#1
Perception most certainly is a reality which overlays physical reality, as all those involved in sales & marketing well know, and must be managed as such. Getting the facts out about real progress on the War on Terror battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, about Arab perfidy with regard to Israel -- mainly via Conservative talk radio, bloggers, and messages/blogging by the troops -- is what has kept the anti-war coalition of Progressives and traditional media from having it all their own way ... For the first time people are not arguing about what should be done about what we read in the papers/see on television, but where the professional journalists have chosen to deviate from the facts that we've learnt from other sources. For the first time the professionals are battling publically to defend themselves against substantiated charges of falsification -- and losing. I would love to know how journalism school application numbers have changed post-9/11, not just because the job market is shrinking, but because the idealists who have historically been attracted to the field don't want to be part of a profession known for outright lying.
#2
In boot camp, soldiers are taught to obey commands without regard to the situation. If each soldier had to decide whether a particular battle could be won or lost before following commands, then indeed, each battle would be lost. So, the situation, and the truth of the situation are not factors. The only important factor to the commander is that when the forces act as if they are invincible, they can overcome bad odds and win the hard ones. Because of this, the officers desire total unquestioned obedience. That's how sucessful forces win over unsucessful forces.
The media separates itself from the military in that they mislead without first preparing their forces to follow without doubting. So, the media followers begin doubting the media screed, and, low and behold, we soon find lies. For this, the media is in decline. The pen is weaker than the sword, and every day, more people are finding new sources of information.
For this reason, the military should never act upon the recommendations or results of media efforts. The military in this democracy should act on commands from their leader, the Commander in Chief. Traditionally, we the people have prayed that he have the strength to do the right thing.
Yesterday evening, the Dutch television program Nova caused considerable embarrassment in the Netherlands by revealing how the Turkish government influenced last months Dutch general elections. In an e-mail sent to thousands of ethnic Turks in the Netherlands the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs called on them to vote for Fatma Koser Kaya, a 38-year old woman whose family emigrated to the Netherlands when she was six years old. Koser Kaya is a member of the leftist social-liberal Democrats 66 (D66) party. On 22 November, D66 lost three of its previous six seats in Parliament. Koser Kaya, however, though only sixth on the list of D66 candidates, was elected as one of the partys three parliamentarians thanks to the 34,564 individual votes she got, possibly as a result of the Turkish governments interference.
Immigrants are known to overwhelmingly vote for candidates of their own ethnic group. Since they have often not integrated in the country where they have settled their loyalties lie with their countries of origin. This has created a situation where the immigrants in Western democracies become Trojan horses of foreign nationalism and religious fanaticism. This phenomenon became apparent in this years local elections in the Netherlands and in neighbouring Belgium. It tipped the balance in favour of parties that put forward immigrant candidates. At the same time, however, it worked to the disadvantage of indigenous candidates on these parties lists, causing considerable resentment among the latter.
In an e-mail, sent from a government address in Ankara, the Turks in the Netherlands were asked to vote for Koser Kaya. The e-mail was sent by Ali Alaybeyoglu, the advisor to Mehmet Aydin, the Turkish minister of Religious Affairs. The first paragraph reads:
We all realize that no-one can represent Turks better than Turks. The Turkish community is threatened by assimilation. All is said, isn't it? Not muslim dutch, not even dutch muslims, but muslims living in Holland.
If we do not unite and vote for a common candidate our position will only worsen in future.
The e-mail lists five reasons why Turks should vote for Koser Kaya. The most important one is the fact that D66 does not recognize the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1915. The four other reasons have to do with D66s opposition to the policies of Rita Verdonk, the Dutch minister of Integration.
The Armenian issue became a topic in the Dutch general elections when the two leading parties in the country, the Christian-Democrats and Labour, refused to put forward candidates of Turkish origin who did not accept the party line that there was a genocide of the Armenians in 1915. As a reaction Turkish lobby groups initiated a campaign to urge Dutch voters of Turkish ancestry to boycott any party that labels the 1915 mass killing of Armenians a genocide.
The e-mail from the Turkish ministry lists the Dutch parties and points out why, apart from D66, they are not acceptable to Turks. The Christian-Democrats and Labour are excluded because of their position on the genocide, the Liberal Party VVD because it is the party of Verdonk and Hirsi Ali, the Animal Rights Party because it considers animals to be more important than Turks, and the Calvinist Party because it is preparing a new crusade.
Today, the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted Ankara about the affair. The Turkish Minister of Religious Affairs said he knows nothing about an e-mail. Minister Aydin added that if this e-mail had indeed been sent he strongly condemns it. We do not interfere in the internal politics of our friends, he said. Aydins collaborator Alaybeyoglu, the man who allegedly sent the e-mail, said that several people have access to his e-mail address. According to the Dutch ministry the matter is still under investigation.
