#2
The Democrats pulled this crap all the time with Bush's nominees. Just business as usual in the Senate.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/28/2009 11:42 Comments ||
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#3
So when are the Dims gonna ram 'em all through? They only have 60 votes for so long...
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/28/2009 12:17 Comments ||
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#4
Something that was omitted from the article is the fact that the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve only has 5 sitting members as opposed to the 7 authorized by law. This has been the case for a long time. I guess it is easier to ram crap through a 5-member board than a 7-member one. Credit Sen. Dodd with this convenient situation.
As we say farewell to this rather dismal decade, which opened with Millennial celebrations of a New World Order and The End of History, and has been thoroughly disfigured by terrorism, economic stupidity, inept political leadership and untrammeled vulgarity of public tastes, I dare to hope for somewhat better things (for the world as well as my family and self).
Readers will have noticed that Copenhagen was about as complete a mockery as was forecast, here and elsewhere. Thousands of protesters, festooned with banners about the water level in Tuvalu, and dressed as polar bears and seals, inanely screaming at the earnest Global Coolers, had to be restrained by the gentle Danish police.
Most of the world's most odious leaders were present, demanding trillions of dollars to assist them in green development. Zimbabwe's infamous Robert Mugabe, who has violated every clause of the Clarence House agreement which conferred independence on Rhodesia, and has terrorized the country and reduced its standard of living by 99%, accused the advanced nations of trying to disguise the baleful effect of their carbon emissions on all mankind behind trivial concerns about the absence of human rights in Zimbabwe.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, now challenging Fidel Castro ("Papa Castro" to the Trudeau family) as Latin America's shabbiest tyrant, announced the death of capitalism, to the rapacity of which he imputed the impending destruction of the world's environment, as well as the dissipated prosperity of his own oil-rich country which he has master-minded.
The chief spokesman of the aggrieved despots, Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir (whose country's government's cupped hands are dripping with the blood of a million victims of domestic genocide) dismissed a European offer of $11-billion to promote green industrial growth in the Third World as a pittance.
I can't be the only person who wondered if sincere dupes of this nonsense, from the Prince of Wales to Elizabeth May, have the remotest idea of what mayhem they have brought down on the world. At least Al Gore has made a lot of money from it. Indeed, it must be said that this unlikely man has had the greatest revenge of anyone ever wrongfully deprived of the U.S. presidency, except perhaps Richard Nixon. Gore has grown rich, eminent, won a Nobel Prize, completely disrupted the world and turned international relations into a gigantic slap-stick farce. The absence of evidence that global warming is actually occurring, and that human activity affects the world's temperature at all, was scarcely mentioned. The real result, however, is the pledged objective of not permitting the world's temperature to increase more than two centigrade degrees by 2050. Since it has only risen one degree in the last 35 years, and not at all in the last ten, this should be safe enough. The heads of government fellowship will pat itself hydraulically on the head and back, and money will be handed over to the toads of despotism when pigs fly and shrimps sing.
This must be the supreme coruscation of what Malcolm Muggeridge christened the "great liberal death-wish;" a canard about a fraud, invoked to impoverish the world's advanced countries in favour of its most rancid despotisms, which have already squandered and embezzled a trillion dollars of Western aid; all for a nonsensical purpose, solemnly agreed to, and then ignored.
For the first time in the history of the U.S. Presidency, Mr. Obama had to badger a foreign head of government to meet him (China's premier Wen). Last year, shoes were thrown at the U.S. president. This year we had self-abasement before the Japanese Emperor and (unsuccessful) supplication to the Chinese. If this trend continues, by the end of this new decade, the U.S. president will be invited to international meetings as a shoe-shine boy.
The great stars of Copenhagen were the Chinese and the Canadians. The Chinese strutted and gloried as a mighty economic growth story, a super-power presumptive, while leading the G-77, as the under-developed countries now modishly style themselves, out of the conference in protest against the supposed miserliness of the advanced countries. China has staged the greatest act of international pocket-picking in history, beggaring the U.S. by dumping trillions of dollars of cheap goods in it, which the United States bought with money largely borrowed from China. And as it spurned the importunity of the United States at Copenhagen, and basked in the adoration of the Third World, its leaders po-facedly demanding hundreds of billions of dollars to clean its economic growth, while refusing the donors the right to monitor the use of the money.
