January 28, 2005: One reason Europeans are so upset with American operations in Iraq, is because the United States has been more successful in shutting down terrorist operations within the United States. As a result, Islamic terrorists are concentrating more on carrying out terrorist attacks in Europe. As far as Islamic radicals are concerned, an infidel is an infidel. Besides, three years of efforts to carry out any kind of attack in the United States has met with many costly failures. American counter-terrorism forces have not captured a lot of Islamic terrorists in the United States, but the terrorist planning efforts meant that there were a lot of messages, and people, who could be intercepted. Many arrests were made overseas, or searches begun for newly identified terrorists.
The United States has always been a difficult target for Islamic terrorists. It's not just the longer distances that must be traveled, but the nature of the Islamic and Arab-American population there. In Europe, Islamic, and especially Arab, immigrants are more likely to maintain their old country culture, to the exclusion of loyalty to the place they have moved to. The United States has always been a nation of immigrants. Anyone arriving is met with an attitude that, "you can be one of us." The higher proportion of loyal-American immigrants makes it more difficult for Islamic radicals to hide, recruit and plan their attacks inside the U.S..
In Europe, there is a much larger number of Islamic radical clergy, many of whom openly preach the need to "fight the infidels." European countries try to crack down on these radical clergymen, but the damage is already done. Moreover, there are ten times as many Moslems in Europe than there are in the United States. The combination of all these factors makes the Europeans very nervous. It was thought that European opposition to American operations in Iraq would provide a measure of protection. But this proved to be an illusion. The bombings in Spain last March made that very clear. The arrest of hundreds of Islamic radicals by European police, and discovery of dozens of terrorism plots, and growing radicalization of young European Moslems, has increased the danger. Islamic terrorist leaders now openly call for attacks in Europe, and some Islamic clergy in Europe call for the forcible conversion of Europe to Islam.
The only good thing to come out of all this is enthusiastic cooperation by European police and intelligence organizations in American efforts to find and stop Islamic terrorism. But that may not be enough to prevent more bombs from going off in Europe.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/28/2005 10:01:25 AM ||
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#2
This may be one reason, but when it comes to Jean Beaujolais (the french equivalent to Joe Six-pack), it very much resonates:
My mom was an immigrant from Haiti to the United States when she was a college student and became a Citizen when she married my dad, who was from Nebraska. Her dad was a real fanatic when it came to speaking classical french, so she very successfully lived in France for about 15 years, returning in 1999. She's a treasure-house of how the average french citizen REALLY thinks, as opposed to the French elite who project the image of the average Frenchman that they want the rest of the world to believe.
She was totally, completely appalled at how complacent the average Frenchman had become with regards to terrorism at the close of the 20th century. This is mostly due to the French Government telling their people to "suck it up", and that they would handle everything. As a result, you don't get on a bus in France without looking under the seats for any packages. There are no mailboxes. There no self-storage lockers in any bus, train, or airport terminal. Every public, open air statue in France is a FAKE: the real thing had been removed when terrorists blew up one of the horses on a famous bridge in Paris. Apartment rent deposits for foreigners are astronomical due to the possiblity of Paleo-style "work accidents". All of this massive lack of vigor in prosecuting terrorism is greeted by the Typical Frenchman (60 to 70% of whom are Pro-american by her personal estimate) with the typical Gallic shrug and resignation. There was the occasional capture and trial of terrorists, but it's strictly darwinian elimination of the dumbest ones.
The general impression is that, if a situation doesn't buy votes you'd normally get anyhow, then that's tough: there are squeakier wheels to grease. We americans have a far lower tolerance for this kind of bullshit, and our politicians know they'd get screwed to hell if they tried to BS their way out of doing something about it. For instance, I witnessed, on French Channel 2, with my own two eyes, a video of a peaceful group of socialists waiting to greet then French President Mitterand to their town being violently attacked by the communists. NOTHING came of that incident. It was as if it never happened. J. Edgar's Ghost wouldn't let any politican or law enforcement officer get away with that sort of behavior from commies, which is a big reason why we rarely saw that shit happening here in the US.