#1
Just another indication that no muslim, from any nation, can be completely trusted. Also a good reason to keep Turkey out of the EU.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/08/2006 13:22 Comments ||
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#2
The e-mail from the Turkish ministry lists the Dutch parties and points out why, apart from D66, they are not acceptable to Turks. The Christian-Democrats and Labour are excluded because of their position on the genocide, the Liberal Party VVD because it is the party of Verdonk and Hirsi Ali, the Animal Rights Party because it considers animals to be more important than Turks, and the Calvinist Party because it is preparing a new crusade.
Well sh*t. Something I can agree with the turkish government about.
#4
The Turks do have a point that when western Europeans even mention the Armenian genocide, they do so for no other reason than to put down the Turks.
A close parallel would be that if every time Brazil mentioned Germany, it made it a point to mention that the Germans were responsible for the Holocaust. It would obviously be done solely as an insult.
Western Europe didn't give two hoots when the Armenians were being killed, so it is rather disingenuous of them to make an issue of it now.
Personally, I think it would be a hoot if every time Brussels mentioned the Armenian genocide, the Turks brought up Belgium's "rape of the Congo".
Posted by: ed ||
12/08/2006 14:57 ||
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#1
Ouch! A lovely article tearing the AP apart for a historical pattern of defending fantasy that at one stage the writer personally experienced. Great find, ed!
Posted by: ed ||
12/08/2006 15:08 ||
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#1
Victory today requires the same: smashing Iran's totalitarian regime and thus demoralizing the Islamist movement and its many supporters, so that they, too, abandon their cause as futile.
Agreed but totally insufficient. Flatten Tehran, flatten Qom, yes. But sterilize Waziristan and bomb every Egyptian newspaper that publishes an anti-semitic cartoon; taking out every television station in the middle-east which aired that Protocols mini-series would be a good start. So too the Turkish studio that produced that Valley of the Wolves movie and, while we are at it, try, convict and execute Billy Zain for his participation in the project as the traitor he is.
Yet all of this is but to begin. To eliminate the ideological underpinnings of this 7th-century barbarism it needs to pulled up at the roots and the ground salted where it stood. This means the total destruction of Mecca; preferably during the height of whatever season is most holy to the Temple of Elemental Evil. If a million hajjis are on hand then so much the better. We do not just need to defeat these bastards; we need to make an example of them.
...Although I agree there needs to be a serious, no-holds barred effort to get the attention of the Muslim world, flattening Mecca would have little effect other than to further anger what I am rapidly beginning to consider no more than a mindless cult.
Islam has no organized structure, unlike Catholicism or to a far lesser extent, the other Christian faiths or Judaism. If we were to lay one warhead down on Mecca, some mullah would declare a fatwa that as long as you were doing Jihad, you didn't have to make a pilgramage. Another would say that if you died from radiation poisoning while trying to get there, you would go directly to paradise, do not pass Medina and collect 72 virgins.
I'm not saying that wiping Mecca off the map wouldn't be useful - it might indeed convince the one third of the Earth's population that's gone renegade that perhaps it's time to back off. But there are far better targets - Qom, Riyadh, and Damascus - that would have a far more immediate and beneficial impact. And before we kill cities - which we may have to do someday whether we like it or not - there are individuals who need to die very public and very surprised deaths. The mullahs and shiekhs who incite and lead this madness from their caves or their homes or their pulpits MUST come to fear the consequences of opening their mouths. They MUST learn to live like Zarkawi, al-Zawarhiri and bin Laden - always looking over their shoulders, never knowing who they can trust. If it means sending in the Special Forces, then DO so, and to hell with the 'ramifications' - they brag about how they love death more than life, so let us reward them.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/08/2006 15:57 Comments ||
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#4
Another would say that if you died from radiation poisoning while trying to get there, you would go directly to paradise, do not pass Medina and collect 72 virgins.
To me this would not be a bug but a feature.
But there are far better targets - Qom, Riyadh, and Damascus - that would have a far more immediate and beneficial impact.
A casual glance at what I wrote would reveal Qom is already my list but by all means let's flatten Damascus and Riyadh as well. This is not one of those either/or situations. The excluded middle of your argument includes all sorts of other places I would cheerfully revert to pre-European contact technological levels; Indonesia, say.
#5
Mike, I disagree. A pilgrimage to mecca is a major requirement of the muzzie death cult. Totally destroying mecca (nuke the place with a dozen 1MT devices, fuse the entire plain around about into radioactive glass) is essential to break the bonds between islam and the middle east. At the same time, every ARAB capital in the world needs to be destroyed, and so do any peripheral gathering places of more than a few hundred muslims.
The first order of business is to break the power of this death cult over people's lives. That means destroying the source of that power - the MME, the dictatorial rulers of the halls of power, the imams and their power, the madrassahs and other religious schools, and everything else associated with islam. That means pulling out of the entire middle east and flattening everything but Israel from Morocco to Pakistan, as well as hitting Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Do not exclude any majority-muslim country, from Albania to Somalia and Chad, and all across Africa to Mauritania. Make Carthage look like a Sunday school picnic. Anything less is futile.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/08/2006 17:13 Comments ||
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#6
None of this will happen until a city in the US is destroyed by an islamic nuke. Also, the retaliating POTUS would have to be a Democrat.