All Canadians should be proud of Stephen Harper. Of all the leaders of serious countries, he is the most conspicuously skeptical of this great eco-scam. This is Canada's finest foreign policy hour since Mackenzie King supported Charles de Gaulle's takeover of St. Pierre and Miquelon from Vichy at Christmas 1941, against the mindless opposition of the U.S. state department.
The flip-side of this controversy is the emerging U.S. economic miracle, which at this point officially promises increased taxes, faster economic growth, 50% to 100% annual increases in money supply without inflation, for a decade of trillion dollar annual federal budget deficits without seriously raising interest rates, or devaluing the dollar. All 18 wheels will come off this impossible contraption, in all directions of the compass. And all numerate people, including, presumably, the unfathomable Timothy Geithner and the fabulist President whom he serves, know it.
I predict that in a decent interval after his confirmation as Federal Reserve chairman next month or February, Ben Bernanke will announce that the central bank will no longer buy the treasury notes that finance this orgy. The United States cannot drink itself sober. China has now passed on the pleasure of continuing to buy low yield instruments of a country that is doing the necessary to convert its currency into wall paper, if not toilet paper. The Federal Reserve is buying the treasury issues that finance the federal government's deficit-straight additions to the money supply -- the most familiar form of currency debasement and rampaging inflation, from the times of Caligula to Juan Peron and Robert Mugabe.
Obama and Geithner will scream like wounded banshees that Bernanke has betrayed them on how to deal with what they will portray as George W.'s messy leavings, while Bernanke devalues the dollar by about 15%, raises interest rates to about 6% and requires federal government spending cuts of about $500-billion annually, largely from a revisitation of entitlements and some sales and transaction taxes that the Congress will have to agree to in conference as an emergency compromise between the parties. The health care charade of buying individual senators with from $100-million (Christopher Dodd,), to $3-billion (Bill Nelson of Florida -- not Ben Nelson of Nebraska who folded at $100 million) can't slice this Gordian Knot. There will be fewer lawyers and investment bankers in the U.S., and more savers and investors, and if the politicians don't ruin it again, market forces will shape up the U.S. to meet the Chinese challenge. But both job creation and economic growth will be slow in a transitional period.
Good riddance to 2009. Let us all have a splendid 2010.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
um... this is the convicted felon, right? I know he's articulate, but still...
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
W. H. Auden
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/28/2009 9:37 Comments ||
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#4
beggaring the U.S. by dumping trillions of dollars of cheap goods in it The US has beggared itself.
No decade is that dismal if one has survived it.
The clue train makes its regular rounds and for once Al-Guardian takes delivery.
When he was overpowered, Abdulmutallab was said by witnesses to be "screaming about Afghanistan". Yet it would be a too convenient simplification to see this attack as some sort of act of revenge for that war. Abdulmutallab's life history, as it is now emerging, seems to be much more driven by exposure to manichean radical Islamism
Most Guardian readers are going to have to check their dictionaries to discover the meaning of Manichaean. The history of Christianity is not taught as it once was, even in British public schools.
in Nigeria, Britain and, in particular, Yemen. The explosive chemicals and the syringe which he used on NW253 were sewn into his underclothing in Yemen. The methods used in Friday's attempted attack have echoes of a failed Yemeni-based suicide attack on Prince Muhammad, the head of Saudi counterterrorism operations, in August.
The Christmas airliner bomb plot did not take place because of western policy in Afghanistan. The west could withdraw tomorrow from Afghanistan and the continuing danger from jihadist terrorists would still be as great as it is today.
#4
Al-Quardian is willing to concede that we might be allowed to defend ourselves. Maybe they are just beginning to realize the US is the 'leader of the free world.'
Last summer, the bodies of two women were washed ashore on the banks of the Rambiara river in Shopian. Eight people were to die, and some 400 suffer injuries as the embers fanned by the deaths set off fires across urban Kashmir.
For the angry young Islamists who spearheaded the protests, the deaths of the two women were murders murders, moreover, carried out by a predatory Hindu state in its campaign to annihilate Kashmiris.
