#2
When the Left eats [not abort, cause they've been doing that for generations] its young will be about the time they admit that maybe, just maybe Colonialism wasn't all that bad.
#3
Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
"Hey," Herbie said, "Tony, can you fly?"
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died
Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, "Hey, I know it's dangerous, but it sure beats Riker's"
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
-Jim Carrroll
#5
Not that I'm naive about what happens in some parts of our society, but I've not heard the song and don't want to.
I'm tired of the attitude that because some in our society do greatly self-destructive things, it is courageous and artistic to hold them up as the norm.
Not that I shrink from the reality of death -- I've seen it up close, along with other tragedies that struck too many. Too many young doing foolish things among them.
But it isn't what I aspire to nor do I find it somehow "honest" to suggest it's what life is really about in America.
JMO
Posted by: didnt and dont want to ||
08/29/2006 14:20 Comments ||
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The biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, Americas closest ally because of Pakistan-oriented young Islamists in that country, according to two noted terrorism experts. Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank write in the current issue of New Republic that for terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, which has reconstituted itself in Pakistan, ethnic Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom make perfect recruits, since they speak English and can travel on British passports.
There is anecdotal evidence for the influence of Muslim extremism on British Pakistani communities. The two authors found strong jihadi sentiments at a fitness centre in East London, frequented by Muslims, five of whose regulars are included among those arrested this month in England and Pakistan on terrorism charges. The authors point out that many of Britains young Pakistanis are filled with contempt both for the moderation of their parents and for a British society that wont quite accept them. For many, this leaves a vacuum in their identities that radical Islamist preachers have been all too glad to fill. Young British Pakistanis are also unemployed and thus especially vulnerable to the temptations of radicalism.
Bergen and Cruickshank write that it is primarily in Pakistan - not the United Kingdom - where British citizens are being recruited into Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. About 400,000 British Pakistanis per year travel back to their homeland, where a small percentage embark on learning the skills necessary to become effective terrorists. According to a government report released this year, British officials believe that the lead perpetrators of the 2005 attacks in London - Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - met Al Qaeda members in Pakistan. Several individuals allegedly involved in a 2004 plot to explode a fertiliser bomb in Great Britain also spent significant time in Pakistan. In April 2003, Omar Khan Sharif, whose family immigrated to Great Britain from Kashmir, attempted to carry out a suicide attack in a bar in Tel Aviv after visiting Pakistan.
The two authors believe that what motivates many of these young men is Kashmir since a disproportionate number of Pakistanis living in Great Britain trace their lineage back to Kashmir. For the small number of British Pakistanis who want terrorist training, the facilities of Kashmiri militant groups have become an obvious first choice - as well as a gateway to Al Qaeda itself. Al Qaedas ties with Kashmiri militant groups date to the Afghan war against the Soviets, when bin Ladens forces fought alongside Pakistani groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Since September 11, the relationship between Al Qaeda and Kashmiri groups has only deepened.
Bergen and Cruickshank believe that the danger to the United States of the nexus between British Pakistanis, Al Qaeda and Kashmir is becoming clear. One of the alleged ringleaders of the plot to blow up transatlantic flights is Rashid Rauf, a Pakistan-born British citizen whose family immigrated to Great Britain from Kashmir. This should raise two concerns for American officials. The first is that American Pakistanis could pose a similar threat. They add, Yet it seems unlikely that radicalism in the American Pakistani community could pose as large a threat as radicalism in the British Pakistani community. American Muslims are, on average, more politically moderate than their British counterparts.
The two authors maintain that of more concern is the likelihood that British Pakistanis will continue to target Americans - both in the United States and abroad. To address this problem, the Bush administration should encourage the British government to monitor more closely the activities of UK-based extremist groups. Simply banning these organisations is not enough. In addition, Great Britain must step up efforts to identify its own citizens who attend Kashmiri or Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. The British government will need help from moderate Muslims, some of whom are waking up to the threat posed by the radicals in their midst. According to London imam Ghulam Rabbani, These people are ill. I say very categorically and very clearly that they are misguided and they dont know the basics of Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I blame Tony Blair/John Major for letting these radical preachers exploit young minds in the 90's when France warned them that this would come back to bite them in the butt!