If the retaliating POTUS is a Democrat, there won't BE any retaliation. That's the problem.
Democrats are cowards and traitors who truly hate this country. They'll stand in the ashes for a photo op asking "Why do they hate us?"
Posted by: mac ||
12/08/2006 19:04 Comments ||
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#8
Unfortunately Islam is a distributed rather than centralized system, Mecca or no. Any ignorant Koran-thumper can set himself up as a pope-equivalent. All he needs is some equally ignorant adherents. Decapitation is not a viable approach - need to work with the grubbing hoe to dig out all the weeds.
#9
Destruction of Mecca will destroy Islam about the same way the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans destroyed Judaism. Didn't happen then, won't happen in the future.
#11
I am unpleasantly surprised at how quickly many of you are to abandon what is not an entirely bad situation. First of all, the Arab world has been shaken to its roots, and slowly and grudgingly, democracy is starting to grow there in all sorts of places. And once rooted, it is damnably hard to eliminate.
Three years ago we feared a war between the west and the Moslem world. Today things are not so clear, with much of the contest between Sunni and Shia. But even that is very limited to certain countries.
Iran and Syria are not new threats--they were just as obnoxious before. So why now feel despair that they scheme against us and everyone else? The same with our "allies"; they were duplicitous before, and they still are. Nothing has changed, so why be depressed?
And Iraq is not going to "fall". We have worked overtime to insure that no matter what, it would take chaotic decades to become a theocracy, no matter what tater wants. And there are still plenty of patriotic Iraqi Shiites who see Iranians as the enemy.
President Bush has two more years to bring about sweetness and light. The democrats may be annoying, but little else. And Joe Lieberman will insure that the Senate doesn't throw in the towel.
So what does Bush need to do for a win? A new election this coming January to create a permanent and stable Iraqi government, followed shortly thereafter with the hanging of Saddam. And once that government is in place, a Status of Forces agreement allows us to stay in rural Iraq, out of harm's way, and let the Iraqis settle things.
At that point, most people expect a blow-up. They are mistaken. Most likely the Iraqi Interior Ministry will round up an s-load of known perpetrators, who will then just disappear. The word will quickly get out, and much of the violence will end.
So what will be left of "the war" (the occupation), when no more US personnel are killed, and most of the violence in Iraq is over? There will still be a year and a quarter of Bush's Presidency to go.
#12
'Moose, I'd absolutely love to believe you're right. From your keyboard to God's eyes...
Posted by: mac ||
12/08/2006 21:24 Comments ||
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#13
Destroying Islamic totalitarianism requires a punishing military onslaught to end its primary state representative and demoralize its supporters. We need to deploy all necessary force to destroy Iran'sISLAM'S ability to fight, while minimizing our own casualties. We need a campaign that ruthlessly inflicts the pain of war so intensely that the jihadists renounce their cause as hopeless and fear to take up arms against us.
There, fixed that.
Agreed but totally insufficient. Flatten Tehran, flatten Qom, yes. But sterilize Waziristan and bomb every Egyptian newspaper that publishes an anti-semitic cartoon; taking out every television station in the middle-east which aired that Protocols mini-series would be a good start. So too the Turkish studio that produced that Valley of the Wolves movie and, while we are at it, try, convict and execute Billy Zain for his participation in the project as the traitor he is.
Yes, and yes especially to the crushing of Islam's propaganda machine, Excalibur. The damage it does and death it promotes is beyond comprehension and yet does not even show up on our military's radar.
And before we kill cities - which we may have to do someday whether we like it or not - there are individuals who need to die very public and very surprised deaths. The mullahs and shiekhs who incite and lead this madness from their caves or their homes or their pulpits MUST come to fear the consequences of opening their mouths. They MUST learn to live like Zarkawi, al-Zawarhiri and bin Laden - always looking over their shoulders, never knowing who they can trust. If it means sending in the Special Forces, then DO so, and to hell with the 'ramifications' - they brag about how they love death more than life, so let us reward them.
Absolutely, Mike K! If we are ever to win this war against Islam, conspicuously killing its top tiers of command is a vital first step. Myself and others have been hollering to the rooftops about this for some time now. Until this clandestine program of executions begins, no progress will be made.
That means destroying the source of that power - the MME, the dictatorial rulers of the halls of power, the imams and their power, the madrassahs and other religious schools, and everything else associated with islam. That means pulling out of the entire middle east and flattening everything but Israel from Morocco to Pakistan, as well as hitting Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. Do not exclude any majority-muslim country, from Albania to Somalia and Chad, and all across Africa to Mauritania.
You are describing the Muslim holocaust that I continue to predict, Old Patriot.
Some, and quite possibly all, of these measures will be required of us in the near future. I say that Mecca and Medina, possibly even Qom, should all be saved as "hostage" targets to be used specifically as demoralizing blows (like Hiroshima or Dresden), in retaliation for any large-scale terrorist atrocities.
