The conclusion of a very depressing article from the Spectator.
The decline of Christianity not only helps to explain the crisis of conservatism in Britain. It also forms part of the wider process of covert Europeanisation. Many of us still fondly imagine that we have more in common with 'our American cousins' than with our Continental neighbours. It may have been true once (though I find it hard to say exactly when). But it is certainly not true now. Travel to the United States and then to the other European Union states, and you will see: the typical British family looks much more like the typical German family than the typical American family. We eat Italian food. We watch Spanish soccer. We drive German cars. We work Belgian hours. And we buy second homes in France. Above all, we bow before central government as only true Europeans can.
And perhaps nothing illustrates more clearly how very European we are becoming than our attitudes to the United States. Asked in a recent poll to choose between the two candidates for the presidency, 47 per cent of us favoured John Kerry, compared with just 16 per cent who backed George Bush — at a time when Bush was more than 10 per cent ahead in the American polls. On the legitimacy of the Iraq war, too, the British public is now closer to Continental opinion than to American.
All this suggests that Tony Blair's devout Atlanticism may actually represent the special relationship's last gasp. For a strategic partnership needs more to sustain it than an affinity between the principals and the self-interest of a few professional elites. It requires a congruence of national interests. It also needs some convergence of popular attitudes. By both those criteria, the Anglo-American alliance is surely living on borrowed time.
The Iraq war may not have destroyed Mr Bush and Mr Blair. But it has surely laid bare the asymmetry of the relationship between Washington and London. If the special relationship were a transatlantic flight, they would be in the cockpit. We would be the sleeping passengers. It is surely time to get our foreign policy up off the flatbed.
Niall Ferguson is Professor of History at Harvard University and a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. His latest book is Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, published by Penguin.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/24/2004 1:40:16 PM ||
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#1
And we speak fookin English, even though the food portions may be smaller. Bollocks.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/24/2004 16:33 Comments ||
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#2
47 percent for Kerry, 16 percent for Bush huh?
And the rest votes Nader or Buchanan???
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/24/2004 16:37 Comments ||
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#4
'Jerry' meant as term of endearment same as Englander-Tommy-schwein.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/24/2004 16:38 Comments ||
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#5
Prior to this presidental election how many Brits and for that matter Americans really knew anything about John Forbes Kerry? It will be bollocks for U.S. if Mr. Snob from the 60's were to be elected.
I call it Bush 53%, Kerry 46.3% and the fraction of a percent% vote goes to 'others'
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/24/2004 16:46 Comments ||
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#6
Howard, I've gotten an impression from the last few months' comments that you live in Scotland. What is Scotland like these days? Do Scots feel the same about America as Brits?
#7
Even if you accept that the British have more in common with their European neighbors than their distant cousins across the sea - the conclusion of this article is completely unsubstantiated.
The Iraq war may not have destroyed Mr Bush and Mr Blair. But it has surely laid bare the asymmetry of the relationship between Washington and London.
Excuse me? So I guess it passes at Harvard these days to write up a little example about how - because they say toe-mat-oh and we say too-may-toh - that a conclusion leap of this magnitude can be reached.
I've seen better documented analysis here on rantburg comments.
#8
#6 - What gave you that impression? Love the porridge-wogs and all that but I'm Derbyshire first, England second. Oh, and I live and work in London for my many sins.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/24/2004 17:15 Comments ||
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#10
These "differences" with the US can easily be dispelled, as can the "attractions" between Britain and the Continent. For example, compare Britain and the US, culturally, around the time of World War I, as a mental exercise. Then compare them again around the time of World War II. Not really focusing on the War, per se, but of the cultures of the two places at those times, versus how they are today. You will note that the Americans and British are now far *more* alike than they used to be.
And, if anything, you could say that the Continentals have become more "British" in their culture, than the other way around.
Where in middle Europe could you go and find the innumerable and unique local costumes that were daily wear not too long ago? But now they all wear "modern" fashion, popularized in Britain. The British have been eating "foreign" food for a long time now, but it is a post WWII phenomenon on the Continent.
Even the British versions of English are becoming more homogenous and more understandable to Americans, as a rule. And while British Europhiles crave to blur the differences with the Continentals, the Eurosceptics share a happy bed with the Americans, wave the flag of St. George, and know for a fact that their kinsman who defeated Napoleon are still head-and-shoulders above those who dwell east of Gibralter.
(N.B.: The British Armies' 1st Foot Guards were recently sent to Paris to march in parade celebrating something. With subtle British wit, as the 1st Foot had defeated Napoleon's Honor Guard at Waterloo. One in the eye to the Frogs.)
#11
I am trying to figure out what I eat that isn't non domestic in it's origins except mexican food? (I live in California you know that place that was part of Spain for 400 years so "mexican food" is domestic) It's not like we have beaver and buffalo at every meal here. I drink Guiness beer and Grant's Scotch wiskey for god sakes.
I watch British and Canadian programs on my TV and read the GD BBC and AFP.
Before I begin, let me state that I am a soldier currently deployed in Iraq, I am not an armchair quarterback. Nor am I some politically idealistic and naïve young soldier, I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt. Additionally, I am not just a soldier with a muds-eye view of the war, I am in Civil Affairs and as such, it is my job to be aware of all the events occurring in this country and specifically in my region.
Before I begin, let me state that I'm retired soldier who's not currently deployed in Iraq, but who pays attention to what's going on. I'm not an armchair quarterback, either, and all my political idealism fell out sometime in the Pleistocene era. Additionally, I spent my time in the Army in MI, so I probably have as good or better an idea of how things actually work than a civil affairs NCO.
I have come to the conclusion that we cannot win here for a number of reasons.
I've come to the conclusion we don't have a choice. See Rantburg articles dated between 9-11-01 and today, inclusive.
Ideology and idealism will never trump history and reality.
But necessity and self-preservation will...
When we were preparing to deploy, I told my young soldiers to beware of the "political solution." Just when you think you have the situation on the ground in hand, someone will come along with a political directive that throws you off the tracks.
There are more weapons in the arsenal than tanks and guns. And it would seem to me that civil affairs should in fact be concentrating on the political solution, since the bangers have already done their work. Civil affairs is by definition a clean-up job...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/24/2004 8:00 Comments ||
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#5
Many front-line points to really ponder here.
I would add in terms of "So long as there is support for the guerilla" in Iraq from Iran, Syria, Wahhabi foundations, Shi'ite non-profit groups and of course the international al-Qa'ida jihad network, Al is correct in his first hand overview.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/24/2004 8:01 Comments ||
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#6
I think this is what is known as sedition.
My first question is what is his assignment, because it's obviously not with a combat element.
The unsubstantiated argument that our strategy and tactics are inadequate does not lead to the conclusion that this is an unconstitutional war. I kinda think he's starting with the unconstitutional schtick and the failure of our tactics/strategy line is just something to hang it on. Sorry to waste this many trons on it.
#7
Why bother winning, just drop the bomb and be done with it. We have 3 choices. Live with terrorism, modify the bahavior of those who create terror, or utterly destroy the lands of those who export it. Those are the 3 choices, and if this dickhead is right, then I say why risk more lives, just drop the bomb. Maybe then they will get the message that we won't fuck around.
#10
The writer is strongly affiliated with The Constitution Party of Texas. From their platform:
"Congress and the President have a duty to provide for the defense of this country, but the American people have no similar duty to provide for the defense of any foreign nation. Further, the U.S. Government has no Constitutional authority to tax the American people to provide aid of any kind to foreign governments."
"The Constitution Party, therefore, will terminate all programs of foreign aid, whether military or non-military, to any foreign government or to any international organization, including the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, and other similar institutions."
So basically this guy is a sort of pacifist who never should have gone to Iraq in the first place. His folks would have bombed the hell out of Iraq to topple Saddam to defend the U.S., and then he would have left Iraq wide open to anything that happened afterwards. Bright. Real bright.
With friends like this guy, Murat, you had better start stockpiling RPG's and AK-47's under you bed.
#12
Gotta love the title - knew it was Murat before I even clicked.
Wat was the name of that religious group who used to self-flaggelate? Little difference between them and today's left - beating themselves up all the time hoping it give them absolution. Murat - doesn't embarrass you even a little bit to be such a handwringing Chicken-Little? [most whiney voice] "I can't do it". It's safe though, if you set your levels upon "can't do it", it's easier to sit back, and do nothing but whine about those who do try. Of course, that means you have to take passive role, ie: wimp - throwing up your hands and looking away from the likes of Sadaam Al Qaeda as they murder and rape.
I've always felt the best bumper sticker for liberals would be - " Liberals - Low expectations and proud of it!"
