you think "Nazi" stands for?) which, among other things, committed atrocities on an industrial scale.
After the war, he transferred his allegiance to communism, a fanatical atheistic, anti-Semitic ideology which, among other things, committed atrocities on an industrial scale (and still does in China and North Korea and Cuba). Communism collapsed, but Grass continues to be an adherent to the anti-globalist position.
After 9/11, he has been openly supportive of al-Qaida, a fanatical anti-Semitic organization which, among other things, seeks to commit atrocities on an industrial scale.
Does anyone else see a pattern here?
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 13:31 Comments ||
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#2
Stick with Ernst Junger. For Junger, National Socialism was too soft, pointlessly racist, and shallow.
ISRAEL'S war against the Middle East's first true terrorist army provides tough military and strategic lessons - old, new, and all too often disheartening. Israel's been winning on the ground. And still losing the war.
This bitter conflict raises troubling questions, too. Some are identical to those confronting us in Iraq. Many have troubling answers. Others have no real answers at all.
The elementary fact - which far too many in the West deny - is that our civilization has been forced into a defensive war to the death with fanatical strains of Islam - both Shi'a and Sunni. We may be on the offensive militarily, but we did not start this war - and it's all one war, from 9/11's Ground Zero, through Lebanon and Iraq, and on to Afghanistan.
Until that ugly fact gains wide acceptance, we'll continue to make little decisive progress. American or Israeli, our troops are trying. But the truth is that we're really just holding the line.
We have not yet begun to fight. And many among us still dream of avoiding this war altogether.
It can't be done. Because our enemies - Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Islamist militias, regimes in Iran, Syria and elsewhere - are determined to confront us.
We're going to learn the hard way. But we're going to learn.
Meanwhile, here's what the latest battlefield has to say to us:
Lesson 1: You can win every tactical engagement and still lose at the strategic level.
Israel's fought well. But its forces did a polite minuet, while its enemy's danced madly in the streets. The Israeli Defense Forces have done what their government asked of them. But the Olmert government asked them to do the wrong things - and to do too little for too long.
On the ground, in the air and at sea, the IDF or our own forces can't be beaten. But without sound strategic planning, our tactical wins will not add up to victory. We have to re-learn this lesson again and again: Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq - and now Lebanon.
Lesson 2: The global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield.
Too many politicians and generals still don't get it. This new truth about war slapped us in the face during the First Battle of Fallujah. Now, facing a hostile global media, the Israelis are learning it.
Lesson 3: If you start off on the wrong foot in war, you may never recover your balance.
This old rule never changes. The Israeli government dreamed of fighting a short, clean war on the cheap. Now they're playing incremental catch-up. It's a formula for stalemate, if not defeat. If you must go to war, go with everything you've got. From Day One. In war, the only bargain at any price is victory.
You've heard it before and, sadly, you'll hear it again. These asymmetrical, brutal human conflicts require flesh-and-blood solutions - boots on the ground, not just airpower.
Lesson 5: Never underestimate your enemy.
Another timeless rule. The Israelis did it in 1973, and now they've done it again. They undervalued Hezbollah's preparedness for a serious war, its armaments, its training - and its tenacity. And we ourselves did it after Baghdad fell.
This is one of the worst mistakes any government and military can make.
Lesson 6: In war, take the pain up front, and the overall suffering will be far less.
A policy of casualty aversion - in Israel or in the United States - results in more casualties in the end. Because the IDF wasn't permitted to wage a serious war from the first day (and it remains severely restricted even now), the rockets continued to rain down on Israel - while Hezbollah won the propaganda war.
Lesson 7: Terrorism is no longer a limited, diffuse, disorganized threat.
Hezbollah has an army, if of a new and innovative kind. Iran and Syria supply, support and succor it. It has strategic depth and startling resilience.
With Hezbollah on point, Shi'a terror is now better-prepared to wage post-modern war than Sunni organizations such as al Qaeda. We're witnessing the rise of trans-national terrorist armies.
There are many more lessons, especially down at the soldier level. But let's turn to two critical questions:
Can a military that relies heavily on reserve call-ups win this new kind of war? For Israel, it's an existential question. My own conclusion is that the IDF, as currently structured, is living on borrowed time. Having seen our own forces operating in Iraq and the IDF at work along the Lebanese border, my frank assessment is that Israel's brave reserve brigades would crumble in fights such as those in Fallujah or Ramadi. This isn't the West Bank anymore. This is war to the death. The IDF must stop looking backward toward its proud heritage and look honestly at the future of war.
Can we win "Eastern" wars with Western values? I doubt it.
This question is going to eat at our consciences for years to come - even as we learn to do what must be done.
Despite media lies about Israeli "atrocities," the IDF has been doing all it can to spare civilians. For example, the Israelis repeatedly risked commando teams deep in hostile territory to take out Hezbollah command-and-control cells - instead of just leveling the crowded apartment buildings where the terrorists were hiding. But, ultimately, all of the special operations in the world will fall far short of delivering decisive, crushing victories. We are going to have to learn to fight by the enemy's rules. And we aren't going to like it.
The wars of the future will be won by those with the greater strength of will. And boundless determination is one weapon that Islamist extremists unquestionably possess.
#2
Peters does not say anything about the Second Battle of Fallujah. Seems like the second battle of Fallujah addresses a lot of his concerns about waging modern battles. Interestingly enough, what he has to say is not much different than the way WW II was waged by the Allies. It is however, difficult to wage a war with a hostile press and the looney left ever present.
#3
An old wise man said :"when you go on a spree, go the whole hog including the postage".
