Article

2005-03-13 Home Front: Politix

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2005-03-13 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "the image of the United States which was badly tarnished abroad by anger over the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq and overthrow its government."

Oh, horse-shit. The US' "image" in the Arab world (and much of the rest) is a hate hallucination based on ignorance and moral imbecility. Let the losers who enterain these fantasized images fix their own mental dysfunction.

How about the Arab world repairing its "image" among thinking people, American or otherwise -- that of a collective basket-case of stagnant authoritarian mediocrities tarnished by lurid sympathies for racism, genocide, an obsession with silly conspiracy mythgs, and an inability to think straight. Oh -- and let's not forget atavistic Jew-hatred.

Take the public diplomacy funds and reallocate them to enhanced survivors' benefits for US service-members' families, and use what's left over for ordnance.

Spoken as someone getting paid to do public diplomacy work (but of much more concrete, useful type) in the heart of the beast ....

Posted by Verlaine in Iraq 2005-03-13 1:48:57 AM|| 2005-03-13 1:48:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 VII -- *applause* *whistle*

More!

That brought a tear to my eye, sniff, heh.

I have long wondered when we would stop apologizing for who we are. No one else is ever expected to apologize, or compromise, or change - only us. The old Teddy Roosevelt saw, "Walk softly but carry a big stick" is in need of updating - since it's obviously misunderstood by both the international Tranzis and our domestic moonbats to mean we should spend our last miserable days before being assimilated in the Great Pasty Smear of PC Stupidity on bended knee or crawling on our hands and knees to some Old European power now cast forever in amber. Bullshit, heh.

Updated:
1) Walk Proud
2) Speak Plainly
3) Do What Needs Doing
4) Ignore the Fools of Antiquity
5) Stay Out of MultiCulti Tranzi Adventures (read: Real Quagmires)
6) Whack the Fuckwits and the Bad Guys with the Biggest Sticks the World Has Ever Seen --- Sans Apologies.

You know you're doing it right if the losers hate you... but will do anything to emigrate.

;-)

Posted by .com 2005-03-13 3:13:58 AM|| 2005-03-13 3:13:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Something else occurred to me after posting that I'd like to add...

Verlaine, I swear, every time you post you manage to push my buttons, lol! If I didn't know better I'd guess you were my sensei from 40 yrs ago, heh. I came wanting to kick ass, made no bones about it - and he took me for a student anyway. The reason was simple, to get to the point where you can kick ass, you absorb a lot about using power - especially when to use it. In other words, he knew the process and discipline would replace the hot-headed attitude with slow-to-anger and judicious caution. It did.

And a similar analogy may apply to America today. The interference of the Old World, with Britain and France fighting each other here, instead of on each other's soil was an early lesson in leaving behind the baggage of the failures our ancestors fled. It became part of our identity - independence and individualism its hallmarks.

We have so many assets it boggles. I credit our personal rights and cumulative right of redress, our ingenious power-checked institutions, our initial semi-isolation which allowed us the golden opportunity to form a unique national identity which fosters an extrapolated individual identity, our love of individualism, our Jacksonian / Jeffersonian influences which mix into something truly unique in the world, a million other things including an armed citizenry, and one of our oddest traits: forbearance for the lone voice -- which we realize just may be right.

Taken together these traits and aspects moderate... The judicious caution doesn't mean isolationism. The audacity of individualism doesn't lead us to rash adventurism. They also embolden... We've seen what the others have: tribalism, corruption, thuggery, moron notions of hereditary rule, autocratic and absolute rule leading to despotic and nepotistic decline, and the mistake of totalitarian ideologies, whether atheistic or religious or comet-worship or Cult of Personality -- they lead to Kool Aid and disaster -- we are bold and assertive enough to reject these failures and find our own way, one step at a time.

Moreover, we have within our identity the will and habit of self-examination. We make mistakes. We learn - though at differing rates. Some get it on the first try. Some have to die off to remove that foolishness from our population. I love the high-tension interplay of so many wildly differing influences available in our almost unregulated lives. It offers us something that the Old World doesn't understand until they experience it: change and progress, not intensified more of the same.

That which shackles us today is eventually identified, isolated, and eliminated. In America, tomorrow can always be different, better, messy as hell, and interesting. I feel sorry for the others.

Geez. Typed too much. I'll shut up.

Thanks, VII - you always make me think, lol!

Posted by .com 2005-03-13 4:26:46 AM|| 2005-03-13 4:26:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Oh, and Karen Hughes rocks. She'll do a great job of communicating what we're about and what we will and won't do / put up with, heh.

Posted by .com 2005-03-13 4:30:02 AM|| 2005-03-13 4:30:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 .com, I take no credit for pushing the right buttons, but we're all glad they're pushed -- great screed. You succinctly listed the cardinal operational principles of international security (for the US, at least). And what's scary is how the former Texas governor with no previous global resume has followed these rules so successfully. It's just in his bones, it would seem. As I commented a few days back, I'm already worried about Dubya's successor. In national security, for the current situation, it's hard to imagine anyone currently in the mix bringing the same unstudied brilliance to the role. Then again, who among us expected Dubya to be the leader he is?