It is postulated that the effect of a Free Iraq would be to cause unrest and demands for reform from the people of the surrounding ME countries, but most especially from the Iranians. Similar effect from Europe Vis. a Vis the United States and Terrorism: The french elites know they have NO ANSWER to the very reasonable question "why the sh*t don't you get your act together and go after the Domestic Terrorists like the Merkins?". They choose instead to make sure the question doesn't get raised publicly, and have an agreement among themselves and the opposition politicians not to rock the boat by demanding answers to that question: Think of them as Democrats savvy enough not to make political points by pointing out this problem, because the opposition is aware that, if elected based on promises to act like the Merkins, they'd be in deep sh*t because they wouldn't do anything about it either. My mom became good friends with the Wife of the Chief Justice of the French equivalent of our Supreme Court: when she expressed reservations to her friend about returning to Paris after noting that the Tours police were more vigorous in going after terrorists, the lady waved it off "What's the big deal? Just look under the seat when you get on the bus, and you'll be fine!" The elites are in big-time DENIAL. That is why Sabine Herrold was such a threat: she wasn't in on the scam, she wa asking the question (and others like it), and she was being heard. I'm sure she's being given the "cone of silence" treatment from the French media.
#4
By the way, here's the dope on why Mitterand put France on our side for Gulf War I: His wife went to northern Iraq to investigate atrocities against the Kurds. The Iraquis shot at her chopper, which developed a progressive problem that eventually forced them to land far from their destination. He got on the phone and begged Bush Sr. to save his wife from the Iraquis. We were able to get two choppers in there and haul her ass out before the Iraqui search parties found them. He had to return the favor when GWI broke out, because his wife wouldn't have let him have any peace if he hadn't.
#5
Islamic terrorist leaders now openly call for attacks in Europe, and some Islamic clergy in Europe call for the forcible conversion of Europe to Islam.
I'm in possession of video/audio of an F-16 taking out a group of 48 terrorists converging on a group of Marines pinned down in an ambush in Fallujah. It's spectacular. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of same please email me with F-16 in the subject header. You won't be disappointed.
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
01/28/2005 11:50 Comments ||
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#10
Odd. The conventional wisdom has been that the French and German police have been working together with ours in trying to track down the bad actors.
Are we really more successful in the US at shutting down terrorist operations? Or were there fewer cells to begin with (article says 10x more Muslims in Europe)?
Does anybody know if we're trying to restrict Wahhabi recruiting in our prisons, for instance?
Posted by: James ||
01/28/2005 14:35 Comments ||
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#11
Whne we went into Afghanistan we saw training videos of terrorists moving in on vehicles as though they were stopped at a light.
When I saw this I envisioned a busy city street (close, cramped, one-way) with two or three SUV's full of terrorists side by side at the light. Everyone stops.
The terrorists jump out with their weapons and begin hauling people out of cars and executing them.
Can you imagine this happening?
I did. It made me decide that if I saw anything of the sort I would start running people over, anything I could do before they got to me (I do not have a CCW, yet, but I digress). This sort of attack would take only a few moments and be over with, with the SUV's taking diverging routes out of the city.
In America, even in cities with strict gun control laws, they would stand even odds of getting return fire in any situation like this.
In Europe . . . it is unlikely. Even in Switzerland, where most adult males own fully automatic weapons, they do not carry them around in public. It would shock you to know how many Little Old Ladies pack heat illegally in the US, because they realize that the worst that could happen to them is not getting murdered and the Police are not going to be there to stop the criminals (fact of Life).
It gave me a different perspective.
It also appears that we may have to have genocide go on in the EU to maintain any semblance of freedom or democracy.
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
01/28/2005 14:39 Comments ||
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#12
I think we're making this too complicated. In my experience, this hostility always seems to come down to one of two things-arrogance ("Europeans are smarter, more sophisticated") or mean-spiritedness ("you haven't suffered enough-I'd like to see America suffer x,y,z"--good old-fashioned coliseum bloodthirst). Maybe they are wounded by our efficacy as the writer claims, but I think that's scratching the surface. That's just a symptom of the root cause.
OOOh-did you hear that? Root cause? Think I'll get invited to the UN one day? Naw-they're probably afraid an American woman like me will show up looking like Minnie Pearl.
#13
After Colombine, someone in LA City schools said, you know it could happen here too and we all had a real good laugh - cause it could have happened - it just wouldn't have lasted as long. Maybe...two or three minutes before people shot back.
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six, as they say.
From The New York Times, a book review by Gregg Easterbrook of the new book Collapse, written by Jared Diamond, also the author of Guns, Germs and Steel. Easterbrook is an editor of The New Republic, a fellow of the Brookings Institution and the author, most recently, of The Progress Paradox.