Olmert should have known that there is no such thing as half a pregnancy. I hope he pays with his job for his lack of insight.
I also hope our next PM will carefully plan and then fearlessly execute a full fledged war on the true masters of the Hizbulla.
Its time we give the world a wake up call, or else we will find ourselves being evaporated by Ahmadinagad's shining new weapons within a year or two.
I also say fuck the entire world, we should do what is best for us and our closest allies.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
08/14/2006 15:32 Comments ||
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#4
Ripley:I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Aliens.
#7
Lesson 7: Terrorism is no longer a limited, diffuse, disorganized threat.
That's the money line. This is WWIV (Cold War=WWIII). We had better find the courage to fight this one rather soon. The 9-11 atrocity was our Pearl Harbor. Too bad that so many Americans no longer have any direct memory of WWII. Much of the same resolve and determination will be required to come out of this alive.
"'I thought this was something revolutionary,' Mrs. Collins said. 'We are building a sorority established on the tradition of the sunnas; the ways of the prophet [Mohammed].'"
Now, Muslim teaching and prayers are part of campus life. Gamma Gamma Chi is there as "America's first Islamic sorority," according to Julia Duin of The Washington Times.
From Baptist to Methodist to Islam. That's the journey that the organizer took to find "truth" in the Koran. And that is frightening.
The Koran is replete with killing and torture passages that are regarded as dictates from the Koran's deity, Allah. Further, the Koran is the baseline for Islam's mistreatment of women.
If the sororities grow throughout America, it will be another propaganda tool by which to present Islam as a "peace religion" when in fact it is a killing cult. Civilized societies put down killing cults.
Therefore, Islam, not being a world religion among world religions, should be put down by our republic. There is no other religion on Earth that dictates that those NOT devotees must be slain or made slaves. Yet that is the goal of the Koran's Allah. Islam world rule is the final completion.
Therefore, with Islamic sororities on campuses, one can imagination that the young females will easily be indoctrinated into a fellowship of Islam-as-peace cultic allegiance.
"Thirteen women at the University of Kentucky will form the sorority's first college chapter this spring, and another group is waiting to start at the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus. A citywide chapter in the District, made up of women from several local universities, is also in the works.
"Along with pledges, there will be prayer to Allah. Instead of hazing, there's hijab, the scarf some devout Muslim women wear. Covering one's hair is not mandated within Gamma Gamma Chi.
"Imani Abdul-Haqq came up with concept for Gamma Gamma Chi while rushing sororities at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. She who converted to Islam in 1999. Since then, she has designed a line of Islamic wear, including T-shirts for women with slogans like 'Real Women Pray' and 'NO, I Am Not Oppressed.' "'They think it's due time we have a organization like this for Muslim women,' she said, 'which helps them grow as women, leaders and part of many communities. It also gives them a chance to network.'"
And of course networking they will do. If it is according to the Koran legalism, it will be quite a dangerous networking -- not only for those in the group, but those off-campus in surrounding neighborhoods. Islam spreads its teachings purposefully with the goal of taking over, no matter how benign it may start or appear as time moves along.
"Before joining, members must recite a creed, learn the sorority song and take part in a secret induction ceremony that deals with 'the values of the sorority' such as sisterhood and philanthropy.
"To date, Gamma Gamma Chi has heard from young women in 18 states, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates."
WASHINGTON -- Mary Matalin, longtime Republican political operative and Vice President Dick Cheney's adviser, seemed near tears on the Fox News Channel Tuesday night as adverse voting returns for Sen. Joseph Lieberman came in from Connecticut. With Matalin a reliable indicator of her party's line, she began an outpouring of GOP grief over Lieberman's Democratic primary defeat. That was a remarkable reaction to a liberal senator who has given George W. Bush scant help on any issue other than Iraq, from which he now also has retreated.
In Lieberman's and my school days, this would be called shedding crocodile tears (defined by Webster's as "a hypocritical show of sorrow"). Cheney himself deplored Connecticut's results, and presidential adviser Karl Rove placed a publicized telephone call to the senator. Republicans cast anti-war primary winner Ned Lamont as a cross between Joe McCarthy and George McGovern. Contradicting his 18-year Senate voting record, Lieberman is identified as a Democratic centrist (supposedly one of the last of that breed).
With Republican morale sliding three months before midterm elections, Connecticut provided welcome news for GOP strategists. Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman on the day after the primary was in Cleveland facing a Republican meltdown in Ohio and warned of a McGovernite takeover of the Democratic Party by elitists. Mehlman described Rep. Sherrod Brown, a left-wing congressman who leads Republican Sen. Mike DeWine for re-election, as a Midwestern Lamont.
But how different from Lieberman would Lamont vote in the Senate? Not much. President Bush, always seeking Texas-style centrists, famously hugged and kissed Lieberman on the House floor after delivering the 2005 State of the Union Address. Aside from Iraq, it has been unrequited love with Lieberman consistently denying Bush needed votes. Lieberman was in Connecticut campaigning Aug. 3 when the Senate again failed to break a filibuster against estate tax relief, but he would have voted no had he been there.
In key votes of the last Congress selected by the Almanac of American Politics, Lieberman followed the straight liberal line in opposing oil drilling in ANWR, Bush tax cuts, overtime pay reform, the energy bill, and bans on partial birth abortion and same-sex marriage. Similarly, he voted in support of Roe v. Wade, and for banning assault weapons and bunker buster bombs. His only two pro-Bush votes were to fund the Iraq war and support missile defense (duplicating Sen. Hillary Clinton's course on both).
