Article

2005-08-01

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Posted by Fred 2005-08-01 09:42|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 All of which goes a long way to explain why the editorial pages of the NYT, the Globe, the LA Times, etc. are filled with comments on what Bush should not have done and say very little about what specifically (i.e., not John Kerry's "I would do it better" line) Bush should do.

Posted by Matt 2005-08-01 11:35|| 2005-08-01 11:35|| Front Page Top

#2 hear, hear. excellent post, Fred.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2005-08-01 11:49|| 2005-08-01 11:49|| Front Page Top

#3 Thee's either a bad link, or Fred wrote this. I vote for #2. Well done!

If we lump all of "them" into a single category, it makes "us" as bad as "them".

Posted by Bobby 2005-08-01 12:00|| 2005-08-01 12:00|| Front Page Top

#4 Pakistan is a major nuclear problem that could change to far more hostile leadership, almost overnight. Their "bomb" is the "Islamic bomb".

Saudi Arabia and Iran have major hostile components and are responsible for stoking much of the terrorism of the last 20 years. Saudi Arabia already has a major weapon -- oil. If the princes' heads roll, Saudi Arabia will use it against us. The leadership in Iran is hostile, clearly developing nuclear weapons, and has a long record of exporting terrorism and supporting it.

What all three have in common is that the most dangerous elements in each are located squarely in the Islamic religous leadership. They have no qualms about killing us.

The innocents, even the hostile neutrals, haven't done anything that deserves incineration, but if we don't take a firm position now, this evil triumvirate will show us far worse than 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7. They are working every day to develop more martyrs and more-powerful weapons for them to use against us. You say that "The trick is not only to win it, but to win it with the smallest possible corpse count". I would append "on our side" to that and tell you that I'm not optimistic right now. In almost four years, Bush has neither bagged Osama nor dealt a setback to Iran.

Afghanistan was a good start. Iraq was a necessary operation. But the only "War on Terrorism" that I see as regards the most virulent parts of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran is a verbal one. We're not engaging them on their turf, but they're engaging us on ours.

Posted by Neutron Tom 2005-08-01 12:05|| 2005-08-01 12:05|| Front Page Top

#5 Best Rantburg Editorial Ever.

Posted by Mike 2005-08-01 12:11|| 2005-08-01 12:11|| Front Page Top

#6 Bush has neither ... nor dealt a setback to Iran.

Might want to pay a little attention to the troubles the mullahs are having with domestic opposition of late. A small match can light a big fire and set a pot boiling, if the fuel is staked just so and the person with the match knows what he's doing.

Posted by leader of the pack 2005-08-01 12:14|| 2005-08-01 12:14|| Front Page Top

#7 We're not engaging them on their turf, but they're engaging us on ours.

Not since 9/11.

The conflict is playing out on the turf most convenient to us, Iraq, Afghanistan and an increasingly free media.

There is not an American consensus on pursuing this war. Thus, like the cold war, it will be a long slow war of endurance. We have won this kind of war before, and it may be the kind of war for which democracy is actually best suited.

Bush has not dealt a set back to Osama? Then why hasn't OBL attacked the US again? Bush hasn't dealt a set back to Iran? Tell that to the mullah keeping the Kurds in the north of Iran under control.

Bush hasn't done everything, true. He's started plenty, but left work for his sucessor. But that's part of the strategy. Osama's the one who declared war on the country with the oldest written constitution in the world. Let's see who can last longest.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-01 12:20|| 2005-08-01 12:20|| Front Page Top

#8 Brovo, Mrs. D! I especially liked the 'oldest written Constitution' part.

Posted by Bobby 2005-08-01 12:46|| 2005-08-01 12:46|| Front Page Top

#9 The question of whose side is time on is fairly debatable. Time is on our side in the sense that Islamic fanaticism stands no chance whatsoever in a long-term contest of values with Western liberal democracy, which is what the WOT is about. On the proverbial other hand, every passing day may be bringing us closer to the time what the nutjobs are going to have their hands on a nuke.