Before then, massive disproportionate retaliation must be the rule. For every victim of a terrorist atrocity, one to ten thousand Muslims must die. Kill enough of them so that they rebel against their terrorist overlords and begin the essential change from within that we cannot impose from without. If such reformation proves impossible, let the Muslim holocaust proceed.
The election is over, and the victory of the Democrats is having precisely the consequences in Iraq that anyone paying attention should have predicted.
The people of Iraq interpreted the election results the way the extreme Left wanted them to: As a repudiation, by the American people, of President Bush's war policy.
In fact that is not really what the election "meant," if a national election spread out over hundreds of candidates can be said to "mean" any specific thing.
For instance, in Connecticut, the voters rejected the extremist wing of the Democratic Party (otherwise known as "The Democratic Party") by reelecting Joseph Lieberman, the most notable (but not the only) Democrat who has the brains to understand that the War on Terror is vital to our national security.
And many of the new Democrats in Congress were elected because they ran to the right -- they coopted many of the stances that are usually identified as Republican.
So what, exactly, is our new Congress composed of? Certainly it will be the Democratic Party that organizes both houses this winter, and makes committee assignments, and sets out to harass the White House as much as possible, to punish George W. Bush for being a better President than America had any right to have at this crucial time in our history.
What the new Congress most definitely does not have is a majority to enact the Democratic agenda on any point.
That is, unless the new crop of quasi-Republican Democrats were pulling a Bill Clinton and lying about their principles in order to get elected. We'll find that out soon enough -- if they vote just like other Democrats, then we'll know they were liars, because they promised not to.
And the new Congress does not have a majority to force a withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.
This is obviously true, because Joseph Lieberman is the crucial vote, and he knows we cannot afford to do anything so stupid, so contrary to our interests and inimical to our allies in the Middle East (of which we have many, despite the claims of opponents of the war).
There are also too many Democrats in the House who come from districts where a vote for forcing a troop withdrawal on a timetable (i.e., "surrender") would be the end of that Congressman's career.
The trouble is that the people of Iraq don't know that. They only know what our anti-Bush media tell them, which is that our election was an enormous defeat for Bush's war policy, and what their anti-American media tell them, which is that our election was an enormous victory for Al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents (a.k.a. murderers and terrorists) in Iraq.
The Sunni insurgents celebrated their victory by slaughtering Shiites.
Previously, the Shiites have shown astonishing self-restraint (for Arab countries) when provoked, because their leaders were able to persuade them that the Americans would deal with the Sunnis until the Iraqi defense forces were able to take over the job.
But now, because of the way our election has been portrayed, the Shiites no longer have any trust that America will remain. They think -- wrongly -- that the American people favor a cowardly, selfish retreat from a policy on which the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds have staked their lives. Rest at link
#1
"that the American people favor a cowardly, selfish retreat from a policy on which the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds have staked their lives."
-some of them do, as they are ignorant and the only info they digest is from the msm - what other conclusion could they reach? Especially if they are not fact checking the msm by using blogs or radio.
#2
This is truly one of those watershed moments were reality is not what the LLL/MSM want it to be. I've gotta believe that we've learned from not only Vietnam (pullout = wholesale slaughter of the Cambodians), but also our early pullout of Iraq under Bush I (the Shi'a uprising that was squashed quickly by Saddam, of which he's gonna be on trial for).
If not, we are in for a LOT worse before it gets better. Call me an optimist, but I truly believe it will get better. I hold out hope that Bush/Cheney will kill the report from the ISG, that the Congress will NOT be able to force a early pullout, and when our own Civil War again happens, we'll win cause we got all the guns.
Posted by: BA ||
12/08/2006 9:23 Comments ||
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#3
JOM BOHANNON SHOW vs DOUG STEPHEN SHOW few days ago? Methinks t'was BOHANNON'S? > GIST = Amer Pols can secure Iraq in a day iff they wanted to. Prob is Pols are so manic or obsessed wid PC = Political Power, espec agz DUBYA-GOP, THAT ARE WILLING TO ALLOW 000'S OF AMER SOLDIERS TO BE PUT AT RISK OF DEATH, AND TO WILFULLY ENDANGER THE WHOLE OF AMERICA + FREE WORLD. 000's MORE OF US SOLDIERS WILL LIKELY HAVE TO GET KILLED FIRST, OR US CITIES-TOWNS BE DESTROYED BY TERROR WMDS, BEFORE AMER POLS REALIZE THE USA IS IN A WAR AND START PUTTING THE NATIONAL INTEREST ABOVE THEIR OWN.
* As said before, USA > CHAMBERLAIN vs CHURCHILL. "I have in my hand a paper signed by Mr. Hitler... ... PEACE IN OUR TIME"; versus "No matter the cost to us in ships and planes, no matter the costs in human lives, ... ... YOU MUST SINK THE BISMARCK" [movie].
One of Kirkpatrick's most famous speeches was when she blasted "San Francisco Democrats" at the August 20, 1984, Republican Convention. It is as true today, as it was then:
This is the first Republican Convention I have ever attended. I am grateful that you should invite me, a lifelong Democrat. On the other hand, I realize that you are inviting many lifelong Democrats to join this common cause ...