Lieberman's most recent ratings by the American Conservative Union were 7 percent in 2003, zero in 2004 and 8 percent in 2005. "Well deserved!" ACU Chairman David Keene told me. "I don't see why any conservative should be overly concerned about Joe Lieberman's plight."
Lieberman has opposed Bush as the environmentalists' Senate leader on global warming. He rebuffed attempts to compromise Social Security reform. He had a perfect record, seven for seven, backing filibusters that blocked Bush judicial nominees. He voted for cloture on three judicial nominations only after a compromise by the bipartisan Gang of 14 (which included Lieberman). He voted against confirming Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
This record of party regularity has won Lieberman's independent candidacy little backing from party stalwarts. Only four (out of 44) Democratic senators announced post-primary support for him. I could not find backing for Lieberman's independent candidacy from any of my longtime Democratic sources, who never have been associated with the MoveOn.org, neo-McGovernite wing of the party. Primarily because of Iraq, the clock has run out on Lieberman in his party since he was its 2000 nominee for vice president. In his disastrous 2004 campaign for the presidential nomination, he lost badly in eight consecutive state contests (doing no better than 11 percent in Delaware).
For Lieberman to have any chance in November, Connecticut Republican voters will have to reject the party's lackluster nominee (former State Rep. Alan Schlesinger). The only conceivable motivation would be Lieberman's position on Iraq, but even that faded last week. In a desperate Sunday night effort to separate himself from the president, he said "many of the Bush administration's decisions regarding the conduct of the war" were not "right." That did not fit the post-primary profile of courage that subsequently was sketched for him by the Republican high command.
#1
In Lieberman's and my school days, this would be called shedding crocodile tears (defined by Webster's as "a hypocritical show of sorrow").
Not so sure of that. The enemy of my enemy may not necessarily be my friend, but he can be someone I'm willing to do business with when it's mutually beneficial.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 12:11 Comments ||
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#2
This should be as plan the the cellulite on Hillary's thighs. They continue to play directly into Rove's hand. If they can't figure out that Kos is a Rove plant by now, then their diety Moloch help them.
Posted by: Evil Elvis ||
08/14/2006 13:55 Comments ||
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#3
Look at this seriously. Lamont, the antiwar moonbat from Barney and his his Angry Friends, beats Joeblow in primary. Seriously massive fodder for Republican campaigns across America. And in the end, Joe wins anyways. A hurt, betrayed Joe who will now be more prone to vote... right.
Win. Win. Win.
That Rove is seriously the evil mastermind of all time. I bet Kos doesn't even have a clue.
Posted by: Evil Elvis ||
08/14/2006 14:02 Comments ||
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#4
Joe's leftwing politics are as sincere as anyones. We won't get him to help on any votes that count. But his career in the Senate is over, even if he wins the general election.
I don't mean huge in terms of poll numbers, I mean huge in terms of the number of times he's cited by Republicans and conservatives as a reason why voters shouldn't trust Democrats on National Security.
Lamont said in his victory speech that the time had come to "fix George Bush's failed foreign policy." Yet, as Martin Peretz pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, on Iran, the looming long-term Islamist threat, Lamont's views are risible. Lamont's alternative to the Bush Iran policy is to "bring in allies" and "use carrots as well as sticks."
Where has this man been? Negotiators with Iran have had carrots coming out of their ears in three years of fruitless negotiations. Allies? We let the British, French and Germans negotiate with Iran for those three years, only to have Iran brazenly begin accelerated uranium enrichment that continues to this day.
Lamont seems to think that we should just sit down with the Iranians and show them why going nuclear is not a good idea. This recalls Sen. William Borah's immortal reaction in September 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II: "Lord, if I could only have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided."
LAMONT: No, I think on the contrary. What this election showed is that a lot of people in Connecticut think that the invasion of Iraq has nothing to do with our war on terror. It's been a terrible distraction.
Here you are talking about the failed terrorist plot today. It originated in Pakistan, goes through London, and here we have 132,000 of our bravest troops stuck in the middle of a civil war in Iraq.
The investigation into the suspected Al-Qaeda leader in Britain and his UK associates was considered by Eliza Manningham-Buller, MI5s director-general, to be the security services single most important line of inquiry. He is suspected of being behind two pipelines which saw potential terrorist recruits being sent for training at camps in Pakistan and to join the holy war in Iraq.
The Al-Qaeda leader who cannot be named for legal reasons acts as a suspected hub in a network of extremist groups. These include Kashmiri and north African groups based in this country. He is linked to a second suspect also in Britain who has played a major role in facilitating support for the Iraq jihad.
A third associate is an Iraqi who came to Britain in 2004 and worked on providing support for British extremists who wanted to travel to Iraq to fight the holy war.
MI5 said he acquired weapons in preparation for an unspecified attack in Britain. He was detained in January last year pending deportation to Iraq.
"Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror", other than the fact that the head of al-Qaeda in London and his henchmen are sending recruits to Iraq. But U.S. forces should not hunt al-Qaeda in Iraq, because ... because ... well ... oilyellowcakebushliedpeoplediedwmdsplame.
More from Lamont on Fox News Sunday:
We also are much stronger when we work in concert with our allies, when we have shared intelligence. And I think that we've taken our eye off the ball there a little bit, and I think it's time to focus.
Okay, Mr. Lamont. Lets hear it. How has the U.S. government taken its eye off the ball in intelligence-sharing? And how would you, as Senator, ensure the requisite focus?
