On the other hand I'm not sure what I would say. It really wasn't 9-11 that taught me, it was all the information I found trying to understand things. For a while I thought that Al Q was a fringe and would be denounced by the Islamic world. But that didn't happen and still hasn't happened. Instead, the Islamic world is full of insane and contradictory conspiracy theories, double talking and triple talking apologists, anti US rage, anti Western anger, antisemitism, homophobia, honor killings, forced marriages, wife beatings, female genital mutilation, oppression of non muslims and minority sect muslims, etc. And much of the left are full of people working 24-7 to make excuses for those things.
On the good side, many Rantburgerians and others have spent time information gathering and many people now have an inkling of what sharia is and what jihad is and of the fact that huge numbers of muslims, while not terrorists, support them and pray for their success.
Posted by: lord garth ||
09/12/2010 1:42 Comments ||
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#2
Pompous chest-beating about being a brave defender of freedoms, as if that's what this war is about.
Clue: they're not trying to goad us into curtailing freedom so that they can appear on the Jon Stewart show and say "Aha! Made youse guys act like hypocrites! We win, suckers!"
They are trying to kill us. Kill our soldiers, kill our civilians, kill our diplomats, kill our businessmen, kill ordinary people like you and me, kill the very best of this nation, like Rick Rescorla. They don't want to debate us. They want to enslave us if possible and kill us where they can't enslave us.
We can debate tactics all night, but the essential point is that this is a long war. Like all wars, it will end only when the other side is either thoroughly trounced (WWII model) or else harried and driven to exhaustion (Cold War model) -- or else, as per the Vietnam model, we give up.
Pretending that we are not at war, engaged in a long twilight struggle, will only increase the likelihood of a Vietnam War-style outcome. Again, we can differ on tactics-- maybe a reculer pour mieux sauter timeout on Afghanistan is a good idea, maybe not, YMMV-- but let's focus on winning the war, period. If we don't nothing else will matter.
#3
..-- or else, as per the Vietnam model, we give up.
Or else understand that we're just 'Closing the West' again in the long march from the eastern coast with perilous start in the colonies to its conclusion two hundred years latter in the Montana and New Mexico Territories. Since being dragged from our enclave on December 7th 1941, we have a new West to close confronting a new tribe with each generation and one more place to render less a threat to our 'normal' lives. It evolves in spurts and sprints with lags and calms. We win some, we lose some, but the nature of security means its never ending, till the New West is also closed. It wasn't planned this way. It's simply the nature of the creature which has successfully evolved in a chaotic environment it was born in to.
I've heard people compare the war against global jihad to the Indian wars, but settling a territory altogether seems a stretch, don't you think, when that territory encompasses most of the eastern hemisphere?
We are running out of money. Phase II of this war will have to be fought more frugally, ie more intelligently and above all, more ruthlessly. More special ops, more drones, more wet works.
But let's not hark back to the 19th century. Our resources are limited, and shrinking.
#5
You think our resources and those particularly in closing the West in the 19th Century was unlimited? The Donks in Congress left the Army unfunded for nearly a whole year, until the Apache out of Mexico convinced the Texas delegation that maybe them bluecoats served a function. One of the reasons for spurts and lags was parsimonious Washington.
You don't have to conquer and occupy. You just have to make it accommodating for the sod buster to have a chance to get along with his life. He'll take it from there. Or do just enough of a taking down, that others in the environment will take the opportunity for payback and in doing so, finish the problem off for you.
#6
Note well that one of our 'armies' is our culture. Why to you think the 7th Century tribes hate America? Maybe because it appeals to youth that see the bankruptcy of their environment. They hate the music, the video, the clothes because it does undermine their power to impose their will upon others. They fear it because they have seen it permeate in other cultures and it does have an effect. It is powerful. In a sense, those youths are just another sod buster.
#8
But I chafe at the idea that great American debates, in all their ugliness and splendor, should be tempered for terrorists and their attempts to recruit.
Most Americans would have been in favor of kicking these barbarians further back into the stone age. if for them the war would have been done with long ago. It is only a wussy MSM and a bunch of candyassed politicians who are quaking in their boots, wringing their hands, and pi$$ing in their pants in fear. Harry Reid who two years ago said we have lost. Billary questioned whether Petraeus was lying to congress. A depictable bunch--more so when one contemplates the anniversary of 9/11. Obama who never supported the war as a congressman. There are others.