You might want to get some help with those masochistic tendencies. But what do I know? I'm just a dumb American cowboy.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/24/2004 8:38 Comments ||
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#14
The author writes: ... our assessment of what motivates the average Iraqi was skewed, again by politically motivated "experts" ...
Why is he himself any different?
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/24/2004 8:38 Comments ||
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#15
For the sake of argument, assume it's true that we can't win. That means Murat thinks it would be great for the Sunni thugs to be in control in Sunni land. Where's the sanity in that?
The article does not take into account that the insurgency exists primarily in Sunni land. I doubt that the Shia and Kurds are rooting for the Sunni insurgents.
Posted by: V is for Victory ||
09/24/2004 8:40 Comments ||
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#16
I think it is what is known as disinformation. Was this Constitution supporting non-com as concerned about the constitutionality of Kosovo?
Murat, We can't lose, you and the Islamofascists and lots of innocent Muslims can. This is the sensitive version of war. If it doesn't work and your friends his us again, you'll find out what insensitive war is like.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/24/2004 8:48 Comments ||
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#17
Do the right thing and tell Rantburgers about the landslide Nixon win, when Americans were in denial over the Vietnam waste. So much American blood had been spilled over there, that voters deemed it unpatriotic to vote for anyone who favored disengagement, no matter the absolute futility of that mess.
New leftist playbook, using Viet Nam as a varient rather than a central these. Slick, but no sale and ultimately irrelevent.
The difference between then and now are stark. First we know now the left cares nothing for troops in the field or for the folks at home, unlike in 1972, when no one knew but voted for Nixon anyway. We know now that failing to support the war costs lives, American lives. We know that failing to support those troops and their mission that there are people here whose family are fighting; it is simple decency to ensure that their family members come home safe when we have won in Iraq.
We know that the left likes to see dead Americans and it matters little to the left whether they wear a uniform or not. We know this now about the Viet Nam. We took a lesson from Viet Nam you apparently did not.
History repeats, and Americans are 1 month away from admitting that: nation-building, democraticization, alliance-forging in Iraq are J-O-K-E-S. I can't stand Kerry, but we have to deal with the fact that the last month of the campaign is character-month, and Bush cannot possibly shake his abject servitude to the Saud entity, and the inversion of a $200 billion surplus, for a $450 billion deficit. That imbecile outlawed the only vestige of secularism in Iraq, and allowed Islamofascist animals to fill the power vacuum. And in so doing, he turned that territorial-demographic sewer into turkey-shoot turf for Iraqis who want to murder American soldiers. Pride comes out in the wash. Nixon: loved in 1972; despised in 1974 Bush: majority accepted in September 2004; despised by November 2004 Bush Blew It. Break up Iraq, and take the oil-fields
The left under Clinton had a 200 billion surplus due to heavy taxation. When some of that burden was lifted, it was inevitable the surplus would shrink. The deficit we have now it because of a war we did not ask for but one we will win.
And this time we will win the war, honorably and in a distinctively American manner, unlike 1972; An Arab nation will have a functional republic, strong military and a robust capitalist economy. The whole rotten system elsewhere in the Middle East will in time come tumbling down. And one of the side benefits to this is the left, whatever remains of the left after this election, will be so totally discredited, I seriously doubt they could muster enough votes to make a run to Taco Bell.
And Bush will get a super-lanslide, unlike 1972 and 2000.
#18
I guess this guy hasn't read the U.S. Constitution... Unless of course he's talking about the E.U. constitution, or Iraq's constitution or something... It's a good thing that the Fuehrer and the Emperor didn't know that it's 'un- U.S. Constitutional' to occupy a sovreign nation, huh? Once we get rid on pansies like this guy, and start killing people and destroying stuff like an army should, things will work out a lot smoother.
Al Lorentz is former state chairman of the Constitution Party of Texas and is a reservist currently serving with the US Army in Iraq.
then he says
"I am an old and seasoned Non-Commissioned Officer with nearly 20 years under my belt."
He is a RESERVIST - not a 20 year experienced soldier - in other words he's a weekend warrior whining because he had to go off to war - not a real combat dawg who serve a full 20 years full time. This guys starts his very article off with a distortion intended to mislead.
"Civil Affairs"
In other words a paper pusher.
"A 500-pound precision bomb has a casualty-producing radius of 400 meters minimum; do the math"
Wrong - put it CONTAINED as penetratign a building and the casualty radius is about 20 yard from the walls of the building. ANd thats mainly wounded - no deaths unless you get a chunk of rebar blown into you standing right nest to it.
"point out the fact that the locals are not only disliking us more and more, they are growing increasingly upset and often overtly hostile."
This does not jibe with whats going on in the rebuilt areas, nor does it match up with what I hear from guys I know that are over there, civilian and military.
"we consistently underestimate the enemy and his capabilities. Our tactics have not adjusted to the battlefield and we are falling behind."
This is bullshit - The guys over there have changed tactics, they are learning - and furthermore, they are coming back here and "teaching the teachers" so the Army can adjust. If we were truly falling behind, you'd see a much higher death count. ON top of that, the "enemy" has used IEDs and ambushes - nothing new there at all once we got over the shock of IEDs.
"Third, the guerillas are filling their losses faster than we can create them."
Bullshit - the guerilla groups attrit massively every time our troops are given a green light to fight them all-out. The Sadr Army has yet to regenerate its losses. This guys is a deskbound asshole who hasn't seen the intelligence reports, and isnt afraid to lie to suppor this views.
"Fourth, their lines of supply and communication are much shorter than ours and much less vulnerable. We must import everything we need into this place; this costs money and is dangerous. Whether we fly the supplies in or bring them by truck, they are vulnerable to attack, most especially those brought by truck. This not only increases the likelihood of the supplies being interrupted. Every bean, every bullet and every bandage becomes infinitely more expensive. "
So we spend the money - the Pacific campaign in WW2 we didnt have anythign local either - nor did we in Germany, North Africa or Italy. Seems we worked it out OK there against opponents with factories and local access. This is not a valid point.
" un-Constitutional mission"
This is his political axe to grind - he's a political extremist group - isolationist.
If this whiner truly believes the war is un Consitutional, then he shoudl simply say so to his unit commander and refuse to follow the "unlawful orders" - the reason he doesn't is that he's a REMF, and knows his ass will end up in the stockade.
Thank God this so-called NCO is in a desk job - he'd only get his troops killed in the field.
I'd challenge this NCO to come clean and admit his position is made up of lies and distortions becuase he simply disagrees with US policy due to his politics. I've certainly shown him to be untruthful. Secondly, I'd liek his chain of command to see this - we damned well do not need lying and seditious talks like this from our NCOs.
Someone please forward this to his chain of command - he at minimum deserves a reprimand and a bit of informative talk from the G-2 as to the realities of the siutuation in places other than his desk in the green zone.
#20
Al Lorentz is former state chairman of the Constitution Party of Texas
Yup a right wing, buchananite pol who was mobilized as a reservist, and is telling us things he beleived before the war, with little on scene detail, unlike the many soldier blogs with lots of detail of what theyve seen and learned.
#22
Jeez, Murat. It probably took you all day to find this piece of shit article to post (lourockwell.com? PUH-leeze!) yet you can't take the time to Google for Armenian genocide sites to get the truth on that?
You're a joke.
#23
OS, are you going to run for some office? I want to vote for you.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/24/2004 9:42 Comments ||
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#24
"Lew Rockwell"? A nice reminder of the vast gulf between America's impotent pseudo-fascists and Europe's virulent real fascists. Jean marie Le Pen got more votes than Jospin. Lew Rockwell and Lyndon Larouche are less well known in America than Norman Rockwell and Nuke LaLouche.
#25
"Rather we are told, they are upset because of a handful of terrorists, criminals and dead enders in their midst have made them upset, that and of course the ever convenient straw man of "left wing media bias."
Well, That explains it. He is getting his information from Dan Rather.
#26
Jeez, Murat. It probably took you all day to find this piece of shit article to post (lourockwell.com? PUH-leeze!) yet you can't take the time to Google for Armenian genocide sites to get the truth on that?
You're a joke.
Bravo, tu.
Seeing as how the only alternative to us not winning is a constant stream of further terrorist atrocities, my money's on breaking Islam's filthy violent spine.
#28
It must cause you a lot of pain to read all this from your compatriot tu3031, ofcourse you have all the right to go on playing the three apes, don't see nothing, don't hear nothing, don't say nothing about the mess in Iraq.
Whatever, trust me when I say I'll enjoy to see you numskulls running like rats from a sinking ship soon.
