Wednesday, August 24, 2005

The Cancer Ward

Donald Sensing writing in Winds of Change, compares Islamic terrorism to a virus. 

We need to understand how the terrorists operate and sustain themselves. Al Qaeda is not like any enemy we have ever faced and therefore our national responses will be unlike any we have ever given. While Al Qaeda is obviously capable of great violence, it may be likened to a virus that has already infected the world's systems of commerce, travel, finances, politics and communications.

Extending the metaphor of the world as a body afflicted by a virus, consider its circulatory system: world trade. The Singapore Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies describes why ports like Singapore and choke points like the Straits of Malacca have become targets for terrorism.

Containerization has made it possible for the carriers to shift from a port-to-port focus to a door-to-door focus. This process has also benefited from 'intermodalism', or the interchangeability of the various modes of transporting the container by road, sea or rail. Intermodalism has made it possible for goods to move from the point of production, without being opened, until they reach the point of sale or final destination.

No more perfect way to transport bombs, propaganda and weapons to any point on earth can surpass the unmindful creations of the kuffar.  In consequence, the Singaporean Navy has invested in sophisticated port scanning devices, radiological detectors and even created Accompanying Sea Security Teams, armed naval personnel who "ride shotgun" on merchant vessels transiting the Straits of Malacca. Not just transportation hubs, but centers of finance and mass media have also proved irresistible draws for Jihadis. Consider Londonistan.

Londonistan is a pejorative sobriquet referring to the British capital of London, used by French counter-terrorism agents since the late 1990s, owing to the number of exiled Islamist groups that established political headquarters in the city, and from where they sought to overthrow governments they considered oppressive or heretical, as well as planning terror attacks on other European countries.

Britain's attractions for Islamist dissidents included its tradition of granting asylum to victims of political repression and commitment to freedom of speech. London itself had a reputation as the centre of the Arab press corp, with leading newspapers such as Al Hayat and Al Quds al Arabi published in the city. Relatively unimpeded by the British authorities, the British capital became the international headquarters for such Islamic groups as Takfir-wal-Hijra, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia headed by the controversial Sa'ad Al-Faqih, Bahrain Freedom Movement and Algerian Armed Islamic Group.

The interesting thing about these examples is that they stand conventional wisdom completely on its head. London in the 1990s was the complete antithesis of Iraq. The Straits of Malacca was nothing but a sea corridor, with Muslim-majority countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, on both sides. Yet both London and the transportation arteries of the Malay barrier were or subsequently became terror targets purely because of their value to the malignancy. The process is similar to angiogenesis in cancer, where a tumor takes over control of the body's ability to produce blood vessels for the sole purpose of nourishing itself. One way doctors spot tumors is by finding unusual concentrations of blood vessels feeding the growing malignancy. Sensing's comparison of Islamic terrorism to a virus, if correct, makes a nonsense of claims that that Islamic militants are infiltrating the West in retaliation for Iraq or even the supposed provocations of Israel. The infiltration is occuring for entirely independent reasons: to provide nutrients for the malignancy or to turn ordinary systems to their purposes.

If the comparison  to of Islamic terrorism to disease had any validity, one would expect to see a growing use of the world's own "healthy" systems for the pathogenic purposes. And we do: for example, what would normally be regarded as a mode of transportation, such as a widebodied airplane, Islamic terrorism sees as a bomb. Things will be observed in continuous inversion: pharmaceutical industries being developed in order to create a chemical and biological warfare capacity; countries without any civilian nuclear power industry embarked on frantic centrifuge manufacturing programs; a horde of students studying engineering, chemistry and computer science in the West who have no intention whatsoever of building a bridge, developing a detergent or writing an entertainment game. There would be a large demand for handheld ratios, not for talking but for use as bomb triggers; video cameras to record beheadings etc. Consequently, in reverse of expectations, the more material one provides to the disease -- Islamic terrorism by analogy -- the less ameliorative its effects. Welfare benefits would be received, not with gratitude but to fund militancy; council housing used to host bomb factories; UN relief grants used to pay for Hamas banners that say "Gaza Today. The West Bank and Jerusalem Tomorrow". A story from the Guardian, for example, describes how insurgents in Haditha have put this principle into practice.