#9
Lex, I do agree this is a long war, but I believe we, the West, have been at war with Islam since before the Crusades. The Crusades are a product of their war on western ideal. I also believe we can not win it like WWII. Until Islam is wiped from the face of the earth we, Western beliefs, will be in armed conflict with the soldiers of Islam. We have to view this like a disease, Small Pox for example. We will never rid the planet of it but we can beat it back for a few hundred years and keep it isolated.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
09/12/2010 12:48 Comments ||
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#10
The original Sept. 11: On September 11-12, 1683, the jihad broke and ran from the Gates of Vienna, leaving 20,000 dead, and all their cannon behind.
The consequences for Europe and the rest of the world were incalculable. All one need do is consider that the countries once ruled by the Turks remain to this day the poorest and most backward in Europe.
After September 11, 1683 no mujahiddeen attacked Western land until 2001.
#11
Islam has for the last few centuries been relegated to poorer sandy places and virtual irrelevance against the West....until we caved and let them control petrodollars. All of this has stemmed from the foolish point economic and immegration policies that followed WWII.
Thje solution to rendering Islam a backwater again, at least relatively, is the lack of petrodollars. Name a major muslim power that survives absent petrodollars or our aid? Isolate the Paki nuke threat, stop immigration into the West and what are the rest of them? Mostly jerks in the sand fuming.
#12
In less than 100 words NoMoreBS has stated the blindingly obvious strategic reality that few in Washington truly realize or rather accept. Unfortunately, those who do accept it, are heavily invested in it for their own personal gain, with little regard to the consequences for the West. I give you Mike Bloomberg as a recent example.
#13
BINGO. What Besoeker and NoMoreBS said. We've got to get rid of some of our economic stiffling regulations/policies and push energy independence. Let our enemies live in the 7th century.
Dispirited by a government that seems soft on the intifada in Kashmir, Madhav Nalapat says trouble is brewing in the military.
During the 63 years that India has been a free country, only once has an army chief ever veered close to planning a coup along the lines of the Pakistan model. That was Joyanto Nath Choudhuri, who was better at writing than at war, having conceded a stalemate to a vastly inferior Pakistan force in 1965.
Before him and since, the military has remained loyal to its civilian masters, even during the many periods when theyve indulged in favouritism or in procurement scams. But there are signs now that a revolt may be brewing within the uniformed services over what they see as the United Progressive Front government's unwillingness to back them in their often bloody battle against Maoists, insurgents and jihadists across the country.
The resentment is greatest in Kashmir, a consequence of Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi's Look the other way policy towards the well-organized intifada now taking place in that state. The movement is designed to attract international intervention in the statepreferably of a military naturesimilar to that which occurred in Kosovo.
This might seem like an outlandish idea, but the separatist leaders in Kashmir (who preach their venom openly while living in opulence) have been made to believe by their handlers in Pakistan that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and CIA chief Leon Panetta are in favour of robust US mediation in Kashmir. Such intervention, they believe, would ultimately ensure that the state would, in effect, become independent from India.
They claim that Pakistan's army chief of staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has made it clear to the US trio that his military's support for NATO operations in the Af-Pak Pashtun belt is conditional on such an outcome in Kashmir.
Certainly, US and other Western diplomats have ensured theres a steady diet of reports on the intifada in Western media, almost none of which point out that the movement is confined to just a section of the Sunni population in the Kashmir Valley and is opposed by the majority of the population in the region comprising Shias, Gujjars, Bakkerwals, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.
Indeed, the Western media reports also ignore the reality that what the Valley Sunni separatists seek is a religious state where the Saudi version of Sharia law would form the basis of jurisprudence.
Whatever the compulsions of Clinton, Gates and Panetta, the fact remains that the Sonia-led UPA has followed the Western press and diplomatic corps in ignoring the silent majority in Kashmir, refusing to factor in the views of the non-Valley Sunni elements in the state.