Posted by: Murat ||
09/24/2004 10:22 Comments ||
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#29
Murat has no credibility, no moral standing, and little display of any intelligence - place him on the "troll- ignore" list
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/24/2004 10:24 Comments ||
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#30
Murat: It must cause you a lot of pain to read all this from your compatriot tu3031, ofcourse you have all the right to go on playing the three apes, don't see nothing, don't hear nothing, don't say nothing about the mess in Iraq. Whatever, trust me when I say I'll enjoy to see you numskulls running like rats from a sinking ship soon.
I suggest Murat read up a little more about the history of American arms. It has never lost a war. (Vietnam wasn't lost by the American military - it was lost by the South Vietnamese military. By contrast, the French were actually defeated in the battlefield). And if George Bush is re-elected, the Iraqi guerrillas will be crushed.
By contrast, the Turkish military was actually defeated by the same Arabs they had conquered. Now Murat may think of Arabs as great warriors because they defeated the Turks, but that is more an indication of Turkish weakness than Arab strength.
#31
ZF: By contrast, the French were actually defeated in the battlefield.
What I find interesting is that the French were defeated despite massive American supply efforts, whereas the South Vietnamese were defeated because the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress cut them off, even as the Chinese and the Soviets were shipping billions of dollars of weaponry to North Vietnam.
#33
Al Lorentz:
"I believe that we could have won this un-Constitutional invasion of Iraq and possibly pulled off the even more un-Constitutional occupation and subjugation of this sovereign nation."
TomAnon:
Well that should be about all you need to read on this guy. He will defend his country only when invaded. I frankly do not wish to wait for that eventuality. I do not live in a world of fantasy waiting (perhaps wishing?) for a "Red Dawn" like scenario as Al obviously does. So Murat, Al, are you all secretly hoping for a "Red Crescent Dawn"? Is that your perverted fantasy?
#35
Did anyone notice in the article provided by shipman that this guy claims to have been a Marine sniper? So I guess he was a sniper that went Army reserve civilian affairs later - kind of out of the ordinary imo. Anyways - I don't think he's a pacifist but more likely an isolationist to some degree. Isolationists should not be lumped in w/pacifists. Though they certainly can be both, most isolationists just want to be left the hell alone but have no problem kicking the shit out of someone if it is warranted. Look at U.S. history circa 1787 to 1945. Hell, I'm an isolationist to a degree as well but am definitely no pacifist.
I disagree w/his article as he seems to be out of the loop. I don't attribute this to him being a REMF, because I've known plenty of great so-called REMFs and have even been one from time to time. He has a definite political axe to grind and his facts cannot support that axe.
Actually his speech could be sanctioned under the UCMJ as contemptuous speech toward federally elected officials. Seditious speech is a different matter.
#37
Jarhead, I am shocked and appalled. You are not a pacifist??? How on earth did that happen? (Please don't answer. I'm quite certain the shock of your explanation would send me permanently over the edge)
#38
I know TW, you would think w/how articulate, reserved, unexcitable, and sensitive I am that I would have a picture of ghandi and jerry garcia on my wall. However, I did once have a fling w/a canadian exchange student who was a pacifist....I think she was trying to broaden my horizons or some such, hehe.
#39
With all due respect, why does anyone, at all, continue to peruse paleokook Lew Rockwell, avatar of the anti-American right?
Rockwell tipped his hand a long, long, time ago, when he went off defending the chicoms downing and detaining our re-con plane in the South China Sea.
National Review dumped him years ago when they realized what he lunatic he was.
Posted by: Red Lief ||
09/24/2004 12:27 Comments ||
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#40
Murat dearly craves our departure from Iraq so he and his fellow Ottomans can conduct their next progrom against the Kurds. Happy to disappoint you Murat....ain't gonna happen. Bush wins 4 more years, and you have to back to sulking under your bridge while along Kurdistan gets stronger as does the rest of Iraq.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/24/2004 13:08 Comments ||
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#41
We've had something like 44,000 articles posted on Rantburg in the past three years. I think this is the first one from LewRockwell.com.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2004 13:12 Comments ||
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#42
Murat has no credibility, no moral standing, and little display of any intelligence..
Sounds like Murat's best impression of "the three apes".
We've had something like 44,000 articles posted on Rantburg in the past three years. I think this is the first one from LewRockwell.com.
Anyone else find it amusing that it comes from Muridit?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/24/2004 13:41 Comments ||
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#44
Murat stopped being a locus of constructive conversation long ago and is now simply a distraction (this thread being a fair example). His trollbait submissions and strident anti-Americanism are annoying but arguably tolerable; it is his repetitive denial of the Armenian genocide that tips the scales from "comic relief" to "evil." His comments are not "controversial" or "a different point of view." He's an apologist for mass-murder.
Fred, for the integrity of your own site, consider an ISP ban.
Murat, unlike some others here, I hope you and your family NEVER experience what your grandparents perpetrated on their neighbors and fellow countrymen.
#46
A6334 - "leftist" - nah. Bad wuz being Good, er, nice. You're yet another (and there are so many scurrying about nowadays!) Dysfunctional Fuckwit. You've come here for a little Bushwhacking and hate therapy. A cheap fix for your frustrated "isms" and/or disingenuous politics. Fred should charge zipperheads like you $60-$70 per hour just to read RB. Posting? Lol. Blocked.
If you were the Prez or King of the World, you'd have to pull your head out of your ass and think - or have it handed to you on a platter... and figure out that you have to compromise at times and, and this is the kicker, live within reality. Fantasies are fine for children, but adults have to stick to what is and what can be vs. IWantWhatIWantWhenIWantIt (IWWIWWIWI) - the war cry of the 3 year olds.
You're just another clueless / angry wart on the world's ass. FOAD/HAND.
#47
Badanov accuses me above of being a "leftist." How many leftists advocate making Mecca, Medina, Qom, Karbala and Najaf uninhabitable for hundreds of years?
I don't wanna know. Anyways, the idea is to defeat the enemy by removing their will to fight; in other words, I want us to fight, as we did in Viet Nam: as though our principles and ideal matter to us, as they do. That doesn't include indiscriminate nuking of an enemy's religious symbols as well as the humanity. It may be fun to talk about it, since we here have no such responsibilities, but your idea isn't the way.
How should I refer to a liar who pretends that the Iraq occupation is progressing? Read this report from a highly respected US research agency (Center for Strategic and International Studies) on the state of the QUAGMIRE in "faith based" Iraq:
http://www.csis.org/press/pr04_51.pdf
You can regard the ISS as respected, but as with everything else they must prove themselves on a regular basis. They haven't done that, so I wont waste my Friday evening wading through what passes for a study, but it far more likely to be yet another political document, inaccurate and ultimately irrelevant.
And read this Wall Street Journal report on the Street's attitude to the Bush deficit, that is the result of his insane pick-pocketing of Americans subsidize his moronic crusade to modernize Muslims:
Thought you wrote you weren't a leftist. ;o) And just because an article says Wall Street is against something Busgh does doesnt mean they are against Bush.
By November, Bush's credibility will vanish, except among the QUAGMIRE deniers. Then America will have Carter2, pending the purge of the Republican Party of Texas oil-patch thieves and religious crackpots. Within 6 months of the Kerry presidency, public opinion will be so strong against the Islamofascist enemy, the president will become a puppet of public opinion, and then we can finally go to town against the koranimals who butchered over 3,000 persons on 9-11. SECULARISM OR DEATH!
Wow. You were doing so well until this last passage.
You are tuned in to the wrong station. You have been listening to the internet feed of:
#48
His trollbait submissions and strident anti-Americanism are annoying but arguably tolerable; it is his repetitive denial of the Armenian genocide that tips the scales from "comic relief" to "evil." His comments are not "controversial" or "a different point of view." He's an apologist for mass-murder.
Thank you, The Caucasas Nerd, for ensuring that Murat is hoisted by the correct and proper petard. However fond he seems of long-line fishing from beneath a certain well known bridge that he keeps trying to sell us, it is his holocaust denial (the Armenian genocide inspired Hitler's "Final Solution") that clearly identifies him as morally bankrupt.
âWho today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?â Hitler said this eight days before the invasion of Poland.
#50
Get thee back to DU, Asshole6334. You're simply challenged - in every practical way - by reality. BTW, I know more about combat than you ever will, witless. Toddle off.
#51
I threaded 8 round oilfield pipe in El Reno, Okla. in the 90s. While I am not the same caliber of those member of the International Association of Oilfield Trash, I am honored to know one or two.
I am oilfield trash and I would be proud to have .com as one of my associates.
#52
bad - I never did roughneck duty - just O&G programming for about 20 yrs. I quit my carpenter job and started learning programming when I realized computers were always air conditioned, lol! I be awlfield trash too, heh. The funny thing about the awl biz is that they are all over the planet. Changing planes at Gatwick or Orly you hear some damned Texas twang - you can't help but laugh, lol! Those hick Okie and Texas cowboys are better traveled and more aware / worldly than the cloistered fools in the ivory towers of the Ivy League. :-)
A6334 is one of those twits who needs therapy - and thinks that jacking off at discussion sites will relieve the pressure. The problem is, however, that he's full of shit, not ejaculate.