A recent article in The New York Times noted that "the foreign policy line that emerged from the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco is a distinct shift from the policies of such [Democratic] presidents as Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson." I agree ...
When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.
Today, foreign policy is central to the security, to the freedom, to the prosperity, even to the survival of the United States. And our strength, for which we make many sacrifices, is essential to the independence and freedom of our allies and our friends ...
The United States cannot remain an open, democratic society if we are left alone -- a garrison state in a hostile world. We need independent nations with whom to trade, to consult and cooperate. We need friends and allies with whom to share the pleasures and the protection of our civilization.
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/08/2006 11:16 ||
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A Grand Lady and patriot of the first order. She prolly read the ISG Report and her heart gave out unable to stand anymore.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
12/08/2006 12:23 Comments ||
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#2
The day she counciled Reagan to back the Argie dictatorship against the UK in the Falklands conflict was the day I stopped respecting her.
#3
RIP JEANNE. I liked her as a personage even though I didn't know her and I didn't always agree wid her policies. WOT > is. besides many other premises/labels, about FREEDOM + INDEPENDENCE. The anti-Amer, DEFEAT = SOCIALISM-OWG, VICTORY = SOCIALISM-OWG Waffling Lefts have no qualms about America warring for empire as long as America loses in the end, by any means necessary, VOLUNTARILY = FORCIBLY. OWG/GLOBALISTS > INVADING ARMIES will be PC called PEACEKEEPERS, e.g. the UNITED NATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORCE(S) IN US. COLD WAR USSR versus "breakaway" WARSAW PACT NATIONS = LOCAL NORTH AMER PACT COMMIE GOVTS, including WASHINGTON DC "asked/requested" Soviet = OWG military intervention = military-led humanitarian assistance, etc.
The unsurprising victory of Venezuelan song and dance artist Hugo Chavez in his re-election bid on Sunday was warmly welcomed around the world.
Chavez friends in Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua were pleased. Castro and Daniel Ortega must think someone flipped a switch and theyre back in the early 1980s only this time, theres no President Reagan and no Contras.
The Iranian Foreign ministry welcomed the Chavez victory, and didnt even threaten to raise oil prices to $200 per barrel. Thats for next week.
Al Jazeera knew the results even before the votes were cast, and showed Chavez with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran earlier this year, rigged out in orange hard hats, the best of buddies.
If the North American empire and its lackeys attempt another coup, or don't acknowledge the electoral outcome, we will not send them one more drop of oil," al Jazeera quoted al Jefe as saying.
Oil is mainly what distinguishes Chavez from his mentor, Fidel Castro. Venezuela is the worlds fifth-largest oil exporter, and supplies the U.S. with about 11 percent of our daily oil supplies. And Chavez controls the oil.
Instead of inviting the children to spend their summer holiday cutting sugar cane, as Fidel did in the 1960s, al Jefe is offering sugar plums to the poor via his wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, CITGO, which controls 6% of all U.S. refining capacity.
In July, Chavez had CITGO break existing distribution agreements with 1,800 independently owned service stations in ten predominantly red states, because he reportedly wanted to break contracts that benefit U.S. consumers more than Venezuelans.
Now he is offering to supply discounted heating oil to the poor in several U.S. states as a public relations ploy. Even USA Today is asking if Citgo is no longer an oil company, but a political tool for Chavez.
The Citgo offer of discounted fuel has won support from unexpected circles. On Friday, the parent company of the conservative Washington Times will be hosting Venezeuan ambassador Hernando Alverez Herrera to a citizens forum, where he will expound on Chavezs kind and generous offer to supply discounted fuel to the poor.
As a daily reader of the Times (and a former senior writer for Insight Magazine, an investigative newsweekly closed by the Times last year), I was surprised to learn that Herrera would be a featured speaker at a Washington Times event.
I was even more surprised when the spokesman for the Citizens Forum, Brian Bauman, told me that he was planning to allow Herrera to speak unchallenged by any panelist who would focus on Venezuelas strategic ties to Iran, a founding member of the axis of evil .Thats not the direction of this forum, he said. Its to speak to the cost of energy in the Washington, DC area. One facet of that is the Venezuelan program.
Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile
Venezuela under Chavez ressembles Castros Cuba in important ways. Just as Castro did after he seized power, Chavez has sought to expand his influence throughout the region through covert action. He bankrolled Ortegas return to power last month, and has helped leftist leaders win power in Bolivia and elsewhere.
Also like Castro, he has sought the protection of a powerful opponent of the United States, in this case the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Castro was powerless to prevent Nikita Krushchev from deploying nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba, an act that nearly provoked a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. And Kruschhev was no radical Islamic fundamentalist. He was rational to the extreme, believing in the cold calculus of power politics.
Ahmadinejad has stated publicly that the goal of his government is to bring about the return of the Imam Mahdi, the 12th imam of Shiite Muslim lore who only comes out of his well after a devastating world war.