Eight years ago Jared Diamond realized what is, for authors, increasingly a fantasy -- he published a serious, challenging and complex book that became a huge commercial success. Guns, Germs, and Steel won a Pulitzer Prize, then sold a million copies, astonishing for a 480-page volume of archeological speculation on how the world reached its present ordering of nations. Now he has written a sequel, Collapse, which asks whether present nations can last. Taken together, Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse represent one of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation. They are magnificent books: extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in their ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. I read both thinking what literature might be like if every author knew so much, wrote so clearly and formed arguments with such care. All of which makes the two books exasperating, because both come to conclusions that are probably wrong.
Guns asked why the West is atop the food chain of nations. Its conclusion, that Western success was a coincidence driven by good luck, has proven extremely influential in academia, as the view is quintessentially postmodern. Now Collapse posits that the Western way of life is flirting with the sudden ruin that caused past societies like the Anasazi and the Mayans to vanish. Because this view, too, is exactly what postmodernism longs to hear, Collapse may prove influential as well. .....
Many arguments in ''Guns'' were dazzling. Diamond showed, for example, that as the last ice age ended, by chance Eurasia held many plants that could be bred for controlled farming. The Americas had few edible plants suitable for cross-breeding, while Africa had poor soil owing to the millions of years since it had been glaciated. Thus large-scale food production began first in the Fertile Crescent, China and Europe. Population in those places rose, and that meant lots of people living close together, which accelerated invention; in other locations the low-population hunter-gatherer lifestyle of antiquity remained in place. ''Guns'' contends the fundamental reason Europe of the middle period could send sailing ships to explore the Americas and Africa, rather than these areas sending sailing ships to explore Europe, is that ancient happenstance involving plants gave Europe a food edge that translated into a head start on technology. Then, the moment European societies forged steel and fashioned guns, they acquired a runaway advantage no hunter-gatherer society could possibly counter. ....
In this respect, Guns, Germs, and Steel is pure political correctness, and its P.C. quotient was a reason the book won praise. But the book must not be dismissed because it is P.C.: sometimes politically correct is, after all, correct. The flaws of the work are more subtle, and they set the stage for Collapse. .....
Diamond's analysis discounts culture and human thought as forces in history; culture, especially, is seen as a side effect of environment. The big problem with this view is explaining why China -- which around the year 1000 was significantly ahead of Europe in development, and possessed similar advantages in animals and plants -- fell behind. This happened, Diamond says, because China adopted a single-ruler society that banned change. True, but how did environment or animal husbandry dictate this? China's embrace of a change-resistant society was a cultural phenomenon. During the same period China was adopting centrally regimented life, Europe was roiled by the idea of individualism. Individualism proved a potent force, a source of power, invention and motivation. Yet Diamond considers ideas to be nearly irrelevant, compared with microbes and prevailing winds. Supply the right environmental conditions, and inevitably there will be a factory manufacturing jet engines.
Collapse spends considerable pages contemplating past life on Easter Island, as well as on Pitcairn and Henderson islands, and on Greenland, an island. Deforestation, the book shows, was a greater factor in the breakdown of societies in these places than commonly understood. Because trees take so long to regrow, deforestation has more severe consequences than crop failure, and can trigger disastrous erosion. Centuries ago, the deforestation of Easter Island allowed wind to blow off the island's thin topsoil: ''starvation, a population crash and a descent into cannibalism'' followed, leaving those haunting statues for Europeans to find. Climate change and deforestation that set off soil loss, Diamond shows, were leading causes of the Anasazi and Mayan declines. Collapse reminds us that like fossil fuels, soil is a resource that took millions of years to accumulate and that humanity now races through: Diamond estimates current global soil loss at 10 to 40 times the rate of soil formation. Deforestation ''was a or the major factor'' in all the collapsed societies he describes, while climate change was a recurring menace. ....
If trends remain unchanged, the global economy is unsustainable. But the Fallacy of Uninterrupted Trends tells us patterns won't remain unchanged. For instance, deforestation of the United States, rampant in the 19th century, has stopped: forested acreage of the country began rising during the 20th century, and is still rising. Why? Wood is no longer a primary fuel, while high-yield agriculture allowed millions of acres to be retired from farming and returned to trees. Today wood is a primary fuel in the developing world, so deforestation is acute; but if developing nations move on to other energy sources, forest cover will regrow. If the West changes from fossil fuel to green power, its worst resource trend will not continue uninterrupted.