In Haditha hospital staff and teachers are allowed to collect government salaries in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, but other civil servants have had to quit. Last year the US trumpeted its rehabilitation of a nearby power plant: "The incredible progress at Haditha is just one example of the huge strides made by the US Army Corps of Engineers." Now insurgents earn praise from residents for allegedly pressuring managers to supply electricity almost 24 hours a day, a luxury denied the rest of Iraq. ... DVDs of the beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children seem to prefer them to cartoons. "They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but parents appeared not to object. One DVD features a young, blond muscular man who had been disembowelled. He was said to have been a member of a six-strong US sniper team ambushed on Aug. 1. Residents said he had been paraded in town before being executed. The US military denied that, saying six bodies were recovered and that all appeared to have died in combat. Shortly after the ambush three landmines killed 14 Marines in a convoy which ventured from their base outside the town.

Donald Sensing quoted some advice in his Winds of Change post, "standard counterterrorism responses, such as improving intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation, are indispensable but insufficient. Likewise, military force is sometimes required, but it cannot be the primary response." Why? Because like viral infections and cancer, Islamic terrorism is fundamentally a condition of malignant information. One of the most far-reaching benefits to Al Qaedaism of its alliance with the Left is how easily it allowed it to move astride the media, the academe and the liberal religious establishment. The information disease infiltrating the information stream of its victim. Not only does this feed Islamic militancy, in a process analogous to angiogenesis, it also puts its core code, which contains the instructions to reproduce and destroy, beyond the reach of counter-information under the banner of political correctness. Truly the perfect storm.

217 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

wrechard,

>The infiltration is occuring for entirely independent reasons:
>to provide nutrients for the malignancy or to turn ordinary
>systems into their purposes.

Right. Al-Qaeda is simply an extension of various non-governmental-organization (NGO) trends which have become more obvious over the last 30 years. Islam isn't a the key feature of NGOs providing the global society with drugs, slaves, and associated protection rackets. Instead, Al Qaeda fits the general NGO pattern: invisibility to modern bureaucracy, access to significant money sources, use of social or geographic fringe zones for sanctuary and reliance on a limited number of nuclear families for officers.

The NGOs seem to be filling an energy niche created by 'the ways things are', whatever that means.

8/24/2005 08:26:00 PM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

Or we could say that it is a militant offshoot of the salafist school of supremacist Islam that is sponsored through wahhabist madrassas and immans.

Invoking unstoppable "Perfect Storm" and incurable "Cancer" analogies overstates the invincibility of the Al Qaeda threat. And the notion that it is in alliance with our political foes on the left, acts to almost normalise it as a part of world.

It is neither unstoppable or normal. Al Qaeda grows as a subset of those schooled in salafism. Salafism is branch of Islam that bestows superiority on its believers over all others. It is the supremacist branch of Islam and requires strict adherance to a set of practices. Normally its followers are but a small subset of Islam as the rules of the sect make it difficult to follow and very difficult to make money in its practice. So in normal practice it would be a destitute religion.

Unfortunately one sect of salafism is wahhabism, this is the state religion of Saudi Arabia. Due to an abundance of oil the Sauds have no need to be nice to other people to make money, they can and do enforce the practice of wahhabist salafism. They also fund free schools in wahhabism worldwide and send out immans to preach wannabism worldwide. So there are many more salafists than ever before, and with more salafists we get more militant salafists. And these militant salafists have money.

It is not a virus, not a cancer it does act as an independent organism. It is a root and branch affair. Wahhabist root, salafist trunk and Al Qaeda branch.

8/24/2005 08:50:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

unaha-closp,

Curiously enough even the Wahhabist root, salafist trunk and Al Qaeda branch, were it alone, would still draw its primary nourishment from its victim's lifeblood. Oil, extracted with global technology and bought by a global market, feeds the madrassas. And the more unstable the Middle East, the higher the oil prices, the more money for the madrassas.