#53
His tools' argument is not cause and effect. Which tools does he suggest as the alternative: a table, 2 chairs, and a bundle of cash?
There is another factor at work: the aftermath of negative international opinion as seen in the media. Is it just possible that the hostility of the populace may correlate to the international community's battle cry since the deposition of a psychotic murderer ("America invaded Iraq illegally, America needs to be knocked down a notch")?
The Iraqis are taking out their anger over "civilian casualties" on the wrong folks. It is to be determined whether they are a lucid people who recognize the jihadists in their midst, not the neighbors who assist them, as worthy of their vengeance.
One last thing-I never thought of the Iraqi people as generally "ignorant mud-hut dwelling camel riders".
Go fuck yourself. You better hope damn well that we win hearts and minds over there, because if the day ever comes when we wash our hands of that whole basket case that is the middle east, we will have no choice but to turn the whole thing into a sea of glass.
#57
Asshole 6334 sez:
"Any Koranimal who wants respect from me, can suck it out of my cock."
Lol! Wow. You are one tough motherfucker, woohoo! You don't know jackshit about "Koranimals", except what you've read or seen on TV. Wotta fake faux foo-fighter.
#58
If this is a person in leadership role in a war zone, kick his ass back to Texas. With an attitude like his, a man in moral decline, I don't want him near his man's Army. What a panty waste.
#60
We have 3 choices. (1) Live with terrorism, (2) modify the bahavior of those who create terror, or (3) utterly destroy the lands of those who export it. Someone above said it succinctly.
The jihadists want to rule the world in some fucked up Taliban way. It seems to be built into the religion. They have been a festering sore for a long time. Consider the hostage situation in Iran in the 70s, Marine barracks in Lebanon (1980s), Flight 103, the Cole, the embassy bombings, Spain, World Trade Center I (1993), World Trade Center II (2001), and on and on. We have been at war for a long time with these bastards. The coalition of the whining doesn't seem to get it. The jihadists really don't give a flip about the rest of the world other than to destroy it.
#66
Well, Da##, now I've gotta come out of the closet, too.
First let's take care of Murat's idiot on LaughNRoll.com: What he's saying is exactly the opposite of what Allawi said in Congress, and almost impossible to square with what I hear from an old boss, who's running a recon unit actively working Iraq. Bulls$$$ is Bulls$$$, especially from a Texan. This nutjob is not a combat infantryman, he has no responsibilities other than see that the home town news releases get filed, and he's afraid enough to wet his knickers, so he's trying to push every button he can to get out of harm's way. He epitomizes the "yellow rose" - at least the "yellow" part. Anyone believing this piece of excrement deserves whatever happens to them. Just keep it from hitting me after it hits the fan.
My experience in the oilpatch consists of a summer hauling jugs, and working for a couple of years as a seismic processing technician. That was enough to "encourage" me to rejoin the Air Force after a four-year break.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/25/2004 0:20 Comments ||
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#67
Seismic - whopping mother-lovin honkin terabytes of data. Biggest datasets I've ever seen - had to spend days pre-proccessing the lot to select data points that fell within the lease boundaries to minimize the size. Still ended up being multiple tape reels. And this was back when the Cray-1 only had, *cough*, .5MB of memory. Yes, you read it right. Half a meg. Talk about a pain in the ass. Sigh. The good old days. Yeah, right!
But at least it was an indoors job, heh.
Funny thing about seismic data acquisition was that the places that needed mapping were either hot as hell, cold as hell, or wet as hell. Lol!
#71
.com I thought you would get a kick out of that.
I always found the data I was looking for at school on the inside of the tape spool. Thank G_D for the guys that got disks working. Even if you needed a room full of drives you were not chasing down tapes.
#73
FRED:
Do the right thing and tell Rantburgers about the landslide Nixon win, when Americans were in denial over the Vietnam waste. So much American blood had been spilled over there, that voters deemed it unpatriotic to vote for anyone who favored disengagement, no matter the absolute futility of that mess.
History repeats, and Americans are 1 month away from admitting that: nation-building, democraticization, alliance-forging in Iraq are J-O-K-E-S. I can't stand Kerry, but we have to deal with the fact that the last month of the campaign is character-month, and Bush cannot possibly shake his abject servitude to the Saud entity, and the inversion of a $200 billion surplus, for a $450 billion deficit. That imbecile outlawed the only vestige of secularism in Iraq, and allowed Islamofascist animals to fill the power vacuum. And in so doing, he turned that territorial-demographic sewer into turkey-shoot turf for Iraqis who want to murder American soldiers. Pride comes out in the wash.
Nixon: loved in 1972; despised in 1974
Bush: majority accepted in September 2004; despised by November 2004
Bush Blew It. Break up Iraq, and take the oil-fields.
#74
Badanov accuses me above of being a "leftist." How many leftists advocate making Mecca, Medina, Qom, Karbala and Najaf uninhabitable for hundreds of years? How should I refer to a liar who pretends that the Iraq occupation is progressing? Read this report from a highly respected US research agency (Center for Strategic and International Studies) on the state of the QUAGMIRE in "faith based" Iraq:
http://www.csis.org/press/pr04_51.pdf
And read this Wall Street Journal report on the Street's attitude to the Bush deficit, that is the result of his insane pick-pocketing of Americans subsidize his moronic crusade to modernize Muslims:
By November, Bush's credibility will vanish, except among the QUAGMIRE deniers. Then America will have Carter2, pending the purge of the Republican Party of Texas oil-patch thieves and religious crackpots. Within 6 months of the Kerry presidency, public opinion will be so strong against the Islamofascist enemy, the president will become a puppet of public opinion, and then we can finally go to town against the koranimals who butchered over 3,000 persons on 9-11. SECULARISM OR DEATH!
#75
.com:
Losers like you are easy to explain: you want to be part of something beyond your own dreary existence, so you spew the same regurgitate as the oil-patch degenerates who set up America's finest troops in the Iraq-Afghanistan turkey shoots. 1 clipping off an American soldier's toenail, is more valuable than 1000 Islamofascist lives. You are just a piece of crap, floating in a stagnant ideological toilet. Your parents probably puke when they think of you.
American taxpayers aren't subsidizing another $450 billion deficit, so Bush can perform act 2 of his trained-seal routine, for the House of Saud.
#76
Deny, deny, deny. You people deserve all the frustration and humiliation that you are both facing, and that you are going to get. Let me puppy train you infants. This is what your Thief-in-Chief believes about Muslim pigs and their degenerate cult: George W, at Islamic Center, Sept. 16, 2001, when he spat on the graves of the 3,000 dead:
"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."
"When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that's made brothers and sisters out of every race -- out of every race."
"America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html
Any Koranimal who wants respect from me, can suck it out of my cock.
#77
Hey, the great American writer of the above article answers his e-mail as "Big Al." And he says that he is being threatened with charges, for exercising his right of free speech, to undo the coverup of the Iraq turkey-shoot of Americans.
He deserves your support.
Fred: please support a harder line in Iraq. You must love the smell of napalm, as much as I do.
by Jonathan Schell, Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of The Unconquerable World (Metropolitan Books) as well as A Hole in the World, a collection of his "Letters from Ground Zero" column for The Nation magazine.
Yeah, yeah, I know, violating the by-line rule, but look how hilarious pretentious this one is. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, once a supporter of the war in Iraq, has been rethinking his position. The day after Senator John Kerry's speech at NYU attacking the President's war policies, Cohen wrote, "I still don't think the United States can just pull out of Iraq. But I do think the option is worth discussing." Well, let's discuss it.
As in, "let me lecture you."
And now, for the shocking and completely unexpected postion of the Harold Willens Peace Fellow:
The United States should just pull out of Iraq.
We know, the Rantburg editorial staff was surprised too.
I love these discussions. Really. You learn so much...
There are many issues in politics that are very complicated.
Wow! That's a new one on me! How long did it take you to research that?
The war in Iraq is not one of them. Common sense in regard to this war rests on two rock-solid pillars:
(1) The United States should never have invaded Iraq.
(2) Now it should set a timetable to withdraw and leave.
Since I'm utterly lacking in common sense, neither of those statements makes any sense to me.
These two propositions go together particularly if your brain is small enough that your ears touch. The litany of reasons why it was wrong to invade Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country, no ties to Al Qaeda and only the dimmest prospect of democracy are the same as the reasons why it is now wrong to remain there.
Let's just ignore for now that even the 9/11 Commission found ties between Sammy and al-Q, it would ruin Jonathan's party. And don't mention the upcoming elections.