Unlike Krushchev, who understood that he and his regime were doomed if nuclear missiles actually began to fly, Ahmadinejad believes that through death, he wins.
Its hard to deter such a regime.
Iran does not currently have nuclear warheads at least, so far as the CIA professes to know. But they do have missiles which, if deployed in Venezuela, would be capable of hitting the United States.
But it goes against the pattern of Iranian regime behavior to act so overtly against the United States. Tehrans mullahs prefer acting by indirection, through proxies, just as they are murdering Americans today in Iraq through proxies.
Suppose for a moment that Iran has acquired a nuclear weapon either on the black market, as many sources believe; or through a clandestine uranium enrichment program, which the CIA discounts (because they have no spies in Iran who might detect such a program).
Iran could send a heavily-shielded nuclear warhead to Venezuela, where it would be fitted to a short-range missile and stowed on board a U.S.-bound cargo ship.
That cargo ship would not be owned by Iranians or by Venezuelans, but perhaps by some Qatari millionaire through a front company in the British Virgin Islands. The deadly ship would then depart Venezuela carrying perfectly legitimate, declared cargo for the port of Newark, New Jersey.
Perhaps the ship might not even be bound for the United States at all, but for Halifax, Nova Scotia, further up the Atlantic seaboard. Either way, the likelihood it would be inspected on the high seas are very low.
Steaming along in commercial shipping lanes one hundred miles off the coast of Washington, DC, the ships international crew brings the missile launcher up from the hold and prepares it for launch. Under the cover of darkness, they fire their weapon, then stow the launcher and continue on their way. Two minutes later, Washington, DC is hit with a fireball that obliterates the White House, the Capitol Building, and the national monuments in seconds. And no signature links this act of war back to Iran.
This, of course, is just fiction. But the technology is known and available. Iran has been testing sea-launched ballistic missiles since 1998.
Well before any kind of military strike on America, both Iran and Venezuela are working to get America to surrender, by first admitting our helplessness.
That is why Chavez is offering discounted oil through Citgo to Americans. You are poor, you are weak, and your government wont take care of you. But we will, if only you will accept our gift. Much to the delight of the Enlightened EUlites, who love to point out the poor americans, forgotten by the Man and the evil US society.
That is why Iran is trying to get the United States to accept its help in Iraq, and is working through proxies in America (since it has no legal equivalent of Citgo) to get its seductive offer across. We will stop the insurgency, Iran says, if only you will recognize the legitimacy of our regime, accept our nuclear program, and stop all efforts to support pro-democracy movements inside Iran. We can keep Americans from getting killed.
Come hither, Little One, said the Crocodile, and Ill whisper.
In Rudyard Kiplings Just So Stories, the Elephants Child is tempted by his satiable curtiosity to seek out the Crocodile, and cannot believe the beast will actually try to eat him. As the Elephants Child pulls and pulls to free his nose from the Crocodiles teeth, it grows and grows and that is How the Elephant got its Trunk.
When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear. I hope she's misjudging GWB.
Hopefully it will also be remembered as the moment the Jews arose and refused to allow Iran to go nuclear.
With the publication of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group chaired by former US secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the debate about the war in Iraq changed. From a war for victory against Islamofascism and for democracy and freedom, the war became reduced to a conflict to be managed by appeasing the US's sworn enemies in the interests of stability and at the expense of America's allies.
Baker and his associates claim that the US cannot win the war in Iraq and so the US must negotiate with its primary enemies in Iraq and throughout the world - Iran and Syria - in the hopes that they will be persuaded to hold their fire for long enough to facilitate an "honorable" American retreat from the country.
Like his unsupported assertion that the US cannot win in Iraq, Baker also asserts - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - that Iran and Syria share America's "interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq." Because of this supposed shared interest, Baker maintains that with the proper incentives, Iran and Syria can be persuaded to cooperate with a US withdrawal from Iraq ahead of the 2008 presidential primaries.
The main incentive Baker advocates offering is Israel.
Baker believes that Iran will agree to temporarily hold its fire in Iraq in exchange for US acceptance of Iran as a nuclear power and an American pledge not to topple the regime. Syria will assist the US in exchange for US pressure on Israel to hand over the Golan Heights to Syria and Judea and Samaria to Hamas.
Obviously, if implemented, the Baker-Hamilton group's recommendations will be disastrous for Israel. Just the fact that they now form the basis for the public debate on the war is a great blow. But it isn't only Israel that is harmed by their actions. The US too, will be imperiled if their views become administration policy.
Although Baker - and incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who served on his commission until Bush announced his appointment next month - believe that there is a deal to be done that will end Iranian and Syrian aggression against the US, its vital interests and its allies, the fact of the matter is that there is no such deal. Contrary to what the Baker report argues and what Gates said in his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Iran is not analogous to the Soviet Union and the war against the global jihad is not a new cold war.