Posted by Matt 2005-08-01 12:55|| 2005-08-01 12:55|| Front Page Top

#10 It's remarkable how many people comment on what they thought they read instead of what was written. I wrote:
"...Bush has neither bagged Osama nor dealt a setback to Iran."
Nothing about Bush not dealing a setback to Osama.

I've had all I can take of Rantburg for awhile. The return of Mike Sylwester is a downer. The return of Aris Katsaris is a downer. This commenting without careful reading, which is all too common, is a downer. Goodbye.

Posted by Neutron Tom 2005-08-01 12:56|| 2005-08-01 12:56|| Front Page Top

#11 Very well thought, reality-based editorial from the Man, as always... but this applies to the WOT seen from the US side.
What about Europe? What about its coming decade with population shift (native pop will shrink and gets older, muslim pop will swell due to higher birthrate and massive immigration, and stay comparatively younger and less affluent), with possible (probable?) civil unrest, sharing of the power between communities, political subversion,... This can't be managed the same way as an oversea meta-war (some of this equally applies to the US homefront, btw).
Any thought?

Posted by anonymous5089 2005-08-01 12:57|| 2005-08-01 12:57|| Front Page Top

#12 Tom, I appreciate your frustration but please hang in there.

Anon5089, good point. It seems to me the issue is what Europe can do to promote assimilation, assuming that enough Europeans care to maintain their native culture. We make Americans much more efficiently than they make Europeans.

Posted by Matt 2005-08-01 13:19|| 2005-08-01 13:19|| Front Page Top

#13 "It's remarkable how many people comment on what they thought they read instead of what was written. I wrote:"

You're right, Osama hasn't been caught. And, who knows what headaches the MM's suffer from that we are indirectly or covertly responsible for.

Good Bye, so long!

Posted by Analog Roam 2005-08-01 13:23|| 2005-08-01 13:23|| Front Page Top

#14 My humblest apologies for not reading your pearls of wisdom with sufficent care.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-01 13:28|| 2005-08-01 13:28|| Front Page Top

#15 Mucki, could you do a tune for us? The one with the little chillruns? This would be a fine time.

Posted by Shipman 2005-08-01 13:30|| 2005-08-01 13:30|| Front Page Top

#16 Excellent commentary, Fred--thank you! I admit that I too have moments where I slip back into the belief that the "moderate Muslim" is a mythical being, but we certainly do have plenty of Islamic allies that deserve credit.

PLEASE--let's not turn this thread into another whine-tasting! We already have a thread hijacked for that purpose today.

Posted by Dar">Dar 2005-08-01 14:22|| 2005-08-01 14:22|| Front Page Top

#17 I popped over to Aris's web journal after reading his post here. (To tell the truth, it's amazing that he is still pro-American after the Rantburg fireworks -- yes, he was absolutely not an innocent party, but he hadn't the maturity/life experience to understand why his words triggered such a strong reaction. At his age I was equally bewildered.) He's on medical leave from the Greek Army at the moment, having broken a small bone in his foot during an overenthusiastic long march. So he is still doing his service, and won't have much time to post here, whether he wants to or not. I also get the sense he's been forced to mature a bit... much like bratty Israeli boys grow up in the IDF. Certainly the few photos he's posted show he's lost his boyish chubbiness. ;-)

I hope that the latest round of verbiage is due to the fact that many of us are feeling wrung out by the events in London, and the constant drumbeat of death, death, death coming from the mainstream media. Certainly I've melted down a time or two, for which I apologize to you all, and thank you for your patience and generosity.

Fred, thank you for the big-picture summary -- it's really important to pull back every once in a while, something I don't do very well, I'm afraid. It helps, especially the reminder that our side is actually doing pretty well, considering.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-08-01 14:31|| 2005-08-01 14:31|| Front Page Top

#18 Great Editorial Fred a very well ordered discription of reality.

I have to say our side is doing very, very, well considering the constraints. I think some of us (like me) are frustrated with how long it's taking to get this over with. We do fully realising that this is a long slog.

I still worry about what we will do when we are blind sided by a series of nukes going off here in the USA. We are after all "The great Satan" who many islamic folk are happy to curse and loudly chant that they want our death. That is my biggest worry. That they will hit NY and Washington again, this time with multiple nukes. That is the AQ way and Iran would be happy to supply them.