8/24/2005 08:58:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

of course the viral infection analogy was also applied to communism in the 50's and 60's.

however, in the 50's and 60's there was no understanding of code either as a biological term or a computer term.

liberals/communnists in the west understood the semantics/code game long before conservatives.

8/24/2005 09:11:00 PM  
Blogger Meme chose said...

We're a pretty effective 'cancer' ourselves, as the Islamists are finding out.

The central issue is, exactly as it was in WWII, not whether we win but how many people will get killed in the process.

Taking this strategic view reverses the usually assigned roles: everything GWB and his most aggressives allies do tends to push that number down, while every fresh move by the Islamists and Western leftists pushes it up.

8/24/2005 09:20:00 PM  
Blogger Tony said...

Wretchard,

This is one of your most frightening posts.

Cancer is not the only or most accurate analogy, it's more like plague. In cancer, the body itself operates suicidally. In plague, an infectious disease can be cut off from its pathogenic paths.

Quarantine is the solution.

Thank God for the US Navy, in the long run. And as much as we get called "redneck" when we bring it up, even America needs impregnable borders in times of war.

8/24/2005 09:25:00 PM  
Blogger ledger said...

Wretchard analogy of terrorism as cancer is fairly good. But, going one step further, there are two schools of though regarding cancer and its cause 1) Cancer is caused by a pathogen - akin to a virus but probably smaller. It invades the body and causes mutation of DNA. 2) Cancer is a genetic problem in which certian people have defective genes and are susceptible to cancer.

If terrorism is caused by a pathogen theory, then unaha-closp explanation of Salafism and its off shoot wahhabism invading the world body is not incompatible with Wretchard's overall analogy. The wahhabist root thrives on oil money. It spreads because of wahhabi preachers teach totalitarianism in a manner that appeals to highly racists people - not unlike the KKK.

But, what is the solution? Surgery, chemo, or radiation?

8/24/2005 09:54:00 PM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

Wretchard,

The oil thing - that is why it is so vital and invasive. It is the heart of this disease, this cancer and it needs to be rooted out. Unfortunately the Sauds have very powerful allies who will do much protect them and appease them.

8/24/2005 10:03:00 PM  
Blogger John O said...

Steven Den Beste made a gwot/tuberculosis analogy a few years ago.

8/24/2005 10:17:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

We're No Better Than They Are Department, CNN

8/24/2005 10:25:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

The one-two of unaha-closp and wretchard really focused things for me:
While reading unaha-closp, I was thinking:
"They have money, slaves, and their palaces and etc, why go to the trouble and risk of funding terrorist madrassas around the world?"
Just as I was thinking, "Oh, yeah, they're Racist Supremacists, so that follows,"
I started reading Wretchard's reply which ties it up:

If there were no "Reasons," even no *Jews,* they'd still have their Jolly Times Spreading Hate, Destruction, and Terror.
...and then there's that damned positive feedback loop on the oil.

8/24/2005 10:47:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

And I do agree with C4 to the extent that whether you think it's advisable for GWB/Our Govt to call a spade a spade, or not, the rest of us damned well better!

8/24/2005 10:51:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Wretchard,
You had a great line a while back in your post relating to telling the truth about things being a prerequiste to seeing honestly who we are.
Anybody remember that one?

Same must have to apply to how honestly we address the enemy, or at least the most definable aspect of a threat that is in addition also perhaps more diffuse.

8/24/2005 10:59:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

eggz-ackley, Doug. All of us, but not a single one of our top leadership echelon. They attack in our gray areas--we'd better be able to fight them there.

What is the likely trade-off for St. George the Crusader being in every Arab mind?

Will that get Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Boxer behind the war effort?

8/24/2005 11:01:00 PM  
Blogger Charles said...

oh dang, I need to be able reference some of my previous posts.

anyho why did Melville start his boring novel Moby Dick with the line. "Call me Ishmael?"

8/24/2005 11:11:00 PM  
Blogger PacRim Jim said...

Unlike viruses, Islamoterrorists have a semipermanent reservoir in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden, et al.