Though Diamond endorses ''cautious optimism,'' Collapse comes to a wary view of the human prospect. Diamond fears our fate was set in motion in antiquity -- we're living off the soil and petroleum bequeathed by the far past, and unless there are profound changes in behavior, all may crash when legacy commodities run out. Oddly, for someone with a background in evolutionary theory, he seems not to consider society's evolutionary arc. He thinks backward 13,000 years, forward only a decade or two. What might human society be like 13,000 years from now? Above us in the Milky Way are essentially infinite resources and living space. If the phase of fossil-driven technology leads to discoveries that allow Homo sapiens to move into the galaxy, then resources, population pressure and other issues that worry Diamond will be forgotten. Most of the earth may even be returned to primordial stillness, and the whole thing would have happened in the blink of an eye by nature's standards.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/28/2005 10:27:01 PM ||
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#1
I forgot to yellow-highlight the first paragraph. Could the editor please fix that?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/28/2005 22:28 Comments ||
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(from 'The Washington Note' Blog, as the FT article was for paid subscribers only.)
How the U.S. Became the World's Dispensable Nation
by Michael Lind
In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited... Article goes on at length how the US is failing, how the entire world is ganging up against the US, and how it's all Bush's fault.
#4
All Bush's fault? Wasn't there an election on November 2?
Posted by: Duke Nukem ||
01/28/2005 13:23 Comments ||
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This is Michael Lind, who has been anti-American since probably after he was born. And the Financial Times has predicted American decline since probably it was founded. I bet FT can't get over the fact that London isn't the center of the financial world any more.
#6
This piece is a continuation of the new approach being developed by the LLL to justify their own failure to anticipate world events or understand the US or George Bush.
They started with Bush the moron. However it has become increasingly hard to explain the stupidity of GWB when he continues to win elections, not just in the US, but in Afghanistan and Iraq. They need to develop a new mantra, this "not listening" mantra promoted by NYT and now the FT. If they cannot beat him, maybe they can just distract him. Listening is such a nice, moral, friendly virtue, even when the speaker has absolutely nothing useful to say.
Compare and contrast Kofi. Such a great listener.
Posted by: john ||
01/28/2005 15:15 Comments ||
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Writing Tuesday in The Daily Telegraph, British military historian John Keegan compared the Palestinian terror war to the Iraqi insurgency. "What is going on in Iraq," Keegan writes, "resembles the second Palestinian intifada, though it is more intensive and better organized. It is also more difficult to counter, since the Western forces lack the detailed intelligence to which the Israeli security forces have access."
Keegan's statement is both true and false. It is certainly true that, from a strictly military perspective, Iraqi terrorists and foreign terrorists who fight with them in Iraq have mimicked Palestinian terror techniques, just as American forces have adopted IDF counterterror tactics in combating them. It is also true that Israel, which has been fighting the Palestinians for upwards of 100 years, knows its enemy much better than coalition forces know their opponents in Iraq.
Yet, tactical capabilities aside, the US and its coalition partners will likely emerge victorious in Iraq, while Israel is losing its war against Palestinian terrorism. The reason for this has little to do with military prowess and everything to do with a vision for the future. The Americans and their allies in Iraq, including the 85 percent of Iraqis who intend to vote on January 30, have a clear vision of where they want to go. They wish, through ushering in democracy and liberalization, to better the lot of the Iraqi people while ensuring, through counterterror warfare, that the terrorists will have no future at all.
Posted by: gromgorru ||
01/28/2005 8:58:36 AM ||
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Damn right the tactics are the same, there are Palestinians fighting coaltion forces in Iraq -- no surprise here.
The difference cited between Israelis effectiveness vis-a-vis the coaltion is due to the impact of the international community (including US restrictions). Israel could take down the terrorist nests in a week with enough leeway given.
Posted by: Duke Nukem ||
01/28/2005 11:50 Comments ||
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#2
All your links are belong to us.
Posted by: Abdul ||
01/28/2005 15:12 Comments ||
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#3
while Israel is losing its war against Palestinian terrorism
uh, no comments from Sheikh Yassin, Rantisi, Arafat, Barghouti, .....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/28/2005 15:34 Comments ||
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#4
My only quibble is that the Israelis aren't the ones who bagged Arafat.
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.