The body of one of them, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Associations investigation recorded witnesses as stating, was lying half naked on dry sand. Her clothes were torn and hair, clothes and body were dry. Blood was dripping from her nose and it appeared sindoor had been thrown in her forehead.
During our investigations, association leader G.N. Shaheen said, we found that the perpetrators belonged to a particular community and they had even vandalised the bodies of the victims. In case anyone had missed the point, Mr. Shaheen added the rapists were fanatic Hindus.
Now, the Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a charge sheet which rips apart the claims of the secessionist-linked Bar Association, politicians like Peoples Democratic Party leader Mehbooba Mufti and much of the media. Backed by forensic detective work by the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory in New Delhi, the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Madhuban and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the CBI has concluded that the women were neither raped nor murdered.
Inside the bodies of the victims, AIIMS forensic experts found several pieces of evidence suggesting drowning. Pin-sized petechial haemorrhages were found on the membranes of their lungs and bronchi. Larger patches of Paltaufs haemorrhages bluish-red areas found in the lungs of about half of all drowning victims were also visible. Doctors also discovered accumulations of fluid within the alveoli, suggesting pulmonary oedema, another sign of drowning.
None of the findings in themselves was conclusive. So, experts at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in New Delhi and the Forensic Sciences Laboratory at Madhuban proceeded to conduct tests which matched the soil recovered from the victims lungs with the earth in the Rambiara. Further tests showed that diatoms a kind of eukaryotic algae inside the victims lungs were similar to those found among some organisms in the river. During autopsy, the doctors also recovered small insects from the victims lungs. Experts at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute identified the insects as silverfish small, wingless creatures commonly found under the bark of trees, under rocks, in rotten logs and among leaf litter.
But the finding that the victims were drowned did not rule out the possibility of murder or rape. The AIIMS evidence shot down the first possibility in short order. The body of one victim did indeed have a lacerated wound in the forehead, likely caused by hitting against a hard surface but the forensic examiners believed it was not sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course. There were no external ante-mortal injuries on the other victim.
No evidence of rape, the experts stated, emerged either. The hymen of one of the victims was found intact. Four Shopian hospital staff members Javed Iqbal Malik, Tariq Ahmad Tantrey, Mohammad Ismail Sheikh and Mohammad Ismail Sodagar corroborated the findings, telling the CBI that there were no injuries on the private parts of the victims. Their clothes, six other witnesses told the CBI, were also intact at the time the bodies were found.
Faked evidence
How could the AIIMS findings be so different from that of two separate teams of doctors who carried out earlier autopsies? Breathtaking incompetence may have played a role. Shopian doctors Bilal Hassan and Nazia Hassan ruled out drowning as a cause of death, claiming to have carried out a flotation test using samples of lung tissue from a victim. In fact, the AIIMS team determined, the tissue was from the heart.
Moreover, the lung flotation test has long been known to be less-than-conclusive proof of drowning especially in fresh water, which has a lower density than salt water. Janson Payne-James, Anthony Busuttil and William S. Smocks Forensic Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects explains that the test rests on the fact that lung weights are usually higher in people who were drowned. But a normal weight is possible in some drowning cases. The more sophisticated tests conducted by the CBI experts were either unavailable or unknown to the Shopian doctors.
Nighat Shaheen, Ghulam Qadir Sofi and Maqbool Mir, who made up the second autopsy team, are also charged by the CBI with fabricating evidence. The team insisted that a victims hymen was damaged an assertion the AIIMS experts videotaped autopsy debunks. Evidence that Dr. Shaheen had fabricated evidence, first reported in The Hindu, also figured in the CBI investigation. She claimed to have taken vaginal swabs from the victims, but later tests revealed that they had in fact been lifted from unconnected women. The CBI claims that Dr. Shaheen offered them three contradictory accounts of how this had come about including a claim, now disproved, that she had supplied a vaginal swab from her own body under duress.
The CBI investigators were unable to arrive at a precise determination of just how the women were drowned. Human rights groups who have investigated the case say water in the Rambiara was just ankle-deep.