How, exactly, can he argue that "weve taken our eye off the ball in sharing intelligence" three days after U.K., U.S., and Pakistani authorities worked together to take down a terror cell allegedly days away from launching an attack that could have killed more than 9/11?
How can Lamont argue that the U.S. should "work with allies" on Iran when most Democrats are arguing that the Bush administration ought to sit down and negotiate directly with Ahmedinijad? He's not even in line with the rest of his party's criticisms...
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 11:01 ||
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#1
How, exactly, can he argue that "weve taken our eye off the ball in sharing intelligence" three days after U.K., U.S., and Pakistani authorities worked together to take down a terror cell allegedly days away from launching an attack that could have killed more than 9/11?
Because he's a Democrat. Nobody-- and I mean NOBODY-- expects Democrats to make a lick of sense anymore.
Like the Muslim bar for "victory" in battle, the "not a fucking idiot" bar for Democrats is set on the very lowest, bottom notch.
God help us all if the people of Connecticut are dimwitted enough to elect this shitforbrains to the Senate.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/14/2006 11:33 Comments ||
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Dave D..."...Bottom Notch"
Bottom notch, hell, they've dug a trench and put the bar at the bottom, AND THEY'RE STILL GOING UNDER IT!
Original opinion. The link is to the BBC story of that day. The photo needs no explanation.
On this day, 61 years ago, World War II finally ended with the surrender of Japan.
In the words of Harry Truman, in an address to a crowd that had gathered outside the White House, "This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor. This is the day when Fascism finally dies, as we always knew it would."
Fascism since has reared its ugly head in places like Serbia and Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The fight goes on. Victory may not always look like V-J Day. It may not always be signed off on the deck of a battleship. There may be neither a ticker-tape parade nor a pretty girl to kiss in Times Square.
Some fear victory won't come at all. How many times did we think that in the dark times of the Bataan retreat, the shelling of Corregidor, the Battle of the Coral Sea? How many times did young Marines trapped on a hellish island wonder just why they were there?
We faced a brutal enemy then. We face another today. The Empire of Japan used everything she'd learned about the West to attack us and did so without mercy. The Islamofascists of today use their knowledge of the West to attack us and, like the Japanese back then, do so today without mercy. Like the Japanese, groups like al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba have managed to adapt technology from the West so as to attack us without coming to understand the most important weapon we have: the resolve of an angry people.
Japan learned better: the merciless reduction of their island fortresses. The continued attack on their Navy. The fire-bombing of Tokyo. Hiroshima. By the time it was over Japan had come to see that there few things more dangerous than an enraged Western democracy.
Some of us thought we'd seen that after 9/11. Lord knows we've had reminders since. Bali. 3/11. 7/7. How many others, and how many more in the future? Some of us, not enough of us, are enraged.
It's going to change. It may take another horrific attack on us or our friends. I hope not, I hate seeing innocents die. But whatever al-Qaeda does to enrage us, they need only look at history to understand what then will happen.
V-J Day. Remember.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2006 00:00 ||
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Sady for our generation, this war will not end with a surrender ceremony on the deck of the USS Reagan. It will end only with a nuclear Gotterdammerung in Iran, and a long drawn out gult trip laid on us by the traitors among us.
Posted by: N guard ||
08/14/2006 9:39 Comments ||
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#2
There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see.
There'll be joy and laughter
And peace ever after,
Tomorrow
When the world is free,
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 9:40 Comments ||
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#3
The problem N guard is that the nuclear Gotterdammerung will start with hundereds or thousands of warheads flying into the US. I believe our descendants will curse us for our cowardice and squeamishness.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2006 9:51 Comments ||
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#4
I know it's been said and written about many times that this was the greatest generation. I have to agree.
These were real Americans, tough as nails. They understood some fundamentals that have been long since forgotten. Unjaded by the cynicism of the left, the wanton excess of the 50's and 60's, the various 'revolutions', and the blame-America-first liberals, they had all the equipment and mentality necessary to win a war and save the western world. Not to mention the one thing we sorely lack today: Unity in the face of the enemy.
Could we do the same today? Maybe so, but the jury's still out. Islamo-fascism is as big a threat to the stability of the world as Nazism and Japanese militarism ever were. We'll see in the coming years if we measure up.
#5
The 'greatest generation' had its share of leftists too; many who grew up during the Depression were Communists or Socialists. I talked to one of them a few days ago, a gentleman in his late 80s who had been a pilot in the 100th Bomber Group. It was called the Bloody 100th because it had such a high casualty rate making daylight bombing runs on German targets. The original crews had a 77% casualty rate (combining KIA, POW, wounded, etc)and their replacements fared similarly. The gentleman I met had been a Communist activist in high school, but it didn't stop him from fighting as effectively as anyone who had always been a patriot. He flew 35 missions as a pilot and was good enough at it that he always made it back, though not always with the plane in one piece. Besides, I think the current generation deserves a lot of credit for its performance in both Gulf Wars. Wars are much harder to fight when there are so many restrictions on killing the enemy. I don't think the current generation suffers from a lack of fighting spirit; they just have to deal with more constraints.
Do you know anyone whose Sept. 11 fears have returned?
Someone with a sick feeling and a tightening of the chest, bordering on panic?
Someone distraught or perhaps just withdrawn and distracted in the past few days?
What do you say to calm their fears?
We drive each day on highways where the likelihood that a dumptruck will veer into our path far outstrips the possibility that we will find ourselves on an airplane targeted by terrorists. The chances that we will get it in any number of benign but equally deadly ways are exponentially higher than the chances that those who want to kill us will, in any given case, succeed.