Posted by Sock Puppet 0â Doom 2005-08-01 14:55|| 2005-08-01 14:55|| Front Page Top

#19 My guess is that they don't have them, otherwise they would have used them. Instead, they hint at having them and claim to have them, and that way we're still forced to defend agains them.

If I'm wrong, then all bets are off and Mecca's toast, with my (probably posthumous) approval. But I think we've seen the worst they can do at Beslan.

Posted by Fred 2005-08-01 15:07|| 2005-08-01 15:07|| Front Page Top

#20 Provided,

1) we keep the Pakistani nukes under control,

2) the MM don't develop nukes, and

3) some Soddie doesn't buy one from Kimmie for Binnie.

That's a lot of things to control, even for a hyper-power.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-01 15:19|| 2005-08-01 15:19|| Front Page Top

#21 OT
"I popped over to Aris's web journal after reading his post here".
Mrs. Trailing wife, what's the url, if you may be kind enough?

Posted by anonymous5089 2005-08-01 15:23|| 2005-08-01 15:23|| Front Page Top

#22 Mrs D.
Saudi may already have a few purchased from Pakistan for all we know. A.Q Khan is a person we are not allowed to get an interview with AFAIK. All the Info we have is second hand. I don't think the Saudi's or Pakistan would tell us if they did. They are aimed at Iran not us or Israel, They know what Israel would do if they used one or even tried.

Fred
I don't think we would ever nuke Mecca. That isn't our way. We do have actual strategic targets to hit that will not hurt us or the world's supply of Saudi oil. It shouldn't be off the table but I don't think we would ever target it. I still look at Dave D's list and mull what stage we will go to next. We certainly are more at the beginning of this struggle than the middle.

Posted by Sock Puppet 0â Doom 2005-08-01 15:30|| 2005-08-01 15:30|| Front Page Top

#23 Let's make a list, check it twice, so we know who is naughty and nice...

I think Sultan Qaboos of Oman is with us too...

"General Tommy Franks's 2004 book American Soldier, he described the sultan as a true friend to the United States in the War on Terror, with 'no guile, no secret agenda'." - Wikipedia

If Gen Franks says the Sultan is cool, he must be...

Oman should be listed as "with us"...

Posted by BigEd 2005-08-01 15:31|| 2005-08-01 15:31|| Front Page Top

#24 Aris's webjournal url for that nice anonymous5089

http://www.livejournal.com/~katsaris/

Posted by trailing wife 2005-08-01 15:33|| 2005-08-01 15:33|| Front Page Top

#25 Thanks! :-)

Posted by anonymous5089 2005-08-01 15:40|| 2005-08-01 15:40|| Front Page Top

#26 Fred,

Excellent original commentary. You need to be something like "Fredmont Club" or "PowerlineFred". lol.

Appreciate your good work.

Posted by Brett 2005-08-01 16:57|| 2005-08-01 16:57|| Front Page Top

#27 If the United States went so far as to nuke Mecca, terrorist attacks would increase tenfold.

Posted by Educated 2005-08-01 17:22|| 2005-08-01 17:22|| Front Page Top

#28 If the U. S. went so far as to nuke Mecca, it wouldn't be the only place nuked. Attendance at Friday prayers would be down almost as much as terrorist attacks. That's why, I hope, it isn't going to happen.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-01 17:37|| 2005-08-01 17:37|| Front Page Top

#29 Congratulations Fred, I hope you put a special link to that posting to make it "sticky". It's the essence of this blog (which is more than a blog). Some institutes get paid a fortune to put out analysis which is not half as good.

In a short article you summed up everything that's important, something that an editorial of the NYT just doesn't seem to manage.

We are all privileged to post here. So let's put any petty quarrels aside and focus on the big picture.

Posted by True German Ally 2005-08-01 19:09|| 2005-08-01 19:09|| Front Page Top

#30 Educated -

If the U.S. were to "nuke Mecca" it would be in response to nuclear weapons being used on our territory, against our people. Terrorist activity would have already "increased tenfold" because one of the redlines would have been crossed.