#3
This is especially dangerous. All travel into US by Mooselimbs should be suspended and ended. Any one of the ratbags could freely board any flight and be in here in hours.
#1
Of France, before WW II: Of course, the traitors were assisted by others in their endeavors, sometimes actively, sometimes by default. Most often, these helpers were in the Press, and they likewise despised the Republic, and the Army too. More tellingly, the traitors were helped by an apathetic voting public, who wearied of constant political strife and intrigue, of seeing the same faces running government regardless of election result, and of the constant clamor in the Press detailing this or the other new scandal. Yet strangely familiar...
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/29/2006 11:57 Comments ||
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#2
Kim nails it. The Democrats want the U.S. to be a society not meaningfully different from that of Western Europe in any way. The two biggest "brass rings" for them are the disarming of private citizens and socialized medicine. We cannot allow these things to happen - they would cause the collapse of true America.
The fastest means to that is to undermine our small "r" republican form of government and replace it with a more activist parliamentarian type.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/29/2006 15:22 Comments ||
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Christopher Hitchens
I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.
In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq haslike Robert Novak'slong been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalistsMichael Isikoff and David Cornwho did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.
As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president's war policy. (His and Powell'sand George Tenet'sfingerprints are all over Bob Woodward's "insider" accounts of post-9/11 policy planning, which helps clear up another nonmystery: Woodward's revelation several months ago that he had known all along about the Wilson-Plame connection and considered it to be no big deal.) The Isikoff-Corn book, which is amusingly titled Hubris, solves this impossible problem of its authors' original "theory" by restating it in a passive voice:
The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.
In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who assertedin a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distractionthat:
The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.
After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."
What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing couldand shouldhave ended right there. But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department)
also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's sourcepossibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.
"[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House. In this instance, however, the evidence allows them no other choice. But there is more than one way in which a case can be played by the book. Under the terms of the appalling and unconstitutional Intelligence Identities Protection Act (see "A Nutty Little Law," my Slate column of July 26, 2005), the CIA can, in theory, "refer" any mention of itself to the Justice Department to see if the statutedenounced by The Nation and the New York Times when it was passedhas been broken. The bar here is quite high. Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.
The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/29/2006 13:47 ||
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#1
Even when confronted with the facts, Isikoff cant help but to unabashedly continue the White House Leak narrative. Snippits from 'Hardball' interview 8-28-06.
And then you had people at the White House who had a very concerted interest in tearing down Joe Wilson and trying to undermine his credibility.
Or set the record straight might be an equally plausible explanation.
So you had the second track of White House officials passing along the same information.
Actually confirming is a more accurate description.
So their [The White House] hands were not clean on this"
Short on proof long on speculation but hey that's what sells books!
Thats how they [The White House] were trying to use this to discredit Joe Wilson.
Like correcting misperceptions and outright lies are bad things.
And for the Money Shot! Lots more to come when its in bookstores next week.
Slowly Sidling To Iraq's Exit It's all here, since registration is required.
By Election Day, how many Republican candidates will have come out against the Iraq war or distanced themselves from the administration's policies? August 2006 will be remembered as a watershed in the politics of Iraq. It is the month in which a majority of Americans told pollsters that the struggle for Iraq was not connected to the larger war on terrorism. Was this before or after the failed plot to blow up airplanes, I wonder? They thus renounced a proposition the administration has pushed relentlessly since it began making the case four years ago to invade Iraq.
That poll finding, from a New York Times-CBS News survey, came to life on the campaign trail when Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), one of the most articulate supporters of the war, announced last Thursday that he favored a time frame for withdrawing troops.
Shays is in a tough race for reelection against Democrat Diane Farrell, who has made opposition to the war a central issue. After his 14th trip to Iraq, Shays announced that "the only way we are able to encourage some political will on the part of Iraqis is to have a timeline for troop withdrawal."
In July Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) returned from Iraq with an equally grim view. Americans, he said, lacked "strategic control" of the streets of Baghdad, and he called for a "limited troop withdrawal -- to send the Iraqis a message." This borders on the stupidist thing I ever heard. People that want peace got the message, those fueling the sectarian violence do not. Iran does not. Plot a timetable and they will get the message, morons.