Logic is irrelevant in combating these fears, as it is with children who fear monsters under the bed. This is not to disparage these fears. The threat is real. And while statistically remote, there is a factor that elevates terrorism beyond the many mundane fates we all dodge daily. It is the malice.
There are men out there who want us dead. This is undeniable. They want to see us all dead. Each and every one of us. They dont know our names, they dont know what our thoughts are about their grievances. They dont know what our actions are and how weve lived our lives. They dont care. They just want us dead.
I wish I had a sweet, comforting post-Sept. 11 lullaby to sing the ones I love to sleep when they experience fear of these evil men. But I dont. Lullabies combat false monsters. Real monsters require something different.
Psalms, like lullabies, give comfort. But they dont mask or deny the threat. They embrace it, and show the way to strength and ultimately comfort from within. What might a psalm say to anyone whose 9/11 fears have been reawakened
Strong, ruthless men and women go long hours without sleep for you. They do everything they can to keep you safe. They are your shield. They will kill for you, and die for you.You can take comfort from that knowledge and draw strength from their example.
But that is not enough. There is something you have to find within yourself. It may be that one day, our shield will fail, and the insidious foe that operates from beyond our borders and even within them will penetrate that shield and kill some of us again.
You must decide for yourself that you will not let them deter you from your path. If they rise against you, you must be prepared to meet them. Prepared to be ruthless in defense of what you love. It may mean that you will die. We all do someday. As a friend of mine who knew what he was talking about once said, its not a matter of whether we will die, but how we will die. And when the time comes, the best we can hope for in this life, the one thing we might be able to control, is that we die well.
Each of us must look within ourselves for the strength that pushed the passengers of United Flight 93 forward against their hijackers on Sept. 11, in a successful if tragic assault that prevented further death and destruction. We must look to the bravery of men such as Rick Rescorla, the British-American security executive and Vietnam war hero who shepherded thousands of people out of the World Trade Center but who stayed back himself with the last and ultimately died in the wreckage.
They are towering figures, but each of us has a little, just enough of that in us that we can draw on, to carry us through. We honor them by endeavoring to live up to their example. It begins by repeating to ourselves the words from which others have drawn comfort in time of war and peril for more than 2,500 years.
I will fear no evil.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
We must look to the bravery of men such as Rick Rescorla, the British-American security executive and Vietnam war hero A great and inspiring American. A Google search will find him.
#4
My mom is almost 80 and went thru WW2 from the Japanese attack on Guam in 1941 thru Occupation thru to VJ Day - apparently, for older Guamanians of her generation, WW2 de facto ended on July 21, 1944 when the Americans landed Marine-Army forces to retake Guam from Japan, not on August 14th, 1945 nor on September 1st, 1945. She recalls seeing many 00's of dead Japanese on one side of a local road, and dead or wounded American soldiers on the other side. She doesn't wanna see another war but at the same time believes all Americans must be ready to fight to defend themselves and for what they believe unless they lose their country. She thinks that politicians and Americans whom don't want to fight should be arrested and put in jail. America and Americans must fight to win, not any half-and-halfs.
#5
Can we get personal here? I had the privilege of riding the elevator to the WTC observaton floor in 1991 (only 1 tower had one). Ergo: i actually get phobic vertigo when I see videos of the Towers falling. Having taken an anti-Muslim position in 1978, 9-11 meant: opportunity (to begin to eradicate the worst imperial-genocidal menace ever to arise). As for our post 9-11 policies, they mean: lost opportunity. As for the pending 5th anniversary, it means: opportunity.
#7
Perhaps, James. Maybe the very intensity and fanaticism with which they fight will be their undoing. If they were a little more patient and subtle, like the Chinese, they might eventually get their world Islamic kingdom. The way they are operating now, maybe the civilized world will finally tire of their threat and eradicate them once and for all.
"The true precursors of radicalism can be found in the earliest European movements to colonize the world. The same approach resulted in the establishment of the modern systems of political and economic oppression. Any movement that resists this imperial order is crushed with military force, and terrorism is used to keep people, particularly Muslims, from challenging the status quo."
There are strong reasons to believe that Muslims are not responsible for the recently unveiled terror plots both in Toronto and London. To understand the reasons why these plots are false, one has to begin with himself and think from inside out. I would begin with myself as a Muslim, who shares the beliefs that are attributed to the alleged terrorists, but does not feel compelled to even think about murdering innocent civilians. Terrorists supposedly believe that:
a). The present world order is unjust. It is a continuation of 700-year old colonial fascism.
b). The former colonialism has combined with new systems for exploiting the natural resources of the weak and maintaining full control of their political systems through puppets.
c). The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are illegitimate and illegal.
d). 9/11 was an inside job[1] unless we see evidence to the contrary or find answers to the long lists of unanswered questions. [2]
e). Bush and Blair are neck deep in the blood of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims.
f). Aggression and oppression should be resisted.
g). Muslims deserve the right to self-determination and self-rule and should struggle to live by Islam, free from colonial interference.
h). The dying British Empire illegally imposed Israel on the local Arab population and took its land. Regardless of any solution to the Muslim-Israel problem, it is an illegitimate, racist state created and sustained with the help of terrorism and racism.
#2
. This idea of inflicting mass civilian casualties has more in common with modem European revolutionaries than it does with anything in medieval times or in Islam.
#3
Evil Elvis,
You dont need to convert etc.
Just make sure that the next US president is a staunch republican.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
08/14/2006 15:00 Comments ||
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#4
The article is written more like the US selling out Israel.