For the love of Allan, do not speak of the elections!
The fact that we seem to have found the mother lode of terrorists is quite beside the point...
If the people of Iraq slip back into dictatorship, it will be their dictatorship. If they choose civil war, it will be their civil war.
When the terrorists come over here again and kill you this time, it will be your death.
Yeesh. Wotta pretentious maroon.
Another victim of craniorectal inversion syndrome. Must be a DemocRat.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/24/2004 1:14 Comments ||
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#5
by Jonathan Schell, Harold Willens Peace Fellow..
This is all I needed to see, and nothing more. A large majority of these "peace" types are nothing more than low-class wankers. (see incident in Dallas for an example)
#6
No those particular wankers in Dallas need to be hunted down and taught some manners. These wankers need not be hunted down. They can be avoided. They have names amd faces
#9
#5 FYI, Schell wrote a number of anti-American screeds for the New Yorker during the Viet Nam War. Now this neo-Marxist apparently has a new life with the war in Iraq. Believe me, only poisen comes from his pen.
#11
Isn't that the same Richard Cohen who blathered on about Bush's TANG experience while stating that he himself had done many of the things Bush was accused of in one of those self-righteous "good for thee, but not for me" yappty-yaps.
Who cares what these dino's think. God bless the blogs where guys like this get the respect they deserve.
Dan Rather's initial, furious street-side defense of an amateurish forgery — smug, huffy, self-righteous — brings to mind one of those bad movies about the Paris barricades, especially the grainy, black-and-white shots of powdered and wigged aristocrats on their way to the Guillotine, yelling out of their carriages at pitchfork-carrying peasants.
Worse than being duped, worse than cobbling together a highly politicized hit-piece during a war and in the waning days of an election, worse than the shady nature of the "unimpeachable" sources and the likely sordid origins of the story, and worse even than the pathetic nature of CBS's "expert" witnesses — worse than all that was Rather's ten-day denial of reality, culminating in the surreal half-admission that the phony documents could not be verified as accurate. That's the equivalent of saying that a corpse cannot be proven to be alive.
#2
Under Mr. Annan, the U.N. wonât say a word about Tibet
Now it's Kofi Annan's fault that the UN won't say a word about Tibet?
Has the Bush Administration said anything about Tibet in the UN? Did the Clinton Administration? Did the first Bush Admministration? Did the Reagan Administration? Did the Carter Administration?
Anytime the USA wants to make an issue of Tibet in the UN, it's as simple as our UN representative standing up and making a speech. Kofi Annan won't stop him.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/25/2004 0:45 Comments ||
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#3
OK Mike, you got us there, Kofi's record on Tibet is unimpeachable. Can't have the UN secretariate paying more attention to world injustice than various US administrations there can we.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/25/2004 0:49 Comments ||
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#4
How many countries belong to the UN? How many UN members have raised the Tibet issue in the UN during the last 20 years? Why is this Kofi Annan's fault? What has he done to prevent it? Why is it his personal responsibility to make this an issue when no UN members make it an issue?
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/25/2004 0:57 Comments ||
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#5
So, say Bush goes to UN and makes Tibet an issue (bad bad China, Tibets wants to be freeeee). A resolution acnowledging that Tibet wants to be freeee is presented for a vote and has a majority. Then....what?
Nothing. United Nothings. That's all there is to it.
#6
MS: Anytime the USA wants to make an issue of Tibet in the UN, it's as simple as our UN representative standing up and making a speech. Kofi Annan won't stop him.
Actually the US does this annually, but Mike Sylwester has been too absorbed in getting the truth from jihadi websites to notice.
(1) Dan Rather is not an honest newsman who was simply duped by extremely clever forgeries; and
(2) We could have won the Vietnam War.
A basic canon of journalism is not to place all your faith in a lunatic stuck on something that happened years ago who hates the target of your story and has been babbling nonsense about him for years. And that's true even if you yourself are a lunatic stuck on something that happened years ago (an on-air paddling from Bush 41) who hates the target of your own story and has been babbling nonsense about him for years, Dan.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/24/2004 9:27:26 AM ||
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#1
an interview with Burkett ended when he "suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair" â an exit strategy Dan Rather has been eyeing hungrily all week,
CBS's own Howard Beale
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/24/2004 9:46 Comments ||
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#2
I'd be fine with keeping Rather on CBS News on condition that Ann Coulter gets one minute each night for rebuttal.
Posted by: Tom ||
09/24/2004 10:32 Comments ||
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#3
Tom - make it 3 minutes, at the end of the show, and I'm with you.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/24/2004 10:52 Comments ||
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#4
In all seriousness, why can't Rantburg get some streaming video technology and create its own Ann C Daily Rebuttal?
Somehow I doubt CBS News gets a higher share of the under-65 national audience than the blogosphere does. Smash the MSM. Let a thousand blogs contend.
#11
SCREW THAT! CBS should make Ann the Anchor! Can you imagine how their rating would soar? Hell I would be a loyal watcher. Also ditto to what Jarhead said! Also why is she not a host of some show (radio or TV)?
#13
In all seriousness, why can't Rantburg get some streaming video technology and create its own Ann C Daily Rebuttal?
Cheeze. I'm still working on the editorial page!
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2004 13:02 Comments ||
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#14
I don't think so.
Coulter at her best is thigh-slapping, pee-your-pants funny, but she's erratic. Sometimes, she's just unfunnily vicious, personal insults, ad-hominen attacks, twisting truth to make a point.
Now, these are all tolerated in a liberal (heck, they're SOP), but conservatives are not allowed this.
PUNDITS THESE DAYS are quick to compare the fighting in Iraq with the American loss in Vietnam 30 years ago. Terms like "quagmire" evoke the Southeast Asian jungle, where America's technological advantages were negated and committed Vietnamese guerrillas wore down the U.S. will to fight. People love to draw historical analogies because they seem to offer a sort of analytical proof--after all, doesn't history repeat itself? In fact, such comparisons do have value, but like statistics, it's possible to find a historical analogy to suit any argument. And Vietnam's the wrong one for Iraq.
In fact, World War II is a far more accurate comparison for the global war we are waging to defeat terrorism. Both wars began for the United States with a catastrophic sneak attack from an undeclared enemy. We had many faint and not-so-faint warnings of the impending Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, not least the historical precedent of Port Arthur in 1904, when the Japanese launched a preemptive strike against Russia. We had similar ill-defined warnings and precedents about al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism (the East Africa embassy bombings in 1998; the USS Cole bombing in 2000), but in 2001 as in 1941, we lacked the "hard" intelligence requisite to convince a country at peace that it was about to pitched into war.
Historical apologists say that the Japanese were "forced" to attack us because we were strangling their trade in Asia. Sound familiar? American foreign policy in the Middle East is responsible for the anger and rage that has stirred up al Qaeda, right? In fact, there is a crucial similarity between the Japanese imperialism of 50 years ago and Islamic fundamentalism of today: both are totalitarian, anti-Western ideologies that cannot be appeased.
As Japan amassed victory after victory in the early days of the war, America and our allies could see that we had a long, hard slog ahead of us. Americans understood there was no recourse but to win, despite the fearful cost. This was the first and foremost lesson of World War II that applies today: Wars of national survival are not quick, not cheap, and not bloodless. In one of our first counteroffensives against the Japanese, U.S. troops landed on the island of Guadalcanal in order to capture a key airfield. We surprised the Japanese with our speed and audacity, and with very little fighting seized the airfield. But the Japanese recovered from our initial success, and began a long, brutal campaign to force us off Guadalcanal and recapture it. The Japanese were very clever and absolutely committed to sacrificing everything for their beliefs. (Only three Japanese surrendered after six months of combat--a statistic that should put today's Islamic radicals to shame.) The United States suffered 6,000 casualties during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign; Japan, 24,000. It was a very expensive airfield.
Which brings us to the next lesson of World War II: Totalitarian enemies have to be bludgeoned into submission, and the populations that support them have to be convinced they can't win. This is a bloody and difficult business. In the Pacific theater, we eventually learned our enemies' tactics--jungle and amphibious warfare, carrier task forces, air power--and far surpassed them. But that victory took four years and cost many hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Guadalcanal--one campaign of many in a global war to defeat the terrorists and their sponsors. Like the United States in the Pacific in 1943, we are in a war of national survival that will be long, hard, and fraught with casualties. We lost the first battle of that war on September 11, 2001, and we cannot now afford to walk away from the critical battle we are fighting in Iraq any more than we could afford to walk away from Guadalcanal. For the security of America, we have no recourse but to win.
Lieutenant Colonel Powl Smith, U.S. Army, is the former chief of counterterrorism plans at U.S. European Command and is currently in Baghdad with Multi-National Forces-Iraq.