#2
Every time I start to get swayed by the anti-American forces speaking against US efforts in Iraq I step back and remember just why Vietnam ended up as the template for future US military efforts/failures. We lost the conflict because we lost the will to win, which we lost because the media convinced us we were not winning and could not win. The media were wrong then - e.g. Tet was a devastating loss for the VC - but we listened. The nation cannot afford to let them get away with another self-fulfilling prophesy.
#3
Abandoning U.S.-Iraq policies would be a huge long-lasting disaster for any future U.S. foreign policy. These GOP candidates are short-sighted and too hungry to try to get elected. How are they different than the "cut and run" demo crowd?
#5
my Rep - Duncan Hunter, couldn't be more pro-Bush Iraq policy. Nice they missed discussing that and similar districts
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2006 17:01 Comments ||
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#6
These people publicly aver the Olmert doctrine: They are tired of the war. They are tired of fighting. They are tired of winning. I think that in reality, they are tired of living and would do the rest of us a favor by dying quickly and quietly.
#1
Well written from a purely technical explanation standpoint. But there's something here that the vast majority of writers on culture and religion just don't get, and that is true Christian CONVERSION. Understanding the differences between experiential Christianity and all other kinds helps simplify the matter greatly.
Converted people have completely different thinking and motivations than those who aren't. It doesn't have to be much more complicated than that. The majority (in some cases the overwhelming majority) of church-goers on any given Sunday have never been converted. I'm not saying this to judge, but rather to simply make an observation. A non-convert is free to make up their own mind about his politics. A convert is not, because their entire world view, including their politics, is shaped by their conversion and adherance to Biblical principles.
It's a purely personal opinion, but I've always believed that a person whose politics are not governed by their religious beliefs, really has no religion at all.
#2
well said msgeek. Don't expect anyone to listen, though. They will just go on treating those who a foundation under their beliefs as being stupid, misguided or mentally ill. Never mind that the subject of the mortality v/s the spirit is one that has been discussed by the greatest minds for centuries - to discuss it today is taboo and will cause your opinions to be instantly dismissed by those who, you know, have it all figured out.
It's a shame. As one who previously just believed that Christians were just nice people who needed a club to belong to - I really think it is a shame that discussion for the care and feeding of our souls has been dismissed as mere crazy talk.
#3
It's a purely personal opinion, but I've always believed that a person whose politics are not governed by their religious beliefs, really has no religion at all
It's a system of beliefs and morals. We all want to know what our representatives will do (or damage) while in office. If members of an identifiable religious group, we assume they hold the generally-held beliefs and will act accordingly. That doesn't mean they will, just that we have a baseline to estimate from
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2006 17:26 Comments ||
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#4
That's true Frank.
I agree with msgeek that this writer gets the facts right but misses the mark.
In this context, the most important differences have to do with the degree to which each promotes optimism about the possibilities for a stable, peaceful, and enlightened international order and the importance each places on the difference between believers and nonbelievers.
No two Christians have the same belief no matter what strain they belong to - but converted christians have an underlying belief that they all understand when discussing Christianity regardless of which of these groups they belong to.
It's difficult to describe - but I'd describe it a bit like this: You hear two people talking about racism, diversity, and equality. One is Jessie Jackson - one is Martin Luther King. Both are proclaiming to be "civil rights activists" But they are not the same. Both have deep beliefs that will shape their views on how the laws should be written. Yet they have little in common. Why? Because Martin Luther Kind believed - truly believed - that all men were created equal. That was the foundation of his belief. He didn't limit it to black men - he meant ALL MEN. Jessie Jackson just takes the idea of equality for a ride and is a huckster.
The point I think msgeek is trying to make - and if not, the one I'm trying to make - is that you have to understand the underlying belief, not catagorize who goes to what church.
To make my point ask yourself who follows Jessie Jackson? Who follow Martin Luther King: in both groups you will find some who believe as deeply as Martin Luther Kind did that all men are created equal and will work towards that goal. And in both groups you will find some who just see opportunity for a free ride. And in both groups you will find people on a continum of beliefs that span between Martin and Jessie.
And that is my point. You can't look at Jessie and understand the belief that drives those truly seeking equlity. You have to understand the underlying belief. And so it is with Christianity. Catholics, Protestants, Evanelicals who truly believe all speak a common language and hold a basic underlying belief.