It mentions, in passing, having peace-nics as PM and DM but then blames the US.
HOLD IT! The Israeli electorate were the ones that elected this pair of idiots. Put the blame where the blame is due. It is uncalled for to blame the US and Condi and Bush. He makes me mad enough to want to tell Israel to get lost.
He should be a MAN and TAKE RESPONSIBLITY for HIS SIN of letting those two win.
The bottom line is that the good guys were unable, under the provocation of war, to destroy Hezballah. Everything else is just blather.
These international forces ignore a critical aspect of a military force who and for what are soldiers going to die? A policeman does not expect to die during his career. Yes, he MAY die, but it is not his expectation. If the situation is too extreme, the police back off.
The armed forces are the ultimate purveyors of force. No individual soldier expects to die, but the significance of the uniform is that he may be called on at any time to do so in pursuit of the mission. Well, most people are not going to accept that assignment as a matter of course. The IDF had a national mission to defeat Hezballah. Whatever the motivation of the international force, it is going to be LESS than that of the IDF. So, the idea that it is going to accomplish something like disarmament of Hezballah that Israel in full battle mode was unable to do is simply a fantasy.
It is hard to understand why Condi participated in this kabuki. Presumably, Washington had the same collapse in confidence in Israel that a lot of us have had. It must be something like that that this is as good as we can get. This is a Band-Aid on this situation. It will depend entirely on how exhausted Hizbullah is. But Iran will see it for what it is a retreat, a weakening of the will, a historic turning point, a disaster for the good guys.
The problem with Lebanon in the modern world is what Bernard Lewis has observed the Muslim/Arab culture is not built around nation states, but rather around religious sects. Lebanon does not exist so much as it is a collection of Maronites, Druze, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, etc. Hizbullah, the avatar of the Shia, is now in ascendance. It is pointless to expect that the government of Lebanon is a force separate from the strongest group, which is currently Hizbullah. So to have the army of Lebanon disarm Hizbullah is a form of words that means nothing it has no content. The fact that we and the Israelis would accept such an empty form shows our weakness. And the other side will not miss that.
Of course, there is always hope. Perhaps the lion will lie down with the lamb. But I doubt it.
Israel was caught completely off guard. Obviously, they had no useful intelligence on the dispositions and order of battle of Hizbullah even though the threat had been building for six years. And they had no tactical plan as to how to attack Hizbullah in its current form which is why we have been seeing such high casualties. Everybody above the rank of lieutenant colonel should be fired and EVERYBODY in the responsible intelligence agency should be fired. They should all consider themselves lucky not to be shot.
Start over. The dividend for losing a war has traditionally been what you learn from it. That is the ONLY dividend Israel can get out of this disaster.
#2
I have faith in you, especially after all the victories you have achieved, like having the israeli army inside of Lebanon again, right where you want them of course, and having your neighborhood in Beirut destroyed, which saved you all the demolition costs it would've cost you for the Hezbollah Paradise Towers project, which will provide every shia family with a luxury High-rise apartment in a premium Bierut location. It was a fantastic business decision I must say. Die with envy Christians and sunnis. You didn't think of that, did ya?
Now fijord man has gone, Sandmonkey may well be the BEST blogger out there. Read and realize this guy is GOOD.
Here's how an early report by Reuters covered the massive terrorism bust in the United Kingdom. They started out conventionally enough just chugging along with airport closures, arrest details and quotes from bystanders, but then got to the big picture:
" 'I'm an ex-flight attendant, I'm used to delays, but this is a different kind of delay,' said Gita Saintangelo, 54, an American returning to Miami. 'We heard about it on the TV this morning. We left a little early and said a prayer,' she said at Heathrow.
"Britain has been criticised by Islamist militants for its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prime Minister Tony Blair has also come under fire at home and abroad for following the U.S. lead and refusing to call for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas."
Is there a software program at Western news agencies that automatically inserts random segues in terrorism stories? The plot to commit mass murder by seizing up to 10 U.K.-U.S. airliners was well advanced long before the first Israeli strike against Hezbollah. Yet it's apparently axiomatic at Reuters, the BBC and many other British media outlets that Tony Blair is the root cause of jihad. He doesn't even have to invade anywhere anymore. He just has to "refuse to call for an immediate cease-fire" when some other fellows invade some other fellows over on the other side of the world.
Grant for the sake of argument that these reports are true -- that when the bloodthirsty Zionist warmongers attack all those marvelous Hezbollah social outreach programs it drives British subjects born and bred to plot mass murder against their fellow Britons. What does that mean?
Here's a clue, from a recent Pew poll that asked: What do you consider yourself first? A citizen of your country or a Muslim? In the United Kingdom, 7 percent of Muslims consider themselves British first, 81 percent consider themselves Muslim first. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2006 07:59 ||
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#1
A good friend of mine (ethnic Chinese) resigned from Rooters declaring they were a 'bunch of old school tie racists'.
My friend is probably the most level headed person I know.
A couple, both aged sixty-five, go to a beach resort to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Sure enough, while laying out their blankets on the sand, they find a lamp which, when rubbed, yields a grateful genie. I wish, says the husband. That my wife were thirty years younger than me. And the genie, pliant after the manner of his breed, promptly grants the request and turns the man 95.
The moral of the story is that when one seeks in elder years to adopt a pretense of youth, one is most often made to look more pitiably aged than otherwise. Mike Wallace, famous bulldog interviewer of years past, would have done well to heed this nugget of wisdom. As an eighty-eight year old retiree, he can sit on his somewhat faded laurels without them growing the thorns that render sitting uncomfortable.