#1
Probably a good analogy. Glad he left out the Okinawa part.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/24/2004 21:41 Comments ||
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#2
I would disagree, in that the Colonel doesn't go far enough. For this is not a conflict between warring nations, it is a war between civilization and vandalism. (My choice of words are very specific.) Civilization has reached out to every corner of the planet, and in a Darwinistic model, has supplanted archaic social models and cultural traditions. It has conquered them all, shown them to be inferior to modernity and all that is civilization. The defeat is total, there is no way to ignore the fact. There is no place where one can escape civilization. The only hope left is to utterly destroy civilization. To break the machine. To tear down and obliterate that which you cannot grasp, in which you have no part. To vandalize. The Luddites, the fundamentalists, the nostaligics, Taliban, and anyone else who embrace the past and shun the present, are the enemy. Their path is clear, they have no choice: to fade away or to be destroyed. Or to destroy.
#3
It's been an interesting day for opinions on Iraq. We've had Old Sarge from LewRockwell.com, the peace studies perfessor, and now the colonel in Baghdad. I tend to trust the colonel more than the other two, but maybe that's just me.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/24/2004 22:02 Comments ||
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#4
Moose, good post, but I wouldn't underestimate the possibility that the jihadis are just sick bastards who like to kill people. (The corrective action remains the same.)
Posted by: Matt ||
09/24/2004 22:32 Comments ||
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#5
Article: Like the United States in the Pacific in 1943, we are in a war of national survival that will be long, hard, and fraught with casualties.
I have serious doubts that WWII was a war of national survival. That's like saying the proper response to the Napoleonic Wars would have been to join in to defeat Napoleon, the Hitler of his time. WWII was undertaken to destroy the long-term threat from Japan and prevent either Hitler or Stalin from dominating the European continent. OK - it was wrapped up in simple terms like freedom, which most of the liberated nations never got, for one reason or another, but the point was to destroy both Japanese and German power and their empire-building tendencies.
#6
The War on Terror is going to end on terms more like that of the Cold War than WWII. Think of Afghanistan as our Korean War, and Iraq as our Vietnam War, except this time, we get to keep the victory our troops have won. Unconditional surrender of all the bait-and-switch sponsors of terror is not going to happen, but they will at least make a show of cracking down on their jihadis to avoid incurring Uncle Sam's wrath.
#7
Zhang - My only quibble with your comments above is that you seemingly haven't factored in the relentless march of technology. Specifically the destructive technology of modern warfare in the form of WMD. E.g., had Napoleon possessed the ability to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of seconds, the power to level cities in the blink of an eye, and the capability to project that power worldwide in minutes, joining the forces allied against him would have been viewed with more urgency.
Even WWII, as terrible as that was, was a war fought by the old rules: sheer number of men and industrial capacity were strong indications of which side would prevail (and strong indicators of the precise location of dangers that required our attention). "Winning" entailed capturing and holding territory.
This new war is quite different. National sponsors of terrorism must be: a) prevented from acquiring WMD and related delivery capabilities by any means necessary (short term objective), and b) forced to cease and desist in their sponsorhip of terrorism. If we fail on either or both of those objectives this war will, at best, simmer along as a stalemate indefinitely and, in a more ominous scenario, degenerate into a series of open military campaigns by the west answered by covert WMD strikes from the enemy.
There exists the very real potential that this conflict will claim more lives than all the wars of the last century combined. There's still time (IMHO) to head off the worst of this ... but not much.
#8
I think the genie is out of the bottle. Both the Russians and the Chinese are proliferating like crazy, and there is nothing we can do about it. We need (ballistic and cruise) missile defense - yesterday. Once that gets implemented, we need to work towards full coverage against a Chinese missile attack, and then a Russian missile attack.
After that, the only way anyway can come after us is by shipping a nuke in. But this will be a lot more difficult to do and keep secret than launching an ICBM out of the blue. And shipping more than one in will involve big risks with respect to ensuring secrecy. Meaning that they can smack us upside the head but not actually destroy these United States.
Of all our allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the past 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France. The answer is Australia.
Australia does not share only a community of values with the United States. It understands that its safety rests ultimately on a stable international structure that, in turn, rests not on parchment treaties but on the power and credibility of the United States. Which is why Australia is with us today in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has taken great risks and much political heat for his support of America. There is a national election in Australia on Oct. 9, and the race is neck and neck between Howard and Labor Party leader Mark Latham. Latham has pledged to withdraw from Iraq.
This is a critical election not only for Australia but also for the United States. Think of the effect on America, its front-line soldiers and its coalition partners if one of its closest allies turns tail and runs.
The terrorists are well aware of this potential effect. Everyone knows about the train bombings in Madrid that succeeded in bringing down a pro-American government and led to Spain's precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. But few here noticed that this month's car bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia, was designed to have precisely the same effect.
Where was the bomb set off? At the Australian Embassy. When was it set off? Just weeks before the Australian election and just three days before the only televised debate between Howard and Latham.
The terrorists' objective is to intimidate all countries allied with America. Make them bleed and tell them this is the price they pay for being a U.S. ally. The implication is obvious: Abandon America and buy your safety.
That is what the terrorists are saying. Why is the Kerry campaign saying the same thing? "John Kerry's campaign has warned Australians that the Howard Government's support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists." So reports the Weekend Australian (Sept. 18).
Americans Overseas for Kerry is the Kerry operation for winning the crucial votes of Americans living abroad (remember the Florida recount?), including more than 100,000 who live in Australia. Its leader was interviewed Sept. 16 by The Australian's Washington correspondent, Roy Eccleston. Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for President Bush, she replied: "I would have to say that," noting that "[t]he most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta."
She said this of her country (and of the war that Australia is helping us with in Iraq): "[W]e are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels." Mark Latham could not have said it better. Nor could Jemaah Islamiah, the al Qaeda affiliate that killed nine people in the Jakarta bombing.
This Kerry spokesman, undermining a key ally on the eve of a critical election, is no rogue political operative. She is the head of Americans Overseas for Kerry -- Diana Kerry, sister to John.
She is, of course, merely echoing her brother, who, at a time when allies have shown great political courage in facing down both terrorists and domestic opposition for their assistance to the United States in Iraq, calls these allies the "coalition of the coerced and the bribed."
This snide and reckless put-down more than undermines our best friends abroad. It demonstrates the cynicism of Kerry's promise to broaden our coalition in Iraq. If this is how Kerry repays America's closest allies -- ridiculing the likes of Tony Blair and John Howard -- who does he think is going to step up tomorrow to be America's friend?
The only thing that distinguishes Kerry's Iraq proposals from Bush's is his promise to deploy his unique, near-mystical ability to bring in new allies to fight and pay for the war in Iraq -- to "make Iraq the world's responsibility" and get others to "share the burden," as he said this week at New York University.
Yet even Richard Holbrooke, a top Kerry foreign policy adviser, admits that the president of France is not going to call up President Kerry and say, "How many divisions should I send to Iraq?"
Nor will anyone else. Kerry abuses America's closest friends while courting those, like Germany and France, that have deliberately undermined America before, during and after the war. What lessons are leaders abroad to draw from this when President Kerry asks them -- pretty please in his most mellifluous French -- to put themselves on the line for the United States?
Posted by: tipper ||
09/24/2004 11:03:51 AM ||
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#1
This is indeed vile. Kerry is clearly expressing his sympathies now for the Bambi Zapateros of the world. Disgusting.
#2
Of all our allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the past 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France. The answer is Australia.
Where the Australians involved in Bosnia? Kosovo? Grenada? Panama? The Aussies are great allies, probably out best ally, but that claim of every war is so circa Ronald Reagan. Its meant to highlight that they fought in Vietnam while the British and Canada did not. Britian is one hell of an allie even if they didn't join us in Vietnam (could have used some of that how the UK won in Malaya info, if the US would have listened).
#3
In my opinion Kerry is, and always was a traitor to the United States of America.
I think he comitted treason after he 'served' in the Vietnam war by meeting illegally with and giving aid and comfort to the enemy during time of war and he is comitting treason now by giving aid and comfort to the enemy now (The terrorists).
If he could I beleve he would meet with and give aid and comfort to OBL himself.
#4
Mr. Schwarz, I suspect that the reference to wars includes WW1, WW2, Korea, VietNam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Bosnia, Kosovo, Grenada, and Panama don't rise to the level of a war and were just "operations." As you suggest, for those of us of a certain age, VietNam is a good gauge of allies. Only Australia and South Korea put boots on the ground with us. Something worth remembering. I like the Brits too, but the Aussies have been solid.