Evangelical Christians try to share that belief - much in the same way that others go out and teach you how to read or understand math. They think it will help you and help society if you understand. Non-evangelicals (such as myself) believe but don't feel compelled to teach others. Hey - it's all I can do to learn and live it myself.
I'd go on and say how I think this relates to the war on terror - but I doubt anyone even read this far. But just suffice to say that I do think that the war planners need to get a better grasp on this and I'm glad to see them making an effort - even if they did only scratch the surface.
A new book by Michael Isikoff, an investigative reporter for Newsweek, and David Corn, who writes for the far left wing magazine The Nation, casts many powerful people in Washington in an unflattering light -- but not the people who Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn wish to besmirch.
A brief review for those of you who have lives, and who consequently haven't been following closely the details of the Plame Name Game: In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
First in leaks to reporters, and then in his own op-ed in the New York Times, a retired diplomat, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, said the president was lying. His claim to speak with authority was that in the spring of 2002, the CIA had sent him to Niger to see if Saddam had tried to buy uranium there.
Mr. Wilson's charge was important because it marked the beginning of the "Bush lied" meme about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But investigations by the Senate Intelligence Committee; the Robb-Silberman Commission on prewar intelligence, and the British Butler Commission all concluded it was Mr. Wilson who was not telling the truth. Saddam had indeed tried to buy uranium in Africa, as even Mr. Wilson himself had acknowledged to the CIA officers who debriefed him after his Niger trip.
One of the false claims Mr. Wilson made was that he had been sent to Niger at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney. In his July 14, 2003 column, Robert Novak disclosed that he had been sent instead at the insistence of his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked at the CIA.
Ms. Plame had once been an undercover operative. Concern was expressed that the leaker had violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Mr. Wilson blamed the leak on White House political guru Karl Rove, claiming it was payback for his "whistle-blowing." A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to investigate the charge. Mr. Fitzgerald eventually indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then the chief of staff to the vice president, on a charge of having lied to a grand jury about from whom he had learned of Ms. Plame's occupation. He is awaiting trial.
No indictments have been brought on the charge Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate, because it is clear there was no violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The act applies only to those who are operating under cover overseas, or who have done so within five years of the disclosure of their identities. Ms. Plame had been manning a desk at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. for longer than that.
Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn disclose that it was then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to Bob Novak, which is not exactly news to those who have been following the case. But Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn provide details which reflect poorly on Mr. Armitage, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the journalists who knew the truth at the time.
Mr. Armitage disclosed to his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and to Justice Department officials his role in the case in October, 2003, after a second Novak column, Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn say.
For more than three years, Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been accused, falsely, of being the source of the leak. Mr. Armitage, Mr. Powell, and Justice department officials knew the truth, but said nothing. Clarice Feldman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, described Mr. Armitage's silence as "inexplicable and perfidious."
"Had he spoken out publicly immediately, could there have been a reason for the press to have demanded the appointment of the feckless special prosecutor?" she asked.
Mr. Fitzgerald knew in his first few days on the job that Mr. Armitage was the leaker; that the leak was inadvertent, and that the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated. Yet he has persisted in a sham prosecution.
Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn write that: "the Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about prewar intelligence."
They add, lamely, that: "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."
They don't mention that Mr. Isikoff and (especially) Mr. Corn have been among the journalists flogging this meme, and the time that it takes to research and write a book indicates they've known for quite some time that it isn't true. They're only willing to tell the truth, now, for money.
#4
So lets see..... Fitzgerald KNEW it wasn't Rove or Libby or anyone else in the VP's or Presidents office, because Justice and FBI had the same info. But he went after the Presidents and VP's office anyway. Shameful.
Does the mainstream press ever wonder why conservatives distrust them so much?
If so, they need look no further than the fauxtography scandals of the last couple of weeks. Conservative bloggers have been hard at work sniffing out suspected fakery and staging in the photos sent back on the newswires from the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, and the investigation got pretty smelly. . . .
A very useful roundup with links. Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/29/2006 07:07 ||
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#1
Fake news? Hell, most business have to post disclaimers on their products - paid celebrity announcer, paid spokesman, actors posing as doctors, etc. Why shouldn't the media be required to either validate the information or post similar disclosures. Remember, its not an issue of free speech, it's an issue of commerce.
