#1
Another undeniable example of the failure of the Law Enforcement model.
When will we unburden ourselves of the farce of granting to our enemies, whether within or without, the protections and rights which belong solely to us as their designers, creators, supporters, and defenders?
I was listening to Hewitt on the talk-back radio today, as we dont call it, and a fellow dialed in to rant about 9/11. It wasnt a terrorist attack; the government took the towers down. He defied the host to have the makers of the Loose Change documentary on, and I was prepared for him to bark out something about how THEY SHOULD CALL YOU JEW JEWITT, because the host did not believe the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives. What interested me, for a moment, was the passion of the caller. But he wasnt nuts. People who are nuts think giant invisible space lizards are sending coded messages through their livers, and they cant drive a car because they see pteradactyls EVERYWHERE. No, he was sane. But he believed a crazy thing. It made me wonder what he would be equally angry about had 9/11 not happened.
Im serious. Conspiracy theories fill a great aching void for some people, and I wonder how they cope when there isnt a conspiracy sufficiently vast to fill the hole. And I wonder about people for whom an actual real-life conspiracy that stretched across the continents and brought down two towers wasnt vast enough.
Whatever happens today, or doesnt, there will be those who doubt their lying eyes as a matter of course. Conspiracy theories are a narcotic, inhaled in endless lines; the addict looks at himself bent over the mirror and thinks: you agree with me, dont you? Then Im not alone.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/22/2006 07:36 ||
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#1
I would like to state again and for the record. If you believe that GWB took down the twin towers, you are a frickin retard. Kill yourself.
#2
If you believe in the narrative known as the "9/11 Commission Report" I've got one name for you...former National Security Advisor Samuel "Sandy" Burger.
In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.
Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.
At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. Rich white men have imposed their ideas because of their wealth and through the use of force. Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.
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#1
This is a damn good piece, and a damn good start. Now it's time for the Barones, Krauthammers, VDHs, etc. to resurrect some perfectly serviceable old terminology..."C is for Collaborator". "F is for FIfth Column".
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
08/22/2006 22:33 Comments ||
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. . . Civilization simply lacks backbone without the United States in the lead. Everyone agrees that a nuclear North Korea is a danger, but Russia and China play the role of enablers. Everyone thinks the same about Iran, but Europe is willing only to dither. Everyone thinks Iraq descending into chaos would be a disaster, but only the U.S. is pouring major resources into preventing it (granted, its our baby). Everyone supports the Afghan war, and NATO is actually pitching in there, but the Taliban is emboldened on the assumption that our European allies wont have the same commitment to doing the job that we do.
This is not to say that the U.S. is flawless. Our mistakes, however, tend to be the products of an excess of zeal and idealism. We dont do coldblooded calculation well. Some of this is the product of being a superpower dishonest diplomatic ploys are beneath us. Some of it is the nature of our democracy, which values openness and honesty.
Paranoid critics charge that we are in Iraq to control its oil. The French could have pulled off such a self-serving maneuver clothed in idealism, but we are in Iraq for exactly the achingly innocent reasons we say. We are spending and bleeding there trying to plant a liberal democracy in the hardscrabble soil of Mesopotamia.
When President Bush is gone, conservative foreign policy will change. But it wont be a change the foreign-policy establishment likes. It wont be toward a lets-talk-even-more-to-the-French multilateralism as represented by Nebraskas tiresome Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will be something more selfish and hardheaded, something more French in its motivation Bush without the soft touches. Then, the world will miss the earnest do-gooding United States of old.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/22/2006 11:15 ||
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#1
Yup American are turning cynical and I can not blame them.
#2
He dances around the point but doesn't really say it. The USA is the designated driver of the world and probably shouldn't be surprised when the nations that have handed us the responsibility of defending and caring for them act like drunks in other ways as well.
Back during the Suez Crisis we should have taken the booze away from France and England, not the keys.