Posted by Verlaine in Iraq 2005-03-13 5:12:24 AM|| 2005-03-13 5:12:24 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Then again, who among us expected Dubya to be the leader he is?

Good point. Not me. Not sure what fortune managed to put right man in the right place at the right time. I am suspicious that even Dubya sometimes looks back and wonders.

His strength is in surrounding himself with excellent people, listening to what they have to say, making his own conclusions and doing what he decides to do, with no wavering. What a better leader's resume can you imagine?

It's too early to say if there is someone that may be an adequate replacement. I would be inclined to think Condi may be. It is too early to tell.

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-03-13 5:29:45 AM|| 2005-03-13 5:29:45 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Wow - you put it so succinctly... I'm such a bandwidth hog, heh.

You hit the 3 key things that have impact with me:

1) Who, indeed, can replace W? I, like others, have high hopes for someone from his team - since it's a team that truly "gets it". Condi would probably be awesome, though there is credible debate about whether she'll be prepared for a run in '08. I tend to think that it's not about the resume, as you pointed out, it's about the person and surrounding themselves with get shit done people, which is why I'd say she can do the job, with or without some further resume building.

2) Who W was prior to 9/11, vs now. All I can say is that I am still boggled by how fast he grew into the shoes and, at the same time, had prepared himself well - by surrounding himself with people who "get it". Pretty prescient for a cowboy, heh.

3) What he's doing, the Bush Doctrine, was far beyond my vision. When it was first semi-illuminated for me, by Lee Harris at TCS in "Our World-Historical Gamble" - that's 2 YEARS old, BTW, it immediately rang true. It was a masterstroke, and the more I see of its application, the more convinced I am that W has become one of our truly brilliant Presidents. I knew only one thing about him from when he was TX Gov: he did what he said he would do. Then, it was "trivial" stuff, IMHO. Now, it shakes the world - the right way.

I can only hope we are fortunate enough to have another of his stature - or at least someone who also "gets it" and will continue on the road laid out... then another and another. A 1.5% vote swing would have given us Skeery. Too terrible to even contemplate, as we'd be in retreat on every front that matters - and wasting precious time and resources on the things that do not matter or are truly dangerous. Our survival would have been in the same basket as the current crop of governing losers in Europe.

And yeah, I credit you with tripping all sorts of neural connections, lol! You cut to the bone, bro - and that always catches my attention! Sure you aren't the recently retired DiploMad? You should be blogging your own site. Seriously.

Take great care there in the jihadi zone, bro.

Posted by .com 2005-03-13 5:47:32 AM|| 2005-03-13 5:47:32 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Condi, Boulton, Hughes....who amongst us sees what this AP hack misses?

With all respect to ViI, GW has overturned Foggy Bottom and Turtle Bay. This President had to manage his first term by steering around the mess of diplomatic obstacles and political landmines. Now, he is bulletproof and can concentrate on revolutionizing those fetid institution, so the next guy ~~girl~~ starts with a supportive team. If this president is a moron, then we could use a world of morons.

Posted by john 2005-03-13 7:58:58 AM|| 2005-03-13 7:58:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 We have far too many Immediate Apologists firmly entrenched in our government, at ever level. Just look at Teddy Kennedy (if you can stand to), John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barabara Boxer. Anything we do that will actually make a difference makes them physically ill. I think it's time to clean the horse manure out of Washington, starting at the top and working down through all the government agencies, until the pantywaists are all driven into the Potomac. I've got an axehandle and a grudge, and I volunteer to do my part! Volunteers accepted.

Posted by Old Patriot 2005-03-13 4:09:55 PM|| [http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2005-03-13 4:09:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 .com: Who W was prior to 9/11, vs now. All I can say is that I am still boggled by how fast he grew into the shoes and, at the same time, had prepared himself well - by surrounding himself with people who "get it"

I don't think he "became" anything. You merely changed your estimation of him, which had been fed to you by a media bent on portraying him (and his dad before him) as a lightweight. The guy's not a scholar, any more than George Washington or Teddy Roosevelt was a scholar. But he is a leader.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-03-13 7:24:32 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-03-13 7:24:32 PM|| Front Page Top

00:09 Phil Fraering
23:57 3dc
23:56 Sobiesky
23:54 trailing wife
23:53 trailing wife
23:50 Sobiesky
23:50 trailing wife
23:48 Atomic Conspiracy
23:45 Sobiesky
23:44 Phil Fraering
23:41 Capt. Infidel
23:40 Sobiesky
23:39 phil_b
23:39 Sobiesky
23:38 trailing wife
23:35 3dc
23:27 trailing wife
23:12 Sobiesky
23:03 Mike Kozlowski
23:02 trailing wife
23:00 BigEd
22:59 Sobiesky
22:58 trailing wife
22:55 Seafarious