#2
But why would the lefties 'believe' the MSM? Oh, sure, they like what they read, but I liked the Lord of the Rings books, but I seldom confuse them with reality.
Although it does have a number of good vs. evil thems that do seem to fit today - the Two Towers - Iran and North Korea?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/29/2006 9:06 Comments ||
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#3
I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes. Dan Rather
Be careful. Journalism is more addictive than crack cocaine. Your life can get out of balance. Dan Rather
I've tried everything. I can say to you with confidence, I know a fair amount about LSD. I've never been a social user of any of these things, but my curiosity has carried me into a lot of interesting areas. Dan Rather
The reelection of Bill Clinton is as secure as a double-knot tied in wet rawhide. Dan Rather
What I say or do here won't matter much, nor should it. Dan Rather
WELL, what do you know: What was presented as a "Great Strategic Divine Victory" only a week ago is now beginning to look more like a costly blunder. And the man who is making the revisionist move is the same who made the original victory claim: Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah.
In a TV interview in Beirut Sunday, Nasrallah admitted second thoughts about the wisdom of capturing the two Israeli soldiers, an incident that triggered the war: "The party leadership never expected a response on such an unprecedented scale and volume [by Israel]," he said. "Had we known that what we did would lead to this, we would certainly not have embarked upon it."
For a roundabout way of eating humble pie, this was not bad for a man whom Western media have portrayed as the latest Arab folk hero or even (as one U.S. weekly put it) a new Saladin.
Why did Nasrallah decide to change his unqualified claim of victory into an indirect admission of defeat? Two reasons.
The first consists of facts on the ground: Hezbollah lost some 500 of its fighters, almost a quarter of its elite fighting force. Their families are now hounding Nasrallah to provide an explanation for "miscalculations" that led to their death.
Throughout southern Lebanon, once a stronghold of Hezbollah, pictures of the "martyrs" adorn many homes and shops, revealing the fact that many more Hezbollah fighters died than the 110 claimed by Nasrallah. What angers the families of the "martyrs" is that Hezbollah fighters had not been told that the sheik was starting a war to please his masters in Tehran, and that they should prepare for it.
The fighters found out there was a war only after the Israelis started raining fire on southern Lebanon. In fact, no one - apart from the sheik's Iranian contacts and a handful of Hezbollah security officials linked to Tehran and Damascus - knew that Nasrallah was provoking a war. Even the two Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese government weren't consulted, nor the 12 Hezbollah members of the Lebanese National Assembly. The party's chief policymaking organ, the Shura (consultative assembly), hasn't held a full session since 2001.
The "new Saladin" has also lost most of his medium-range missiles without inflicting any serious damage on Israel. Almost all of Hezbollah's missile launching pads (often placed in mosques, schools and residential buildings) south of the Litani River have been dismantled.
Worse still, the Israelis captured an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters and political officers, including several local leaders in the Bekaa Valley, Khyam and Tyre.
The second reason why Nasrallah has had to backtrack on his victory claims is the failure of his propaganda machine to hoodwink the Lebanese. He is coming under growing criticism from every part of the political spectrum, including the Hezbollah itself.
Last week he hurriedly cancelled a series of victory marches planned for Beirut's Shiite suburbs after leading Shiite figures attacked the move as "unmerited and indecent." Instead, every village and every town is holding typical Shiite mourning ceremonies, known as tarhym (seeking mercy), for the dead.
Nasrallah has tried to rally his base by distributing vast sums of Iranian money through his network - by the end of last week, an estimated $12 million in crisp U.S. banknotes. But if Nasrallah had hoped to buy silence, if not acquiescence, he is being proved wrong. Some Lebanese Shiites are scandalized that they are treated by Iranian mullahs as mercenaries, and see Nasrallah's cash handouts as diyah (blood money) for their dead. And a dead man whose family receives a diyah cannot claim the status of "martyr" and enjoy its prerogatives in paradise.
As the scale of the destruction in the Shiite south becomes more clear, the pro-Hezbollah euphoria (much of it created by Western media and beamed back to Lebanon through satellite TV) is evaporating. Reality is beginning to reassert its rights.