In his upcoming book about the horrors of the 20th century, "The War of the World," the British historian Niall Ferguson has a chapter called "The Pity of Peace." It is about 1938, when World War II loomed, and Britain -- especially and importantly Britain -- did precious little to stop it. The warnings of Churchill -- "believe me, it may be the last chance . . ." -- were ignored, and the government under Neville Chamberlain obstinately pursued a policy that forever after made the word appeasement one of the most odious in history. Somehow, though, it looks like 1938 all over again.
The events in the Middle East are often compared to 1914 and the start of World War I. That war -- the Great War, the war to end all wars -- is actually the all-purpose war. It not only began for what seemed like a trivial reason (the assassination of someone who wasn't a head of state) but it was fought with tenacity and brutality for what now seems no reason at all. In the end, millions died and the world was utterly changed. Why?
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Posted by: Bobby ||
08/22/2006 08:41 ||
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#1
"...Europe without American leadership is a mere tourist destination."
-comedically true unfortunately.
Wasn't France supposed to send like 1,500 troops and now they're down to around 200? I can't wait to see this abortion unfold.
#3
Even the Europeans can see that the cease-fire will break down and Israel will likely go ape-shit on Hezbollah. I don't blame them for not wanting their troops in the way until they are sure the war is actually over.
#4
And what is this crap about comparing the current situation to WW1? I haven't heard that once, not since the early days after 9/11 when a few people were thinking of restoring the Ottoman Empire and calling the middle east a do-over. A thought I'd entertain if the Turks hadn't proved to be jerks.
There are similarities to situations prior to the start of both conflagrations, none of which apply to anything more than "those who do not learn from history are forced to repeat it."
The events in the Middle East are often compared to 1914 and the start of World War I. That war -- the Great War, the war to end all wars -- is actually the all-purpose war. It not only began for what seemed like a trivial reason (the assassination of someone who wasn't a head of state) but it was fought with tenacity and brutality for what now seems no reason at all. In the end, millions died and the world was utterly changed. Why?
Let's assume that Netanyahu would have evinced impressive speed, resolve and resourcefulness. Let's even suppose his hypothetical ingenuity and imagination would have eliminated the rocket threat to Israel's northern half and forced Hizbullah to cough up the two abducted reservists.
Would Netanyahu have become Israel's hero?
Forget it.
THE LEFT'S media minions would have mounted a merciless assault upon him. He'd have been pilloried as a warmonger and serial spiller of the blood of the nation's youth. Nothing would have been excessive in the sacred mission to undermine him, no matter how just the national cause, how existentially crucial the fight, or how unprovoked the grievance.
Bibi would have been minced, hacked with implacable crusading relish by bon-ton know-it-all pen-pushers, whose reams of calumny would gain limitless and uncritical resonance.
[..]
#3
Yes, but so what? Real leaders have always faced harsh criticism for their actions. However, history has a way of vindicating them. Real leaders don't let the prospect of criticism stay their hand. You know, the old unfashionable concept known as 'courage'?
#7
"Before we start a Bibi lovefest, didn't he try to sell US military equipment to the Chinese?"
Well, he didn't 'try'. Israel did sell one AEW defensive radar system to China in 1996. As a defensive system, most analysts agree it's had no effect on the security of the region, nor has it had an impact on US capabilities in the event of hostilities with China.
You want to judge Bibi on this one issue? Taken as a whole, he's a far cry better than the weak, vacillating appeaser currently sitting in the PM's office, AEW sale or not.
#10
You must mean Israeli's intended sale of the Phalcon airborne radar to China. The US came down on Israel for that and the sale was cancelled in 2000. More recently the US pressured Israel not to upgrade the 100 Harpy anti-radar drones the Chinese bought in the 1990s.
In addition to selling Lavi fighter tech (designed with $1.5 billion US funds) now known as the Chinese J-10 fighter, rumors said the Israelis once planned to transfer Patriot or Arrow anti-ballistic missile tech (about half US funds and developed with US Patriot tech) to China and may have already transferred the long range AESA radar from it. It could not be confirmed if the sales took place.