Even if the US were to somehow get them to agree to certain understandings about Iraq, there is no reason to believe that the Iranians and Syrians would keep their word. Not only would the US be approaching them as a supplicant and so emboldening them, but to date the US has never credibly threatened anything either Syria or Iran value. Indeed, through supporting negotiations between the EU and Iran, empowering the UN to deal with Iran's nuclear program and forcing Israel to accept a cease-fire with Hizbullah last summer that effectively gave victory to Syria and Iran's proxy, the US has consistently rewarded the two countries' aggression.
Worse than that, from a US perspective, although Gates admitted Tuesday that he cannot guarantee that Iran will not attack Israel with nuclear weapons, he ignored the fact that Iran - whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad daily calls for the destruction of the US - may also attack the US with nuclear weapons.
Gates admitted in his Senate hearing that Iran is producing many bombs - not just one.
Since it is possible to destroy Israel with just one bomb, the Americans should be asking themselves what Iran needs all those other bombs for. There are senior military sources in the US who have been warning the administration to take into consideration that the day that Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear bomb, 10 cities in the US and Europe are liable to also be attacked with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, no one is listening to these voices today.
IT IS particularly upsetting that Washington has chosen now of all times to turn its back on the war. Ahmadinejad hinted Monday that Iran has completed the nuclear fuel cycle and so has passed the point of no return on its nuclear program. He also made a veiled statement indicating that Iran will have its nuclear arsenal up and running by March - just four months away.
Serious disagreement exists in Washington over the status of the Iranian program. Some claim that Iran is four or five years away from nuclear weapons capabilities. Other maintain that Iran has recently experienced serious technical setbacks in their uranium enrichment activities and that the North Korean nuclear bomb test in October, in which Iranian officials participated, was a failure.
But there are also engaged officials who agree with Ahmadinejad's assessment of Iran's nuclear progress. Those officials maintain first that the North Korean-Iranian test in October was successful and should be taken as a sign that Iran already has a nuclear arsenal. Second, they warn that the US and Israel have six months to act against Iran's nuclear installations and to overthrow the regime or face the prospect of the annihilation of Israel and the destruction of several US cities as a result of an Iranian nuclear offensive.
Obviously, Israel cannot risk the possibility that the last group of officials is correct. And since Washington has decided to go to sleep, it is up to Israel alone to act.
WHAT MUST Israel do? First, it must plan an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities and regime command and control centers. To pave the way for such an attack, the IDF must move now to neutralize second order threats like the Palestinian rocket squads and the Syrian ballistic missile arsenals in order to limit the public's exposure to attack during the course of or in the aftermath of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Second, Israel must work to topple the Iranian regime. As the Defense Minister's advisor Uri Lubrani told Ha'aretz last week, the regime in Iran is far from stable today and ripe for overthrow.
The overwhelming majority of Iranians despise the regime. There are rebellious groups in every ethnic group and province in the country - Azeris, Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen and even Persians - that are actively working to destabilize the regime. Every day there are strikes of workers, women and students. Every few weeks there are reports of violent clashes between anti-regime groups and regime forces. Recently, oil pipelines were sabotaged in the oil-rich Khuzestan province in the south where the Ahwazi Arabs are systematically persecuted by the regime. Westerners who recently visited Iran claim that Israel operating alone could overthrow the regime by extending its assistance to these people.
Thirdly, in his testimony in the Senate on Tuesday, Gates casually mentioned that Israel has nuclear weapons. In so doing, he unceremoniously removed four decades of ambiguity over Israel's nuclear status. While his statement caused dismay in Jerusalem, perhaps Israel should see this as an opportunity.
With the threat of nuclear destruction hanging over us, it makes sense to conduct a debate about an Israeli second strike. While such a discussion will not dissuade Iran's fanatical leaders from attacking Israel with nuclear weapons, it could influence the Iranian nation to rise up against their leaders.
Moreover, such a debate could influence other regimes in the region like Saudi Arabia which today behave as if Israel's annihilation will have no adverse impact on them. Americans like Baker, Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and their European friends need to understand that as goes Israel so go the Persian Gulf's oil fields. Such an understanding may influence their willingness to enable Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Tragically, in these perilous times, we are being led by the worst, most incompetent government we have ever had.
Prime Minister Olmert's way of dealing with the Iranian threat is to pretend that it is none of his business. During his visit to the US last month, Olmert abdicated responsibility for safeguarding Israel from nuclear destruction to President Bush. It didn't bother him that Bush didn't accept the responsibility. By mindlessly adhering to non-existent cease-fires with Iranian proxies in Gaza and Lebanon and squawking about peace with them, Olmert continues to behave as if this is someone else's problem.
For her part, reacting to the possibility of national extinction, Education Minister Yuli Tamir this week cocked her pedagogical pistol and shot at her rear. By ordering the public schools to demarcate the 1949 armistice lines on the official maps and so wipe Israel off maps of Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, Tamir worked to divide the nation over second order issues at a time when unity of purpose is most essential. Olmert, who refused to overturn her scandalous decree, was doubtlessly pleased with her political stunt. For two days the media devoted itself entirely to stirring up internal divisions and so ignored the threat hanging over our heads and Olmert's refusal to deal with it.