And that could be good news for Lebanon as a nation. It is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever regain the position it has lost. The Lebanese from all sides of the political spectrum are united in their determination not to allow any armed group to continue acting as a state within the state.
The decent thing to do for Nasrallah would be to resign and allow his party to pick a new leader, distance itself from Iran and Syria, merge its militia into the Lebanese army and become part of the nation's political mainstream.
In last year's elections, Hezbollah ended up with 12 seats in the 128-seat National Assembly, thanks to a series of alliances with other Shiite groups as well as Christian and Druze parties. As the scale of Nasrallah's blunder becomes clearer, it is unlikely that Hezbollah would be able to forge such alliances in the future.
To be sure, Nasrallah remains a powerful man. He has hundreds of gunmen at his disposal plus a source of endless supplies of money and arms in Iran. He can still have his political opponents murdered inside and outside Lebanon either by his goons or by hit men from Damascus and Tehran. But his chances of seizing power through a coup de force or provoking a civil war are diminishing by the day.
Arab leaders never resign, even when they admit having made tragic mistakes. And Nasrallah is no exception. In reality, however, Lebanon has already moved into the post-Nasrallah era. And that is the only good news to come out of the mini-war he provoked. Interesting part that accepting the diyah money denies you a claim as martyr
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2006 11:48 ||
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#1
It makes sense in a twisted sort of way. If you take money, then you were just a hired thug...if you don't do it for money, you did it for allan.
#3
Some Lebanese Shiites are scandalized that they are treated by Iranian mullahs as mercenaries, and see Nasrallah's cash handouts as diyah (blood money) for their dead. And a dead man whose family receives a diyah cannot claim the status of "martyr" and enjoy its prerogatives in paradise.
What about all the Palestinian suicide bombers whose families took money from Saddam? Is that just one of the differences between Sunnie and Shiite? Isn't that like saying it's Blitzer who has the red nose and not Rudolph?
#7
the pro-Hezbollah euphoria (much of it created by Western media and beamed back to Lebanon through satellite TV) is evaporating. Reality is beginning to reassert its rights.
Fascinating.
The Lebanese from all sides of the political spectrum are united in their determination not to allow any armed group to continue acting as a state within the state.
This I find difficult to believe will hold longer than a few minutes, given the Lebanese delight in byzantine manouvering for advantage.
distributing vast sums of Iranian money through his network - by the end of last week, an estimated $12 million in crisp U.S. banknotes.
Was the ink still wet? If Mr. Levey, that charming chap at the Treasury who made so many announcements today, were to mention in passing that we won't honour any bills coming out of the Lebanon unless they've been tested to prove they're not forged, the results could be highly amusing.
#8
This is very good news. The truth begins to emerge. And the pain of the destruction begins to sink in to the local dimwitted populace. When their level of pain gets high enough, the good imams will be ignored, or better yet, tarred & feathered, for killing their brainwashed sons and producing rubble in what used to be livable villages. Hooray !
#9
Nasrallah has tried to rally his base by distributing vast sums of Iranian money through his network - by the end of last week, an estimated $12 million in crisp U.S. banknotes.
Anyone else see some slight irony in this? America is the "Great Satan", but its currency still remains the only readily accepted tender in these Islamic shitholes. "Yer so evil, but we love your bloodstained money." What rectal cavities. Maybe we need to prohibit all paper banknote transfers to Arab countries.
Some Lebanese Shiites are scandalized that they are treated by Iranian mullahs as mercenaries, and see Nasrallah's cash handouts as diyah (blood money) for their dead. And a dead man whose family receives a diyah cannot claim the status of "martyr" and enjoy its prerogatives in paradise.
Take the money, all of your "martyrs" are going straight to hell anyway.