But official records gathered by the CBI show that the river was flowing at its year-high flood, 228 cubic feet per second, just days before the womens death. There is, of course, no direct relationship between the flow of water in the river and its depth. However, the CBI discovered multiple witness testimonies suggesting that the river was indeed flowing at dangerous levels the most important being a videotaped media interview given by the husband of one of the victims the day after her death. He asserted that the water level in the river was so high that even a man could not have crossed it. Independent witnesses, the CBI states, corroborated this claim, with one adding it was also the opinion of the victims family. They also noted that two separate witnesses earlier said the victims had froth around the nose, a classic sign of drowning.
Efforts to link police personnel to the crime went nowhere. Much of the case rested on the testimony of Ghulam Mohaiuddin Lone and Abdul Rashid Pampori, who claimed to have heard the women crying for help from inside a police vehicle parked on the Zawoora Bridge. However, the CBI noted, their testimony was contradictory on at least five issues. Later, the CBI says, it acquired statements from the men that they had been coerced into making the allegations. Forensic tests on 23 police vehicles and 47 officers posted in the area also threw up no evidence that they were in any way linked to the deaths.
The Kashmir High Court Bar Association says it has a letter from AIIMS forensic medicine expert Sudhir Gupta, casting doubt on the forensic findings. Dr. Gupta has offered no independent corroboration of this claim; indeed, in an in-house AIIMS correspondence obtained by The Hindu, Dr. Gupta asked for a copy of the letter so he could give a legitimate reply. The AIIMS spat has led to some bizarre media allegations, including assertions that its experts helped to rig forensic evidence in the murder of a Delhi teenager a case the institution had nothing to do with. Dr. Gupta, whose name was struck off the rolls of the Medical Council of India in 2004, on plagiarism charges, may or may not be a credible witness, but if there is any serious critique of the evidence marshalled by the CBI, it must be assessed and responded to.
Failing this, many must hold themselves to account for the bloodshed that followed the deaths in Shopian. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his government must take part of the blame. The government buckled under pressure from Islamists, transferring senior police officials who insisted that the deaths were an accident, suspended others on charges of destroying evidence and paving the way for the judicially-mandated arrests of four suspects, now exonerated. Politicians in the PDP, and among the secessionists, who cynically cashed in on the deaths to further their agenda must also be held to account. Media and civil rights groups, which paid little attention to evidence that from the outset cast doubt on the rape-murder story, cannot evade responsibility either.
Many in Jammu and Kashmir, reared on the half-truths and deceits fed by large sections of the media, are likely to believe the CBI account. It is imperative that proceedings from here on be carried out with complete transparency to avoid further muddying of the waters.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/28/2009 07:41 ||
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#1
Good luck curbing Muslim belligerence with reason.
#2
Good luck curbing muzz anything with reason. Until everyone cottons to that fact, "religion of peace" is the inshalla of the blinkered PC western mind...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/28/2009 10:41 Comments ||
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Two years down the road since Benazir Bhutto's tragic assassination in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, her murder mystery remains unresolved despite President Zardari's significant public statements like "she talks about her murderers from her grave" and that "I know her assassins and will reveal their identity at the right time".
Addressing his first press conference after the murder, Asif Zardari made public Bhutto's October, 20 2007 email to Wolf Blitzer, a staffer of the CNN which mentioned the name of her would-be assassin. "The said e-mail should be treated as Bhutto's dying declaration. She talks about her murderers from her grave and it is up to the world to listen to the echoes", Zardari said.
Bhutto wrote to Wolf Blitzer in her e-mail: "If it is God's will, nothing will happen to me. However, if anything happened to me, I would hold Pervez Musharraf responsible". Blitzer received the e-mail on October 26 from Mark Siegel, a friend and long-time Washington spokesman for Benazir Bhutto. That was eight days after she narrowly escaped an attempt on her life in Karachi. Bhutto wrote to Wolf: "I have been made to feel insecure by Musharraf's minions".