#1
Conversely, it could also be said that the "strong" Christianized Africa is making serious inroads into Moslem Africa. While not as confrontational as Moslems, they have a powerful selling point: the absence of Sharia and an open, liberal society.
In either case, it can be said that success leads to subversion. Successful "Christian" nations liberally tolerate diversity, inviting subversion, and successful "Moslem" nations push away those oppressed by it, inviting subversion.
#2
Ultimately, regardless of what anyone says, the battle is between islam and the forces of allan...and everyone else. Sooner or later the LLL will understand that, but probably not before a lot more blood is spilled.
#4
I agree with Pipes, there is as much a chance for it here as there is in the EU.
"First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation."
But it is far more likely that ultimately they will be the ones converted to the Western lifestyle rather than the other way around. It's the ol' law of unintended consequences.
Sick the Baptists on them. The poor boring, I can't dance, stick-in-the-mud, mooselimbs don't stand a chance next to all that pot-luck fun!
#5
This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence â flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools â but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system.
I also see inroads through law and the political system as a threat, long-term.
If sharia ever became law of the US, I would undergo an astounding transformation: from a fairly easy-going, live-and-let-live, frilly type of girl to a rampaging bee-yatch. God-pretending imams trying to impose the law of the insane on our good country would push me over the edge to action. Might think about sniping as a career.
#1
Yup. mo's the perfect man. Lessee, the muslim apologists response to this would be something on the order of "Well, being forced to be someones concubine is much better than being killed and also mo took good care of his female sex slaves and it was better for them to be taken care of than to be widows and if a man takes care of a woman and uses his money for her support then she is obligated to sleep with him. Its only right. It would be ungrateful for a well treated muslim sex slave to even think about controlling her own body when its bought and paid for with the muslim mans money and when her life has been so compassionately spared by him. Its a pity that all those women were widowed and all those children orphaned but it was unavoidable so mo did the right thing to ensure that they were taken acre of. "
I'll go ahead and compare this with my faith in spite of the fact that it will most likely kick up a shit storm, but it has to be said for those muslims who lurk around here.
The Bible and Jewish tradition both give the wife the right to refuse their husbands. islam teaches that she is obligated whether she wants to or not because her husband supports her. Christian women and Jewish women have the right to their own bodies and what happens to them. Christianity never allowed the taking of slaves or concubines although I'm sure Christian men have done so back in the bad old days, there is absolutely and unquivocably no santion of it by the religion, not ever. No excuses. No loopholes. No legal sanction of a woman being taken against her will as long as the man takes care of her later.
What is wrong is always wrong. It can't be justified by a good cause and it can't be made better by good treatment afterwards. You can't make a rape not a rape. You can't choose a sex slave for yourself out a group a recently widowed woman whose husbands were just executed by you, ie women still devoted to their husbands in their hearts, and have sex with them against their wills and then say its all good afterwards because you support them with your money.
I ask any of the lurkers here to ask themselves how they would like it if the tables were turned and this happened to their families? You would scream foul, I'm sure. You would rage for justice. And yet when your precious mo does it, all of a sudden the same situation becomes proof of his perfection and goodness! How is it that anyone can fail to see the disconnect here??? The double standard is outrageous. How can anyone be forced to take a woman against her will as his wife and expect her to have sex with him? Who was forcing him? Who forced mo to do these wrong things?
Has any muslim ever thought to put themselves back at the massacre of this Jewish tribe? How much blood would be pouring out into the ground and sraying in the air from the beheadings of at least 500 men? What would it be like to hear the shreiking and wailing of the women and children? Now if you have any sympathy or human compassion, imagine your self a woman whose husband has just been beheaded. Her whole life has been destroyed. Her children have been parcelled out to who knows who among her new masters and now comes a strange man who demands sex from her because like it or not he's done the compassionate thing and made her his new concubine whether she likes it or not. Ever imagine what that might be like? Now imagine happening many thousands of times over AND ALL WITH THE APPROVAL OF MOHAMMED.
Now ask yourself, where in the life of Jesus did this happen? Where in the New Testament was he ever forced to commit violent acts to save his message? He was on earth for only 33 years and preached only three. He never hurt anyone and yet in spite of persecution his message survived and his followers remained peaceful and nonviolent for hundreds of years after he was gone and yet the message spread far and wide in spite of all opposition.
Why is mo the only religious figure supposedly "forced" against his will to commit acts that would be crimes in any other situation in any other context? Why is the rape of his and his followers concubines and their forced captivity not wrong in their case but wrong in every other case?
How can something wrong stop being wrong for even a moment? How can harm stop being harm based on the context? Are the people who were raped and excecuted and forced to serve as slaves by the first muslims not human? Did they not have feelings of terror and horror and pain and suffering and misery and sadness and grief just as you would if you suffered their fate? And yet muslims continue to say that in mo's case it wasn't really wrong to make other people suffer and to take their lives and their property and their wives and children?
There can be no excuse. None. Not ever for putting another human being through such an experience. Not ever.
#2
Michelle is exactly the kind of mouthy woman I like.
There are some important problems to work out of Islam as regards rape, given what the Quran recounts as normal behavior between men and women and how closely many Muslim societies adhere to conquest ideas from primitive times. But I don't think this discussion necessarily has to fall within religious context.
From what I have read and what I have heard from women who have been raped, the closest way you can come to understanding what rape is like is to try to imagine what forced anal sex would feel like. There is little difference physically between how those 2 acts feel. When your muscles resist penetration, usually tissue damage occurs. That doesn't even count the psychological damage that occurs when someone forces their will on you at the same time they are tearing your tissue, or the ruination of your life that happens when you are impregnated by your rapist. It is the loss of autonomy, from what I understand, that is the worst.
Just add rape to the endless list of things Muslim women have no say about concerning their lives.
The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
- WINSTON CHURCHILL -
Islam promotes slavery. Witness the fact that Saudi Arabia was the very last country on earth to outlaw this criminal and degrading practice. THIS ONLY HAPPENED IN 1962. Islam faces such massive and monumental reforms that I have serious doubts as to whether it will ever become a truly valid or assimilable religion. All evidence to date indicates it will not. Should this prove the case, how to go about eliminating it from the face of this earth is the sole remaining task with regard to what is a violent, misogynistic, overbearing and primative death cult.
#4
Just add rape to the endless list of things Muslim women have no say about concerning their lives. Unless the all-powerful man (father/brother/husband/son) who holds her life in his hand chooses to allow her to have some say. I mean, Gentle's father sent her to university and all. Unfortunately for the health of the society, rape is one of the things Muslim boys have no say about either. This does seem to confirm the feminists' assertion that rape is an expression of power rather than sexual attraction.
#5
How is it that anyone can fail to see the disconnect here???
peggy, within the typical Arab mind it seems there is a congenital inability to assume any responsibility for rational and coherent conduct. Witness the usual "Osama gave the Great Satan what it richly deserved, he's our hero. And by the way 9-11 was a Jewish plot." sort of balderdash. Witness Saudi Prince Abdullah denouncing al Qaeda as a Zionist plot. Witness the countless Iraqis who rejoice at Saddam being deposed but refuse to accept the presence of those troops who liberated them.
The contradictions are as endless as the daymonthyeardecadecenturymillennia eon is long. Until the entire Islamic culture shows itself capable of overcoming this fundamental ideological and intellectual dichotomy, it will never attain the least bit of validity as a worthwhile religion. As yet, it is merely the source of monstrous human suffering and an endless stream of psychopathic mass murderers.
#7
This does seem to confirm the feminists' assertion that rape is an expression of power rather than sexual attraction.
trailing wife, rape has about as much to do with sex as basketball does with nuclear science. Whenever I am confronted with those weak-minded individuals who try to insist that there is no right or wrong, only shades of gray, I trot out rape and ask when it is ever valid or permissable.
Even if there was only one woman left on earth to continue the human species, raping her would not encourage any sort of healthy regard for the resulting offspring. Some things are black and white. Rape is absolute proof of that.
The predominance of rape within Islamic culture is damning evidence of a diseased attitude towards the sanctity and dignity of human life. It's persistent appearance as a feature of chauvinistic Muslim male privilege is an enormous stumbling block, if not an outright barrier, with regard to Islam's attainment of true respectability as a world faith. Until this elemental and profoundly vile component of Islamic culture is vanquished, all right thinking people are obliged to seek Islam's extinction instead.
For Islam to persist without correcting this core deviation from merciful and just treatment of our fellow human beings is simply criminal and nothing less. That such malice aforethought is so constantly perpetrated against those who are the very vessle of life itself serves as a prime indicator of just how wicked so much of Islamic doctrine is.
I also consider the MSM willing participants of the Rape Jihad by their deliberate and willful silence concerning Dufar, the Russian school, and the basic nature of Islam.