#14
Unfortunately, to eliminate the hizbies require that one be even more ruthless than they are. The Lebanese know that anyone who stands against them prominately will die, unless the hizbies realize that would mean the others would mercilessly hunt them down and kill every one, a true war of extermination (and I mean hizbies, not all shia).
when dealing with a possible strike from a single weapon, or at most a mere handful of weapons, the logic of the fallout shelter is compelling. Were going to need to be able to evacuate our cities in the event of a direct attack, or to avoid radiation plumes from cities that have already been struck. Tens or hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved by such measures...With Americans building fallout shelters, running evacuation drills, and otherwise preparing for a terrorist nuclear strike, dovishness wont even be an option. Our political choices will probably be of two types. Exactly how hawkish shall we be, and how shall we shape our alliances?...The lesson is that we face two choices: preemptive war with Iran, or a nightmare world on the brink of nuclear war and nuclear terror for the foreseeable future. Anyway you slice it, the doves are doomed. Unfortunately, so may we be all. Ready or not...duck and cover!
#1
The Failed/Angry Left has already reserved its unilateral right to resort to any means necessary, including but not limited to mutually destructive nuclear war and othwer anarchies, iff America fails to adopt Socialism and become suborned under OWG. THE LEFT GAVE ITSELF AND ONLY ITSELF THAT UNILATERAL RIGHT AND PRIVELEGE = THE RIGHT NOR CENTER NOR ANYONE ELSE DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME. The Chicom/Commie plan to exterminate 200Milyuhn or more Americans = Amerikans does NOT distinguish between US Lefty vs US Righty vs US Moder-Independent, ONLY WHOM IS CHINESE vs WHOM IS AMERICAN, WHOM IS A COMMUNIST vs WHOM IS NOT A COMMUNIST!? THE WOT = WAR FOR OWG = WAR FOR CONTROL OF THE WHOLE WORLD, NOY JUST A PART(S) OF IT. The issue is no longer whether to fight a nuclear war becuz the Failed/Angry Lefties and aligned/proxies have already answered that question - the issue is whether to do what is right and to fight/
defend/protect our beliefs and way of life. THE LEFTS WANT POWER AND CONTROL - UNILATERAL AND UNCONDITIONAL, UNRESTRICTED UNDENIABLE and UNCHALLENGEABLE. WHY FEAR NUKE WAR AGAINST AN ENEMY(S) THATS GONNA DESTROY YOU ANYWAYS???
#2
Its not a question if if. Its when. I read an article yesterday (could have been here -curse my lack of a short term memory) which made the claim this is actually the begining of the age of proliferation. Within the next 20 years Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and a host of others in the ME will follow Iran down this road.
The MAD deterent will dies when Muslims get the bomb, the Soviets were alot of things but suicidal by religon wasn't one of them.
Unfortunately not many are willing to recognize the current clash of civilizations as such and won't until the US or Europe losses a city.
#3
Nuclear development in Iran is not about generating power. Iran sits on some of the world's largest oil reserves. The nuclear option is about weapon development and Iran throwing its weight around in the mideast world.
#4
It is not a question of if Iran will have Nukes. The question of the day is when will they have them and when will they have the means to deliver them to the US? God I hate going into the defence. We should be on the attack, right now and measure the attack in megatons!!!! JQC and JM are right on this, as far as JM goes, I wish .com was here to expain it to me. LOL
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/29/2006 15:55 Comments ||
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#5
He did, a couple of days ago.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/29/2006 17:06 Comments ||
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Once upon a time, smart Democrats defended globalization, open trade and the companies that thrive within this system. They were wary of tethering themselves to an anti-trade labor movement that represents a dwindling fraction of the electorate. They understood the danger in bashing corporations: Voters don't hate corporations, because many of them work for one.
Then dot-bombs and Enron punctured corporate America's prestige, and Democrats bolted. Rather than hammer legitimately on real instances of corporate malfeasance -- accounting scandals, out-of-control executive compensation and the like -- Democrats swallowed the whole anti-corporate playbook.
To see the difference between then and now, just look at the Clintons. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hillary Clinton sat on Wal-Mart's board; and when Sam Walton died in 1992, Bill Clinton lauded him as "a wonderful family man and one of the greatest citizens in the history of the state of Arkansas.'' Campaigning in the New Hampshire primary that year, Bill Clinton came proudly to the rescue of a local company called American Brush Co. by helping it become a Wal-Mart supplier.
Times change. Last year Hillary Clinton returned a campaign contribution from Wal-Mart, even though she had no compunction in banking a check from Jerry Springer. The nation's most successful retailer, which has seized the opportunities created by globalization to boost the buying power of ordinary Americans, is now seen as too toxic to touch. But a trash-talking TV host is acceptable.