On October 19, 2007, a day after the Karsaz suicide bombing on her welcome procession, Benazir disclosed at a press conference that she had informed Musharraf in a confidential letter, written on 16 October, 2007 that three senior officials of his government were planning to assassinate her upon her return. "However, I had further made it clear to Musharraf that I won't blame (the) Taliban or al-Qaeda if I am attacked, but I will name my enemies in the Pakistani military establishment," she told journalists. Although Benazir did not publicly name the three persons, PPP circles later told the media that they were the then director general Intelligence Bureau, Brigadier (retd) Ejaz Hussain Shah, chief minister Punjab Pervaiz Elahi and chief minister Sindh Arbab Ghulam Rahim. While concluding the letter, she reportedly asserted that her life was in great danger, particularly from Ejaz Shah.
Significantly, on December 30, 2007, two days after Benazir's murder, a visibly furious Asif Zardari had accused [at a press conference in Naudero] the PML-Q leadership of his wife's murder besides describing the party as "Qatil League". Hitting back in the same tone the same evening (on December 30, 2007), Pervaiz Elahi had charged Zardari for Bhutto's murder, saying: "Who has benefited the most from the assassination? Zardari, and only Zardari. Check the authenticity of Benazir's will. Find out the amount for which she was insured." By that time, Zardari had already been elected as the Co-chairman of the PPP.
On October 18, 2008, on the first anniversary of the terrorist attack made on Bhutto's procession, the Karachi Police finally lodged a second FIR of the Karsaz attacks on the basis of her letter, naming three persons as those who could be involved in her assassination. National newspapers reported on October 20, 2008 that those named in the second were Pervez Elahi, Ejaz Shah and Hameed Gul. Confirming the lodging of the second FIR, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said Bhutto's own attempts to lodge a second FIR of the Karsaz tragedy were foiled by the PML-Q government. The same day, Qaim Ali Shah declared in Karachi that the three persons nominated by Benazir Bhutto would be arrested soon for interrogations.
However, no such arrests were made. Ten days later, Pervaiz Elahi claimed in an exclusive interview with The News on November 1, 2008 that the Presidency had stopped the Sindh government from implicating him in the Benazir murder case. Elahi revealed that following the registration of a second FIR in the Karsaz case, he and his first cousin Ch Shujaat Hussain went to see Asif Zardari's close aide, Qayyum Soomro, who had delivered their message to the president. "After our meeting with Soomro during which we protested on the issue, [Sindh Home Minister] Dr Zulfiqar Mirza was told by the Presidency not to talk about the case any more". Elahi's claim eventually proved to be true given the fact that after the initial outburst against the PML-Q leaders, not only Dr Zulfiqar Mirza and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah fell silent but the rest of the PPP leaders also adopted a mysterious mum.
But almost two months later, while speaking on the first anniversary of Bhutto, President Zardari claimed on December 27, 2008 that he knew her killers and would reveal their identity at the right time. Six months later, on July 6, 2009, Zardari blamed Musharraf for the Bhutto murder, saying she died by a bullet and not by the bomb that a Scotland Yard report identified as the cause. "I wish Musharraf had looked after my wife as I can look after myself," Asif Zardari told British newspaper The Telegraph in an interview.
Almost five weeks later, on September 15, Zardari conceded at a dinner meeting with senior newsmen that foreign powers with interest in the South Asian region had guaranteed a safe exit to his predecessor, and he too had been party to the deal that was struck at the time of Musharraf's resignation in 2008. A belated denial by the presidential spokesman came two days later.
In November 2009, Musharraf was finally made to appear before the UN inquiry commission, taking a U-turn on his earlier stance that any outside agency has no legal ground to question him. Following his refusal to be interviewed, the UN commission had actually warned Musharraf his name would be passed on to the UN Secretary General as the one not cooperating with the commission. He was finally interviewed by the UN commission in Philadelphia on October 27, 2009.
On December 10, 2009, the Lahore High Court decided to precede ex-parte against Musharraf on a petition seeking registration of a criminal case against him and others for allegedly plotting the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. On 14 December 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that he was extending the mandate of the UN commission investigating the Bhutto murder by another three months as sought by its chairman who wanted more time to complete its work. The commission was mandated to submit its report to the UN secretary general by 31 December 2009 amidst strong apprehensions that like all infamous assassination cases the people of Pakistan have witnessed, the mastermind in the Bhutto murder case will too remain a shadowy figure on whose role people will only speculate about in whispers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/28/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
They want to be able to accuse Musharaff of doing it without having to take responsibility for accusing Musharaff of doing it. Just like all the truthers here in the US who say they're just "asking questions."