The point I was making, and have made many times, is that the use of WMDs is not a decision that we will make lightly. In fact, it's one we'll bend over backwards not to make. It would mean we'd have lost the capability to control the war within the constraints I discussed above and that we had decided to accept the consequences that went with the move. It's a move I hope to never see.

TGA -

Thank you. I'm flattered. I was trying to sort out the arguments against overreaction in my own mind.

I wish I had the time to "think on paper" more often...

Posted by Fred 2005-08-01 19:44|| 2005-08-01 19:44|| Front Page Top

#31 A thought for the day, for Fred and the others here: if the search function here were operating well and fine-grained enough (not that I'm complaining) to be able to pick out every time Al Qaeda's operations managers (Zarqawi and Zawahari, I guess) in each theater have bombed a Mosque (Shi'ite, Sunni, whatever) themselves it would still spit out about a hundred articles.

I don't think the idea of seeing the Grand Mosque destroyed has *any* deterrent value to the extremists we're stuck at war with anyway. They'd LOVE to be able to rewrite their religion to replace the requirement of the Haj with a requirement to murder an "unbeliever," whether that means a Christian, a Wiccan, an Atheist, or a Shi'ite/Sunni/Sufi/Whatever... I'm not certain they really care about Islam any more than Mao cared about the oppressed proletariat.

I think too many of the "war between civilizations or religions" crowd are missing this.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-08-01 21:39|| 2005-08-01 21:39|| Front Page Top

#32 Just got back from a 2300-mile round trip to bury my wife's mother, so I haven't been on Rantburg, even as a lurker, for over a week. It's going to take some time to catch up.

Fred, your article should be plastered all over every newspaper in the world, in whatever language people there read. There are two things I'd like to add, however.

We made grave mistakes in Vietnam. One of the worst was creating sanctuaries where our enemy could rest, recover, and rearm. I hope our leaders learned the lesson of that huge mistake, and that there are NO sanctuaries allowed in this war.

We already know that Muslims on all sides use mosques to both spew their propaganda, and to hide weapons and equipment. We know that Islam not only allows Muslims to lie to anyone NOT a Muslim, but recommends this technique. We know the mistakes of a Hudna. We've learned a lot about Islam over the past four years, and the understanding of it both as a religion and as a political operation has grown as well.

NEVER AGAIN! We cannot allow the same mistakes made in Vietnam happen in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to keep us from destroying enemy troops, stockpiles of equipment, or weapons, REGARDLESS of where they're stored. "War happens when diplomacy fails" is more apt than "War is another form of diplomacy". If we DO wage war against any foe, it should be done with the greatest force necessary to accomplish the objectives. If that means totally crushing our opponents, let's do it. If it means removing one set of lunatics to install another, let's try something else.

As you said, this is going to be a long war. Let's learn from our mistakes, both in Vietnam and the Cold War, and not make them again. Let's also try to be a little bit smarter this time, and not make too many NEW mistakes.

We may never nuke Mecca, but at the same time we should never state that we won't. We must also be willing to carry through if we feel it's necessary.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2005-08-01 22:37|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2005-08-01 22:37|| Front Page Top

#33 "...and trying to establish a reasonably democratic state in the heart of Fanaticstan is a counterattack on the caliphate."

Except that we misunderestimated the extent of the fanaticism there, and the Constitution looks increasingly like a roadmap to theocracy, complete with built-in Jew hatred.

Posted by Gun Hippy 2005-08-01 22:56|| 2005-08-01 22:56|| Front Page Top

23:54 Kalle (kafir forever)
23:37 Mike Sylwester
23:13 trailing wife
23:08 Fred
23:07 BigEd
23:01 muck4doo
22:58 muck4doo
22:56 Gun Hippy
22:50 OldSpook
22:50 BigEd
22:47 Jan
22:42 Angie Schultz
22:40 Captain America
22:37 Old Patriot
22:34 Atomic Conspiracy
22:33 Jan
22:28 Unomomp Whomotle2072
22:23 Unomomp Whomotle2072
22:21 Glerong Whomoting9661
22:18 Atomic Conspiracy
22:18 Jan
22:14 Mrs. Davis
22:08 Shipman
22:06 Shipman