Next Thursday, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations Malcolm Hoenlein and former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold will hold a press conference in New York where they will call for the US to indict Ahmadinejad for his call to annihilate Israel under the International Convention Against Genocide. This is doubtlessly a welcome initiative. But it is insufficient.
In a few months, Iran may well be in possession of nuclear weapons which it will use to destroy the Jewish state. With the US withdrawing from the war and Israel in the hands of incompetents, the time has come for the Jewish people to rise up.
OUR SURVIVAL begins with each of us deciding that we are willing to fight to survive. And today the challenge facing us is clear. Either the Iranian regime is toppled and its nuclear installations will be destroyed or Israel will be annihilated. The Jews in the Diaspora must launch mass demonstrations and demand that their governments take real action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The citizens of the State of Israel must also take to the streets. The government that led us to defeat in Lebanon this summer is leading us to a disaster of another order entirely. All citizens must demand that Olmert, his ministers and the generals in the IDF General Staff make an immediate decision. They now hold the responsibility for acting against Iran. They must either act or resign and make way for others who will.
America just abdicated its responsibility to defend itself against Iran and so left Israel high and dry. Nevertheless, the Jewish people is far from powerless. And the State of Israel also is capable of defending itself. But we must act and act immediately.
I'll add this, received in email format :
From: News and Views of Israel [mailto:NEWSVIEWS@SHAMASH. ORG] On Behalf Of Chaim
Mechanic
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 09:59
To: NEWSVIEWS@SHAMASH. ORG
Subject: Please Read!!! I received the following note attached to Car. Glick's article todayfrom my son!!!
Last Thursday night, Malcolm Hoenlein and Caroline Glick spoke to 800 people at the Aish Hatotah Conference. It was the most disturbing and frightening experience I have ever had. In a nutshell, they said, with overwhelming evidence, that there is no question that Iran will nuke Israel within the next 6-24 months. At some point people started to freak out and many many people were crying, some sobbing out loud. At that point, Caroline Glick, who is not frum at all, began to also cry, said she is sorry, but this is the reality. They both said that America will not attack Iran and that Olmert doesn't have what it takes to do it either. They said that the only one who can maybe do the job is Netanyahu, but he won't be in power in time.
#2
I'm glad a few folks in Israel are conscious. Her feelings on Baker/Iran are identical to mine. She's very suspicious of the intentions of both Rice & Gates vis a vis Israel. Ditto. And, to survive, they've got to stop fools like Olmert and Peres.They are leading the country down the path to slaughter.
#3
It looks to me as though both George Bush and Tony Blair have lost their bottle at the same time. Blair had been telegraphing this engagement with Syria and Iran nonsense weeks in advance of this Chamberlain report being issued.
If Tehran nukes Israel it will only be after promising to do so for decades; after capering and dancing and mass chants for death on television for all the world to see. When I read these things I bow down my head in shame as a free man. What can we possibly say to the Jews when this evil deed is done?
And in the universities every tilted head of compassion will be for anyone but the victims of this second Holocaust. And every word in anger will be reserved for any man who proposes to finish the evil men who carried out the deed.
#4
If there's anything we should have learned from the history of the 20th Century, it's that the world is a tough place and you have to take care of yourself. The Israelis need to make it known that they are prepared to use nukes against Iran the minute it is sure that Iran will possess nuclear weapons.
Hitler said he would exterminate all the Jews and they didn't believe him. The Holocaust was the result. Ahmedinejad is saying the same thing and trying his best to get the weaponry to do so. Israel CAN stop him but only if they get there before he gets it. It will take nuclear weapons. Will they hit first or will they wait to see what happens? The second course probably means another six million dead Jews.
I sure wish a)that Bibi was PM in Israel, and that b)we would have decisively rejected the Democrats at the last election. We've both placed ourselves at serious, and unnecessary risk through impatience and cowardice. The question now is whether that risk will be fatal for Israel and Tehran.
Posted by: mac ||
12/08/2006 18:54 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Actually mac, lots of Jews did believe Hitler. It's just most couldn't get far enough away to avoid Hitler's conquests. My mother's parents were put on a waiting list for a visa to the US in something like 1936, when they'd already had relatives die in the camps, but it was a ten year waiting list... for Jewish Germans, at least. So in the meantime they fled to Holland, which turned out not to be a winning strategy, but it was all they could do with a small child. The father of one of my university roommates spent the war in Shanghai, my aunt and many of the single cousins ended up on their own in the New World. My mother's first husband settled his parents in Australia, then joined the US Navy and fought all the way north to Japan. But a bunch of relatives fled to Poland, and France and Belgium, which turned out not to be effective... the safe places just didn't want Jews.
But I do absolutely agree with your concluding paragraph. Olmert and his crowd are completely contrasurvival -- they need to figure out a way to put Bibi Netanyahu in post haste, and the Generals must put Israel's survival ahead of Israel's politics.
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