#2
It seems clear that with Benzir Bhutto being, essentially, anathema to the Taliban that Musharraf would be working against himself to have anything to do with planning her death. Sitting back and doing nothing to help or hinder would benefit him splendidly.
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
12/28/2009 14:29 Comments ||
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#3
TOPIX > TALIBAN KILLED BENAZIR BHUTTO WITH MUSHARRAF'S CONSENT?
D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, FAMILY BEACH BARBECUES - WHY DO THEY HATE US!
#1
Step one: Have a Unified Value System that pits the WHOLE United States against Radical Islam.
If the Obamas and the Pelosis and the Reids dont have common Values with the decent American people, if Congress can be bought and sold and "deals" can be made and interests determined by bribes to Senators to vote one way and against Values of integrity...then we have a rotten leadership and a corrupt system.
The Courage of the United States military is un-questioned. Its the LEADERSHIP which is fagboy and largely piss itself Democratic Party bugout and run.
Bush led the United States to victory in Iraq. We won that war. There IS a Democracy there now, we can largely bring the troops home. Say THANK YOU, to George Bush and not to the ball-less Democrats like Kerry and that paragon of Values Breck Boy Edwards. That PUKE was the best the Democratic Party had for the American people and it truly sucked when it didnt stink so bad the buzzards fell out of the air).
And NOW we have a bendover boy like Obama. And Skinny wouldnt fight for his own momma.
And we are going to defeat radical islam with THIS lineup? yeah?
Iran and Syria are not our friends. Places like Sudan and Somalia are Islamist pustules. The Israelis are our friends...AND the Israelis fight and win. Pakistan can be bought and they are never going to be our friend EXCEPT for money. Afghanistan is full of Moslems. Moslems are de facto all expendable. If it gets killed that's not a problem. You will never miss it. Whatever it takes with Moslems, they either do it our way or they get the full treatment. Up it, tie it off and tighten it down, break its neck off and kick it.
Radical Islam wherever it is found gets the one two three. And then we turn off the air.
YOU EITHER HAVE THE WILL TO WIN or you dont. Losing ? It doesnt exist. Stick the blade in under the chin and twist hard. No,I am not going to split it with you. I am am going to take it all. Yo' Momma, monkeyboy.
Angleton, you've been warned about using racist language at the Burg. Consider this a more strongly worded warning. Rantburg is a great place to rant but racist language does not belong here and will not be tolerated.
Like Simon deMontfort said about the Albigensian campaign...burn the place, let God sort 'em out.
And you know what? It worked for Simon and it can work for us.
You just have to have the nerve to make sure you are thorough....and if you dont like it you can be my little sister.
Yep, A9, you have that right. I believe world 'leadership' (and a great many if not most of the people) do NOT have the WILL. Perhaps eventually some traumatic shock will re-generate the WILL, but by then the cost of winning will be immensely greater (see WWII for case study.)
Islam is a religion, an integration of beliefs and assertions that prescribes worship in a particular way. But radical Islam, we must insist, is different.
There is NO, ZIP, ZERO, ZILCH difference between "radical Islam" and (what? real?) Islam!
There are just a difference in the will and cowardice or lack there of among individual Muslims!! Until there is a true reformation in Islam that defines a non-radical, non-kaffhir hating, non-jihad embracing theology, until that time we ARE at war with ISLAM!!!!!
#4
There is a difference between Radical Islam and standard Islam in that the regular Islamic folks are still on the fence looking for the strong horse. If we provide them with one dominos tumble as they did for a while after the invasion of Iraq. If we show weakness it works the other way.
I believe you need to take some realities into account when planning war. (1) Americans do not like peacekeeping. (2) Americans do not like long wars that give the left a chance to undermine morale.
So basically we need to topple a nation using our forces or indigenous forces and then set up a dictatorship and move on. Yes dictatorships are foul, but they can gain control, do what needs to be done, and transform into a democracy when the nation is strong enough.
I don't disapprove of what we did in iraq. It was worth the risk because the unique location and such and the massive payoff if we can get a Democracy, but the same is not true of Afghanistan, or Syria and others.
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.