Finally, the Israelis have a bad habit of "borrowing" tech in the weapons the US transfers to them, copying it into their weapons and then exporting it (e.g. Python vs. Sidewinder missiles)
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2006 16:17 Comments ||
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#11
The Phalcon AWACS system would be a tremendous force multiplier for the Chinese, hence the US pressure on Israel that stopped the transfer.
Posted by: john ||
08/22/2006 19:30 Comments ||
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#12
I see a point in the not so distant future, when it will become necessary to forcibly thin the ranks of the left. Can anyone say re-education?
DESPITE CHARACTERIZATIONS of last week's thwarted attempt to blow up ten transatlantic flights as "homegrown," Pakistan, rather than the United Kingdom, has emerged as the epicenter of planning. The incident is part of a wider pattern--the past six weeks alone have revealed that several other aspiring and successful militants had similar connections to Pakistan. This trend suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a physical sanctuary and training ground are essential to a successful terror plot.
On the first anniversary of the July 2005 London attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri released a tape featuring the video wills of bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, suggesting that the two had trained with al Qaeda members in Pakistan before perpetrating the suicide bombings that killed 52 civilians on the London Underground. The video's release preceded the train bombings in Bombay, India, which killed 207 people, by less than a week. Indian authorities suspect the bombers trained in Pakistan before infiltrating Indian territory. Just weeks prior to the India attack, Lebanese police arrested Assem Hammoud on suspicion of planning to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York. Hammoud told police that he had planned to train for the attack in Pakistan and to impart his knowledge to his co-conspirators. Hammoud is just one of dozens of terrorists who have been apprehended since September 11 while seeking training in Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh, and several key African countries.
All of these plots, successful and otherwise, contradict a prevalent theory in counter-terrorism circles that all the skills necessary to conduct a successful attack can be learned in the comfort of a terrorist's own home. This paradigm is based on the belief that internet technology has removed the need for terrorist training camps by creating a virtual safe haven where youth can self-radicalize and self-train. Bomb making and target selection are 'easy.' An attacker can simply download instructions and maps off the internet, purchase readily available materials to construct the explosive, and voilá, a fully formed terrorist emerges from behind his computer, competent to conceive, fund, plan, and execute a sophisticated terrorist attack. Such streamlined attack planning puts law enforcement at a disadvantage by decreasing the window of opportunity to detect and disrupt a plot.
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#1
Given that high school hackers can get into major corporate and government computers, and that professional computer people can build and run the kinds of systems that keep the internet and electric grid and phone system etc. (mostly) running, and that there are certainly people smarter than these working on things we don't know about, I have to believe our virtual terrorists run some serious risks when they surf the terrorsphere. One would hope somebody in authority recognizes what a great opportunity exists to infiltrate the terrorsphere, inderdict its users, and especially plant all sorts of digital 'bombs' and 'flawed' instructions. They just have to keep the New York Times from finding out about it. If our own government can't or won't do it, perhaps there are still a few clever Israelis out there with some free time.
It is hard to think of a time when a nation -- and a whole civilization -- has drifted more futilely toward a bigger catastrophe than that looming over the United States and western civilization today.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea mean that it is only a matter of time before there are nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorist organizations. North Korea needs money and Iran has brazenly stated its aim as the destruction of Israel -- and both its actions and its rhetoric suggest aims that extend even beyond a second Holocaust.
Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
This is not just another in the long history of military threats. The Soviet Union, despite its massive nuclear arsenal, could be deterred by our own nuclear arsenal. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred.
Fanatics filled with hate cannot be either deterred or bought off, whether Hezbollah, Hamas or the government of Iran.
The endlessly futile efforts to bring peace to the Middle East with concessions fundamentally misconceive what forces are at work.
Hate and humiliation are key forces that cannot be bought off by "trading land for peace," by a "Palestinian homeland" or by other such concessions that might have worked in other times and places.