What has infuriated the military is the parroting of the Valley Sunni line by Home Minister P Chidambaram (ever-focused on winning brownie points with the United States) and the silence of Defense Minister A K Antony over the frequent criticisms of the military and the uniformed services generallythis at a time when more than 700 members of these services have been hospitalized for serious injuries sustained during the intifada. Theres also anger that thus far, no VIP has bothered even to enquire properly about these men, much less visit them in hospital.
The present chief minister of Kashmir, the youthful Omar Abdullah, was chosen for his proximity to the heir of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi. But in this first test of a Rahul brigade member in the field of fire, Abdullah has failed miserably, apparently seeking to curry favour with the instigators of the intifada even while doing nothing to stop the widespread corruption that has made Kashmir (together with the Northeast) the most administratively crooked part of India.
Sadly, each eruption of violence is followed by an increase in the volume of Delhi's largesse to the state, almost all of which gets used in the Valley and seems to end up in the pockets of the very Valley Sunnis who fan the flames. Kashmir for them has become a cornucopia, sustained by constant agitations that lead to fresh transfusions of cash, a part of which get used to initiate more trouble.
Those on the field say that its only a matter of time before a revolt takes place within the uniformed servicesnot just in Kashmir, but in other parts of India, where the present government is adopting a policy of hunting with the hounds and running with the hares.
But given the multiple arrests and other disciplinary action against uniformed personnel (which they contrast with the kid-glove treatment meted out to the intifada leadership), the time may be approaching when the hounds refuse to hunt. Instead, they may decide to step back to let Kashmir's political leadership and its Delhi backers face the consequences of a policy of winks and nods to pro-Pakistan elements seeking to prise Kashmir loose from India through international intervention.
#2
Democracies don't throwout the institutions; they throwout the bums instead. Look for a change at the polls.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
09/12/2010 10:03 Comments ||
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#3
Aside from our desire to appease the crooks who run the BS non-nation called P.A.K.I.stan, is there a good reason that we do not have a robust, full-blown alliance with India?
#4
Indian democracy is bizarre to say the least. That it has survived this long is truly a credit to the British, without whom India could have devolved to Afghanistan writ large.
Only recently, since just before the time of George W. Bush, did India finally get a president and foreign secretary with their heads on straight. They brought more quiet, good change to India than had been seen in 50 years or more.
To his credit, George W. realized this, though no one else in Washington did, and helped it considerably.
While it couldn't last for long, it at least gave one generation the idea of how things might be, if the Indian government gets its act together.
#8
g(r)omgoru: If the Muslim parts of India had remained with India, I don't think India could have survived this long. They were never really part of India, which became evident after the Sepoy Mutiny.
By 1930, in addition to everyone being tired of the British, the Hindus and Muslims were vigorously abrading on each other, with the British trying to keep from becoming too great a bloodbath. So when the British finally left, the two choices were either bloodbath or division.
#9
Separation or "aparthied" is sometimes necessary. Living in Georgia, I annually treat the exterior perimeter of my house, out to about 3-5 meters from the foundation. Cost me about $ 65. per year. It keeps the BUGS OUT!
#13
Living in the UK i find the indians harworking decent people who cannot believe why USA have any relationship with two faced victimhood muslims who hate everything the West stand for.
They believe that India could do the World a favour and crush Pakistan if the USA allowed them to!
Posted by: Paul D ||
09/12/2010 16:41 Comments ||
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#14
Both Radical Islam's + China's strategic focii 2010-2020/2025 is on ASIA-MAJOR = EAST-SOUTH ASIA + PERIPHERALS, aka RUSS-CHINA-INDIA sub-aka WHERE THE POST-COLD WAR "FREE/CHEAP NUKES" ARE. THe other World regions are SIDESHOWS = "SECOND/TERTIARY FRONTS" FOR NOW.
The Militants will be A'COMIN, SOON ENOUGH, SAVE WILL BE NUCLEAR [Nukes-WMDS] when they're ready.
* AUGUST 2010 > US VOTER-POLL SUPPORT FOR WOT > = Still comes down to "BETTER OVER THERE, NOT OVER HERE".
#15
Paul D,
IMHO, India wouldn't win a war with Pakistan. And if they did, what would they do with it? Occupy it? The Pak government doesn't appear able to occupy all of Pakistan; why should India expect to do it any better?
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
09/12/2010 23:07 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.