Rape is fundemental to Islam. What did the Prophet Mo do with the last Jews in Medina? He mass-slaughtered the men and boys right in front of their familes and then, in that very same day, gang raped the women and children. And he expected them to feel grateful for it.
I tend to judge each tree by its fruit. Rape, Murder, Slavery, and Death is the fruit of Islam....
#9
I personally don't believe that islam can reform for the simple reason of its beginnings and founder. What is there for them to return too? The answer is the examples of mohammed and the first muslims. Al queda and the wahabbis, these are the true reformers in islam. They are the ones returning to the source. Its the moderates that have drifted from the original example and incorporated elements of better religions through mimicry and eclectism. Its the moderates that distance themselves from mo's example and ignore everything except the stuff that sounds real nice on paper.
There can be no reform of islam that leaves islam as it has been from the beginning that is a religion that believes that mo was a divine and perfect messenger and example. the only possible way to truly reform is for all muslims to reject that mo was any kind of example and law giver. That necessarily means the end of islam even if some people continue to stubbornly cling to something called islam.
Every other religion has something and someone morally exemplary to return to. islam does not.
#10
Actually on further thought I shouldnt be so quick to speak for all other religions. But I can speak from knowledge of Christianity and Judaism. Christianity has Jesus to return to, the source about whom almost no one ever has a bad thing to say. Judaism has its priceless and peerless Prophets as its conscience and lodestars always reminding them of the spirit in which the Law of Moses must be applied.
#11
I personally don't believe that islam can reform for the simple reason of its beginnings and founder. What is there for them to return too? The answer is the examples of mohammed and the first muslims. Al queda and the wahabbis, these are the true reformers in islam. They are the ones returning to the source.
Again, yet another important and truly damning point about Islam, peggy. Amid the hue and cry for Islam to reform itself, the only vigorous "reform" happening is towards an even more polar and vicious sort of fanaticism. What seems to elude so many people is that if Islam did not directly set about correcting its drift into militancy immediately after 9-11, how can anyone expect them to take up such a nettlesome task SOME THREE YEARS LATER?
Islam's inability or unwillingness to reform are rapidly becoming indistinguishable. The remaining world cannot continue its blindness over the simple fact that Islamic ideology is an outright threat to all other people and cultures. Those who refuse to comprehend this do not deserve any protection from the nations that have dedicated themselves to wiping out terrorism. Uncomprehending nations that permit themselves to be overrun by Islamic culture will necessarily be added to a list of civilization's enemies. France, for one, really needs to consider these implications and rectify their lax mentality that countenances harboring Khomenei and continued support of the Palestinians.
#12
I think the very understanding of, or at least the definition associated with, rape in Islam is very different from in Western cultures. I'd suggest that it has everything to do with sex---just not sex as we know it.
In Islam, sex is something to be posessed like everything else. "Rape" is sex that doesn't belong to the parties involved in it, and seems to be treated as a theft of honor. The rapist takes something (sex, ird, whatever) that under Islam rightfully belongs to the woman's father, brother, husband, or possibly her male children. Strangely, blame attaches more to the female involved than the male perpetrator in Islam.
Rape, or other violations, can be defined as the opposite of freely given favors. When "freely given favors" is an oxymoron because such is already "free" by definition to any male muslim, we get into the weird ownership of womens minds, bodies, and honor.
What a disgusting cult.
From The New York Times, an article by Noah Feldman, a professor of law at New York University, a fellow at the New America Foundation, and the author of the forthcoming What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building.
.... a postponement [of elections] wouldn't be the end of the world; in fact, it might be just what is needed to ensure that all of the country's ethnic and religious groups view the election as legitimate. .... Without Sunni participation, the election results would be worse than useless. To understand why, one must bear in mind that the purpose of the election is not just to choose a legitimate government but also to elect leaders who can negotiate a new and permanent Iraqi constitution. Although such a constitution would guarantee basic rights, it would be first and foremost a power-sharing deal reached among different factions of Iraqis - Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni.
Thus if the Sunnis were excluded because of security problems, or if they boycotted, they would not be able to elect leaders empowered to negotiate on their behalf, and the resulting constitutional deal would be rejected by the great majority of Sunnis as illegitimate. .... Although some Sunni clerics have advised their followers to sit out the election, the situation could change if it is made clear to the insurgents that, while they cannot win a war, they have the real possibility of gaining a stake in the resources of the new Iraq by participating in government. In the long run, the only way to end the terror is to dry up the sea of Sunni resentment. This will require both the stick of military suppression and the carrot of political incentive. If the Sunnis cannot or will not vote, protracted civil war lies ahead. Creating conditions in which Sunnis will vote may take some time, but it would be time well spent. If this means delaying the election, so be it. The January deadline is just as arbitrary as every other deadline in the transition process, and it would be counterproductive to enforce it if the election was then seen as illegitimate.
As for Ayatollah Sistani, his particular problem is with a plan by some leading parties, most representing Kurdish and Shiite exiles, to form a single ticket, or "consensus list." The list could well dominate the ballot, and Ayatollah Sistani is concerned that, as things stand, it would result in Shiites making up only about 55 percent of the new government. This number, he feels, is based on outdated figures that underestimate the Shiite percentage of the population. ...
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
09/24/2004 8:53:08 AM ||
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#1
the author is right that a Shia-Kurd election with NO Sunni arab participation would be a huge problem. But thats NOT what Allawi and Rummy have in mind, IMO. Theyre thinking of POSSIBLY an election without Al Anbar province, due to insurgent/terrorist control of Ramadi and Fallujah. Sunni Arabs in Mosul, Samarra, Baquba and Baghdad would still vote. And even this is not the preferred plan - its a plan B, to avoid giving coalition forces a hard deadline for cleaning up Fallujah and Ramadi.
But still, for the NYT to publish someone this optimistic is pretty unusual.
The Iraqis never asked for us to invade This of course is quite an oversimplification - the exiles asked for us to invade, as did the Kurds. The Shiites wanted us to invade way back in 1991, and mistrust us cause we didnt. I suspect a throwaway line like this was needed to get this past the NYT editors.
#2
If you announce that there will be no elections until there can be elections everywhere, even in the provinces causing the violence, you guarantee that there will never be elections. The terrorists will see to that.
Just as if you announce that the US will leave Iraq on "X" date, no matter whether the new government can defend the country or not, you tell the terrorists to hang on or lie low until that date, at which time they'll have free reign.
Sounds like the Kerry option. And we all know how well that worked out for the Vietnamese people.
Hold the elections. If the "insurgent" areas can't vote, so be it. Maybe they'll get the hint and stop the violence against the government troops, and ours. Or maybe they'll continue to live in their hell-holes under the boots of the terrorists.
That's the nice thing about democracy. People have choices.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/24/2004 9:10 Comments ||
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#3
During the Civil War, the US held elections in the areas that weren't embroiled in the fighting. Most (all?) of the Southern states were excluded. Elections went ahead, anyway.
#4
What's wrong with rolling elections? Start with the non-Sunni areas, and add elections in stable Sunni areas as they're ready. This allows the process to move forward and also gives Sunni holdouts a huge disincentive to continued disruption: no elections in Sunni areas = no influence in a parliament dominated by Kurds and Shi'a.
#5
I smell rats here. I suspect the LAST thing the left want to see in Iraq are elections. That would validate everything that has been done so far. To verify this theory, I would imagine them proposing anything and everything in the near future short of elections: something to "taint" the idea of "free and full elections."
They will complain bitterly that elections shouldn't be held where there isn't total security; or that the elections cannot be completely monitored by the UN; or that somebody has been unfairly "disenfranchised", etc.
In any case, they will vehemently argue *after* the elections that they are not "valid", that they are "tainted". Somebody cheated somebody, so the elected government is NOT LEGITIMATE. And they will argue this as strongly as they argue that Bush "stole the election" from Gore.
To do otherwise is a tacit admission that they were wrong about overthrowing Saddam, *and* that Iraq is a "quagmire", *and* that Arabs can't deal with democracy, *and* a host of other articles of their faith.
#6
Anony, the writer's New American Foundation was founded in 1999 and is headed by Ted Halstead, the man who has urged Warren Beatty to run for President. It is the home of aging Trotskyites and fuzzyideological leftists who are praying (nay, meditating) in the hope that America will suffer a disastrous setback in Iraq.
#7
Re: the complaints about the legitimacy of the elections -- ask these "intellectuals" if they would have allowed the Confederates be allowed to vote on the 13th Amendment?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
09/24/2004 14:14 Comments ||
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#8
Wasn't Feldman an advisor to the Coalition Authority on their new Constitution?
I seem to recall that Feldman thought the future Iraq would incorporate Islamic principles in its constitution.
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.