Humiliation and hate go together. Why humiliation? Because a once-proud, dynamic culture in the forefront of world civilizations, and still carrying a message of their own superiority to "infidels" today, is painfully visible to the whole world as a poverty-stricken and backward region, lagging far behind in virtually every field of human endeavor.
There is no way that they can catch up in a hundred years, even if the rest of the world stands still. And they are not going to wait a hundred years to vent their resentments and frustrations at the humiliating position in which they find themselves.
Israel's very existence as a modern, prosperous western nation in their midst is a daily slap across the face. Nothing is easier for demagogues than to blame Israel, the United States, or western civilization in general for their own lagging position.
Hitler was able to rouse similar resentments and fanaticism in Germany under conditions not nearly as dire as those in most Middle East countries today. The proof of similar demagogic success in the Middle East is all around.
What kind of people provide a market for videotaped beheadings of innocent hostages? What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish? What kind of people would fly planes into buildings to vent their hate at the cost of their own lives?
These are the kinds of people we are talking about getting nuclear weapons. And what of ourselves?
Do we understand that the world will never be the same after hate-filled fanatics gain the ability to wipe whole American cities off the face of the earth? Do we still imagine that they can be bought off, as Israel was urged to buy them off with "land for peace" -- a peace that has proved to be wholly illusory?
Even ruthless conquerors of the past, from Genghis Khan to Adolf Hitler, wanted some tangible gains for themselves or their nations -- land, wealth, dominion. What Middle East fanatics want is the destruction and humiliation of the west.
Their treatment of hostages, some of whom have been humanitarians serving the people of the Middle East, shows that what the terrorists want is to inflict the maximum pain and psychic anguish on their victims before killing them.
Once these fanatics have nuclear weapons, those victims can include you, your children and your children's children.
The terrorists need not start out by wiping our cities off the map. Chances are they would first want to force us to humiliate ourselves in whatever ways their sadistic imaginations could conceive, out of fear of their nuclear weapons.
After we, or our children and grandchildren, find ourselves living at the mercy of people with no mercy, what will future generations think of us, that we let this happen because we wanted to placate "world opinion" by not acting "unilaterally"?
#3
Containment/evolution should work with the NKs. Iran is another matter. The genocide statements by Ahmadinejad has served the West a pretext to force regime change in Iran.
#4
Afterthought: the inter-generational threat is on the minds of our leaders. They will act soon. And they won't be dropping concrete-bombs.
Who remembers the Reagan era public diplomacy. Millions watched the government financed TV show, "Let Poland Be Poland." Tens of millions around the world, received copies of the slick government publication, "Soviet Military Power." The public needs more than sketchy CNN fluff on Iran. Sorry, President Bush, but nobody will ever refer to you as "The Great Communicator." You need to de-retire the Reagan' publicists, and let them profile the enemy. Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs need to die before the end of September.
#6
In case I don't get the chance to say it before the mushroom cloud rises over one of the world's kafir cities (thank you self-righteous head-up-your-ass proponents of appeasement and moral/social equivalence (yes, I'm talking the Democratic Party, Euroweenies, and ACLU)), bye-bye Boston, later London, adios Atlanta, hasta Austin, c'est la vie gay Paris, it's been real Rio, toodles Toledo, Cioa Moscow.
#7
The real, simple fact is that the MMs and the Islamofascists simply have no understanding of the world they are creating IMO.
Despite the bleatings on many sides I am convinced that Western Civilization will not fall.
But Western Civilization will not be the same after it does what it must to survive.
The "edge" will be harder, harsher, more inclined to slap down anything that might be considered "upstart" or "against the norm".
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
In order to progress, in order to bolster Western Civilization against the Barbarian Hordes that constantly pound on its gates, and in order to become prepared to confront anyone else out there" we might potentially meet one day, we must get hard, we must get bitter and callous, and we must stop acting out our fantasies that everyone "can just get along".
The fact is, some folks just can't "just get along".
The fact is, some folks just need killin'.