Clinton is not alone in this. The stiff-necked Joe Lieberman, who holds fast to his principles on the Iraq war, recently abandoned his centrist economic credentials by appearing at an anti-Wal-Mart rally. No matter that Lieberman once served as chairman of the business-friendly Democratic Leadership Council. Now he proclaims his determination "to wake up Wal-Mart and say, 'Treat your workers fairly.' "
After Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut, stepped down as chairman of the DLC, he was succeeded by Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. Well, Bayh recently showed up at an anti-Wal-Mart rally, too, as has Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is the current DLC chairman. The Wake Up Wal-Mart campaign bus, which is trundling across the country on a 35-day tour, ensnares prominent Democrats in almost every state it passes through. Harry Reid, the Democrats' Senate leader, appeared at an anti-Wal-Mart event on Saturday, and Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Bill Richardson popped up at earlier stops. When the campaign bus reaches Washington state on Labor Day, both Washington's Democratic senators are expected to greet it.
How can supposedly centrist Democrats defend this betrayal of their principles? Some claim that their beliefs are consistent, but that the company has changed: The Wal-Mart of the early 1990s mainly bought American, whereas today's irresponsible monster buys cheap stuff from China. But this argument merely illustrates how far Democrats have come. Since when did the party's centrists believe that trading with China is evil? It was the Clinton administration that brought China into the World Trade Organization.
Other Democrats reaffirm their centrist credentials while calling upon Wal-Mart to pay workers more. "We are not here today because we are anti-business," Bayh asserted in Iowa recently as he demonstrated against Wal-Mart -- a contention that the retailer's shareholders, who have spent millions defending their brand against Wake-Up Wal-Mart, may have a hard time swallowing. But the idea that Wal-Mart pays below-market wages is false. Otherwise nobody would work there.
Hillary Clinton and Sen. John Kerry have attacked Wal-Mart for offering health coverage to too few workers. But Kerry's former economic adviser, Jason Furman of New York University, concluded in a paper last year that Wal-Mart's health benefits are about as generous as those of comparable employers. Moreover, Clinton and Kerry know perfectly well that market pressures limit the health coverage that companies can provide. After all, both senators have proposed expansions in government health provision precisely on the premise that the private sector can't pay for all of it.
The truth is that none of these Democrats can resist dumb economic populism. Even though we are not in a recession, and even though the presidential primaries are more than a year away, the DLC crowd is pandering shamelessly to the left of the party -- perhaps in the knowledge that the grocery workers union, which launched the anti-Wal-Mart campaign, is strong in the key state of Iowa.
For a party that needs the votes of Wal-Mart's customers, this is a questionable strategy. But there is more than politics at stake. According to a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag, neither of whom received funding from Wal-Mart, big-box stores led by Wal-Mart reduce families' food bills by one-fourth. Because Wal-Mart's price-cutting also has a big impact on the non-food stuff it peddles, it saves U.S. consumers upward of $200 billion a year, making it a larger booster of family welfare than the federal government's $33 billion food-stamp program.
How can centrist Democrats respond to that? By beating up Wal-Mart and forcing it to focus on public relations rather than opening new stores, Democrats are harming the poor Americans they claim to speak for.
#2
Right after reading Traitor Within Our Walls, and then this, I remind all to vote, every time the opportunity is offered. Because to me, it's not an opportunity, it's an obligation.
Don't give me the BS about not wanting to choose the "lesser of two evils'; if you don't someone else will. That's how the greater of two evils gets elected.
Except I'd vote for Lieberman, just to piss off the left.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/29/2006 12:06 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.
The biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, Americas closest ally because of Pakistan-oriented young Islamists in that country, according to two noted terrorism experts. Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank write in the current issue of New Republic that for terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, which has reconstituted itself in Pakistan, ethnic Pakistanis living in the United Kingdom make perfect recruits, since they speak English and can travel on British passports. 
WELL, what do you know: What was presented as a "Great Strategic Divine Victory" only a week ago is now beginning to look more like a costly blunder. And the man who is making the revisionist move is the same who made the original victory claim: Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah. 