Instead, he took the senior citizen bus to Iran to interview President Ahmadinejad. The reasons why it is asinine in the extreme to conduct a serious interview with him are too numerous to enumerate, but lets just sprinkle a few to garnish our point. One, he is a whack-a-doodle. Two, he probably is a puppet without real power under the imams. Three, to the extent that he has power he is a menace. Four, his regime is currently fighting a proxy war through Hezbollah and it is critically important to avoid conferring legitimacy. Five, he is being told by the UN that if he does not stand down on his nuclear program, he will be forever banned from polite company; some American news agency has no business sending the opposite signal.
As if the act of conducting the interview were not egregious enough, Wallace manages to return from the encounter besotted and smitten by the mans charm. Why, he is strangely attractive, quoth Mike sagely. Short, yes; gnomish and gnarled like a Dickens frontispiece, certainly; beady-eyed and predatory, undeniably; yet lovable in an indefinable way. The E.T. of genocidal dictators. One can almost envision him making a magnanimous tour of the assembly line that produces rocketry for Hizbollah, whispering gentle words of encouragement into the ear of the young lady jamming just a few extra ball bearings into the warhead.
Mike goes on cooing after the wooing. He is so intelligent, that Ahmad! He has a civil engineering degree! The interview was sincere and not for propaganda purposes! Oy, oy, oy, Mike, Mike, Mike. How could you? How could you become so small, so shallow, so superficial, so naïve, so unworldly, so gullible? And why were you wandering around off the grounds on the night we had your favorite Jello for dinner?
True, this brand of useful idiocy is not reserved to superannuated has-beens. Plenty of left-leaning anchors have been coaxed and hoaxed this way in the past. The puff pieces on Lenin and Stalin, even Hitler, are before my time, but I have witnessed it with the likes of Mao, Castro, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. And it would not do to forget Dan Rathers exclusive chat with Saddam Hussein which featured old Dan looking as proud of himself as a centipede on a tightrope.
Yet it is particularly gruesome to witness the wizened but not wise-ned Wallace wallowing in his witlessness. (Funnily enough, Ahmadinejad mentions at one point that he thought Wallace had retired. We had thought so too, Mr. A, but no such luck.) To see one of our national icons nod thoughtfully when this misbegotten miscreant proves his righteousness by citing President Bushs low poll numbers is to reach reflexively for the barf bag. When, oh when, will these journalists learn to stop being used as foils by these foul fellows?
One would imagine that especially one who had lived these particular eighty-eight years, in which charismatic figures with all sorts of charm and advanced degrees and phony earnestness had wreaked havoc on the planet, would be less disposed to buy the inch-deep slickster charm of the malevolent President Ahmadinejad, but one would imagine wrong. Liberal blindness to evil is not enlightened even by rays of clearest truth.
The Jewish joke has two elderly women discussing their childrens education. My son Marty has multiple degrees, one mom exclaims. In psychology, economics and politics. Her companion naturally wonders which field he chose as the basis of his livelihood. Actually he cant get a job but at least he understands why. Ahmadinejad has his job because he knows how to engineer an impression with a degree of civility. Its Wallace who has no job anymore and, sadly, does not understand why.
The Security Councils Resolution 1559 that demanded that OUR government deploy OUR army on OUR sovereign territory, along OUR international border with Israel and that it disarm all the militia on OUR land was voted on 2 September 2004.
We had two years to put implement this resolution and thus guarantee a peaceful future to our children but we did strictly nothing. Our greatest crime which was not the only one! was not that we did not succeed but that we did not attempt or undertake anything. And that was the fault of none else than the pathetic Lebanese politicians.
Our government, from the very moment the Syrian occupier left, let ships and truckloads of arms pour into our country. Without even bothering to look at their cargo. They jeopardized all chances for the rebirth of our country by confusing the Cedar Revolution with the liberation of Beirut. In reality, we had just received the chance a sort of unhoped-for moratorium that allowed us to take the future into our own hands, nothing more.
Lebanon a victim? What a joke!
Before the Israeli attack, Lebanon no longer existed, it was no more than a hologram. At Beirut innocent citizens like myself were forbidden access to certain areas of their own capital. But our police, our army and our judges were also excluded. That was the case, for example, of Hezbollahs and the Syrians command zone in the Haret Hreik quarter. A square measuring a kilometer wide, a capital within the capital, permanently guarded by a Horla army, possessing its own institutions, its schools, its crèches, its tribunals, its radio, its television and, above all its government. A government that, alone decided, in the place of the figureheads of the Lebanese government in which Hezbollah also had its ministers! to attack a neighboring state, with which we had no substantial or grounded quarrel, and to plunge us into a bloody conflict. And if attacking a sovereign nation on its territory, assassinating eight of its soldiers, kidnapping two others and, simultaneously, launching missiles on nine of its towns does not constitute a casus belli, the latter juridical principle will seriously need revising.
As they say, read the whole thing. Its stuff you will not see in the US Press with its bias.
#1
but we're told the Hezbs have 105% support of the Leb public?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2006 7:56 Comments ||
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#2
Probably a bit higher than that when you add in the "American citizens" (whatever that means today) of "Lebanese decent....." whom the U.S. Gummit has flown back here for their "safety" and continued prostilzation of Jewish hatred.
#4
I don't think Siniora is a whimp. I do think he is a man with a bull's eye on his forehead and a knife in his back.
After the PM's assassination, several other pro-democracy politicans and journalists were assassinated.