A long time ago in a long-lost couple of novels, a couple of authors said (paraphrased),
"First, we must become wolves. That means leaving behind our monkey ways, climbing down outta' the trees, and learning how to deal harshly with a universe that doesn't give a rip whether we live or die as a species. That means there are three basic rules we need to follow. Those rules are,"
"Rule 1 - Alien species (or civilizations) that we might encounter (now or) in the future are going to be the most powerful, most intelligent, most ruthless, most successful (civilizations) species (in) on their home (countries) worlds."
"Rule 2 - The survival of their (civilizations) species will be more important to them than the survival of our (civilizations) species is."
"Rule 3 - They will assume that Rules 1 and 2 apply to us (our civilizations/species) as well."
The fact is that in this war we simply have no other choice - we win or they do. If they do, we lose.
Simple choices really.
Survival as a culture, civilization, and species - or complete annihilation.
The end result is going to be a cold, hard, determined civilizations which will have left all kinds of moral equivalency and garbage in its wake and which will have earned a chance to look outwards towards the rest of the universe.
And I pity anyone lesser than that civilization that we run across...
#8
What Middle East fanatics want is the destruction and humiliation of the west.
Bravo - that's a point that seems to escape so many. If the stakes weren't so high- I'd find it amusing the way the liberals attempt to help them by repeating their lies on lebanon, palestine, Iraq, Iran etc. It's all about oil, Israel, poverty, etc. But then the fanatics just humiliate the liberals by showing how little they care for their "help".
They don't need the liberals help. They hate the liberals and intend to kill them. If they want to act like dhimmis - the fanatics will let them - but the liberals should understand that to the fanatics liberals are just dirty little infidels whose help they do not need or want.
During the Israeli intervention in Hezbollah occupied Lebanon, Euro-leftists marched arm in arm with terrorists, under the yellow flag of the enemy. Every piece of propaganda spewed by the terrorists was regurgitated by Commies, who would be put to death if they lived in an Islamofascist state. In a lengthy article, a Eurodhimmi uses ad hominem smears of neo-Nazism in a lame attempt to discredit realists like Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, Charles Johnson, Oriana Fallacci, Mark Steyn, etc. You need to download this in order to understand the mind of a moron who denies that Muslims are demanding Muslim Family Law privilege while they live in the Free World.
In Ye'or's delirious imagination, this Islamicization of the education system has been enforced by a combination of political apparatus and an Orwellian apparatus of thought control, which has supposedly purged academe and the media of any dissenting voices and created an intellectual climate in which only pro-Arab views can be heard. The results are evident in Europe's ' resurgent anti-Americanism', 'Judeophobia' and the 'cult' of 'Palestinianism', all of which reflect a European 'spirit of dhimmitude that blinds us, that instills in us a hatred for our own values, and the wish to destroy our own origins and our own history.' All this has reduced Europe to 'a sinking continent, a colossal Titanic wreck, where the passengers run from one desperate situation into another'.
Why have Europe's leaders allowed this catastrophe to unfold? Ye'or cites various factors, from the prospect of lucrative Arab markets, a desire to placate the Muslim outposts in the heart of Europe, to a lily-livered attempt to appease the forces of terrorism and jihad, in contrast to the firm resolution shown by Israel and the United States. This combination of greed and opportunism have paved the way for the cultural corruption of Europe however, since ' the EAD trafficked in concepts that were largely foreign to the Arab world. What did freedom of conscience and religion, gender equality, and equality of dignity for all people really mean in societies that practiced segregation of women and infidels, death for apostasy, 'honor' killings, female genital mutilation, and even the stoning of women, and which were riddled with the religious fanaticism and hate nurtured by the jihad shari'a values that persisted at the core of Arab/Muslim civilization?'
The key phrase in this overlong article is: "Stripped of its Islamic imagery...", essentially everything that Spencer, Ye'or, Fallacci, etc. sez is a whole bunch of racist hokum. The point being of course, that the WHOLE POINT is Islam. Islam uber alles. Islam now, Islam forever.
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.