I suspect that Siniora and other pro-democracy members of the cabinet see the new resolution as a mandate to disarm Hezbo. They didn't get the backing of the UN with 1559.
The cabinet meeting that Hezbo backed out of yesterday, when it does finally meet, will be most telling.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2006 13:25 Comments ||
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The man really speaks "truth to power" against the hizboauts The most hypocritical people on earth Ména will continue to inform its readers of the evolution of the situation, by way of continuous official statements on this site for the minor developments, and by emailing breaking news to its subscribers, in the case of major events.
Hezbollah had created an independent state in our country, a state including all the ministers and parallel institutions, duplicating those of Lebanon...
The politicians, journalists and intellectuals of Lebanon have, of late, been experiencing the shock of their lives. They knew full well that Hezbollah had created an independent state in our country, a state including all the ministers and parallel institutions, duplicating those of Lebanon. What they did not know and are discovering with this war, and what has petrified them with surprise and terror is the extent of this phagocytosis.
In fact, our country had become an extension of Iran, and our so-called political power also served as a political and military cover for the Islamists of Teheran. We suddenly discovered that Teheran had stocked more than 12,000 missiles, of all types and calibers, on our territory and that they had patiently, systematically, organized a suppletive force, with the help of the Syrians, that took over, day after day, all the rooms in the House of Lebanon.
Just imagine it : we stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and that the firing of such devices without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon...
Just imagine it : we stock ground-to-ground missiles, Zilzals, on our territory and that the firing of such devices without our knowledge, has the power to spark a regional strategic conflict and, potentially, bring about the annihilation of Lebanon.
We knew that Iran, by means of Hezbollah, was building a veritable Maginot line in the south but it was the pictures of Maroun el-Ras and Bint Jbail that revealed to us the magnitude of these constructions. This amplitude made us understand several things at once : that we were no longer masters of our destiny. That we do not possess the most basic means necessary to reverse the course of this state of things and that those who turned our country into an outpost of their islamic doctrines combat against Israel did not have the slightest intention of willingly giving up their hold over us.
Continued on Page 49
#1
There's a truly special kind of stupid at work in these Islamic cesspools. It always gets distilled down to cause, meet effect - over and over and over - yet they never can seem to grasp it.
#2
Beirut, all the rest of Beirut, 95% of Beirut, lives and breathes better than a fortnight ago. All those who have not sided with terrorism know they have strictly nothing to fear from the Israeli planes, on the contrary! One example: last night the restaurant where I went to eat was jammed full and I had to wait until 9:30 pm to get a table. Everyone was smiling, relaxed, but no one filmed them: a strange destruction of Beirut, is it not?
Eurabians are seeing Beirut portrayed as post-nuke Hiroshima, and south Lebanese starving. Reality dictates that food production is north Lebanon was not effected. Electrical power has not been cut off in the north. However, polling in the north has recorded considerable support for Hizbollah. Maybe that will be lost when the fog of war clears, and they can see that the terrorists are tools of Teheran.
#3
From the tone and content of the article, and the fact that the source appears to be an Israeli news agency, I'd speculate that the above propaganda is authored by someone affiliated with remnants of the South Lebanese Army.
Certainly he's claims that the overwhelming majority of Lebanese support the bombing of their country by the IDF, and that 95% of Beirut lives and breathes better than a fortnight ago seem somewhat...unlikely
#4
Let it even be propaganda but the fact remains that Ayrabs with their muzzie creed do not take responsibility for their own troubles. They talk about root causes but never go back far enough but jump at every opportunity to pass the blame to others. There is deeply rooted hypocrisy within and it also afflicts all muzzieland outside the ME as well.
Thanks for letting me be part of the conversation
By John Leo
This is a farewell column. After 18 years of punditry, it's time to work on other projects, including a book.
Now that I'm leaving, I should acknowledge that writing a column has to be one of the best jobs in the world. At a cost of only 750 words per week (with an occasional surcharge of sweating a bullet or two on deadline), you get to join what my friend and fellow columnist Richard Reeves calls "the conversation." He means the national dialogue, or whatever part of it you can shoulder your way into by being pertinent, witty, original, or whatever other trait induces people to read you.
The trait that admirers mostly accuse me of possessing is common sense. This is a mildly deflating compliment, but I understand it. What readers mean by this is that we now live in a national asylum run by buffoons, but at least a few minds still function normally, and mine seems to be one of them. I unabashedly agree with this assessment. . . .
Mostly, though, I want to thank my readers who followed my column so long and so loyally. This includes whole classrooms full of schoolchildren and those who sent family photos, Christmas tree ornaments (a seasonal regular) and long letters on how their daughters and sons are doing at college. A great many collegians wrote in themselves, leading me to believe there is some hope after all for our indoctrination-prone universities.
My best to you all, including the hundred-plus op-ed editors who chose to run the column. Some of these editors featured my column just to challenge conventional opinion in monocultural college towns. You know who you are. I will be setting up a Web site at JohnLeo.com (don't try it now; alas, it's not ready). Readers can reach me at johnleo2@optonline.com.
Go read it all. John Leo is a good writer and a class act, and we'll miss having him around.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2006 13:59 ||
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#1
Damn! We really can't afford to lose any of the good guys. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/14/2006 16:52 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"'I thought this was something revolutionary,' Mrs. Collins said. 'We are building a sorority established on the tradition of the sunnas; the ways of the prophet [Mohammed].'"
The bottom line is that the good guys were unable, under the provocation of war, to destroy Hezballah. Everything else is just blather. 