8/24/2005 11:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"liberals/communists in the west understood the semantics/code game long before conservatives."
---
Charles,
And then it took one HECK of a long time to filter down:
I remember going to an event at the largest auditorium on Campus at UCSB in the 60's (!) where a local businessman ran down quite extensively the Commies lies, tricks, and manipulations of reality.

But it took a darned long time for Bill Buckley and others, and then finally Rush to Millions, to get to today's vast right wing that knows how to actively listen if you want to have a chance to divine the truth.
...and I don't expect to live to see the day when they'll have functions like that on University of California Campi again!

I was also attending Beserkley when Mario Savio started the
"Free Speech Movement."
Cutler, don't you wish? ;-)

8/24/2005 11:13:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Charles:
All American GI Joe Replies:
Don't Dick with me Ahab!

8/24/2005 11:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Buddy,
Maybe if we promise them Teddy and Babs on the next ticket, they'll lay down their arms, IED's and etc?

8/24/2005 11:18:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

The enemy IS being named--he's been named forty dozen times on Belmont alone lately. TV talking heads name him many times daily. It's all over all forms of all media all the time. Badgering GWB to "name the enemy instead of the tactic" is grand-sounding but without sense--exactly the same thing as "Why won't he talk to Cindy Sheehan?" If he DID 'talk to Cindy' and 'name the enemy (blast Islam), what would change? Besides the resultant rise of the enemy's prestige and the fall of the president's?

Think about it--who is after the pres to 'name the enemy'? His political opponents, many of whom are congenitally unable to comprehend that this war could possibly be anything other than a GOP campaign ploy, and many of whom don't give a damn one way or another who wins it, so long as they can drop their patronage and influence-peddling suction hoses back in the DC money pool.

8/24/2005 11:20:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Well yeah, but then by your definition, C4 would be one of them presidential opponents.
hmmmm

8/24/2005 11:27:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

TrangBang68, you told it like it is up there, 8:49. Especially the literary way you post-scripted that prayer item; emulating in the post exactly the way the thought occurs in the mind. What one does in the last ditch.

8/24/2005 11:29:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Doug, C4 is obviously a Democratic atavist. I mean, activist.

8/24/2005 11:30:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Ellsworth still up in the air.
. Base Closings List .

. Threat to Base Sends Senator On Maneuvers.

Whether this is Pork, or not, sure hope we get to pay for it instead of making a liar out of the man that got rid of Daschle, and dupes out of the voters of SD.

8/24/2005 11:32:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Rick Ballard is something of a Moby Dick expert...wait for him, he'll know that 'Ishmael' answer.

8/24/2005 11:34:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Word for the day:
Atavist:
1. The reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes.

2. An individual or a part that exhibits atavism. Also called throwback.

3. The return of a trait or recurrence of previous behavior after a period of absence.

(There's Peter Sellers and that Damned Arm Again!)

8/24/2005 11:36:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

That's right, a throwback--Vladimir Lennon singing "I hate Bush, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I hate Bush, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaaaah..."

8/24/2005 11:44:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Followed by "Back in the USSR," of course.

8/24/2005 11:45:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

...you don't know how lucky you are, boy....

8/24/2005 11:47:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

In an abstract sense physical cancers or viruses do their work by spreading bad information. This is exactly what computer "viruses" do. They use the resources of the host system to destroy it. The more resources the infected system has, the more powerful the virus. In some cases, the developer can use the host system as to disseminate viral packages via the network. What was small becomes improbably large. In judging the relative strength of viral systems, it's important not to be misled by the relatively unimpressive physical constitution of the virus vis-a-vis the apparent solidity of what it is about to attack. The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Ultimately the only way to fight a bad meme is with another meme. Think about how you clean a "virus" off your computer. You don't do anything physical, like soak it in gasoline. You unleash another informational construct on it, manufactured by Norton or McAfee.

Sometimes you have to pull the plug on a box or disconnect a route until you figure out the virus. This would be the equivalent of Iraq. The problem I have with ideas typified by Bruiser is that they will neither countenance disconnecting the box nor installing anti-virus software. They talk a great game about hunting Osama, but none of them would authorize an incursion into Pakistan or close a radical mosque. McCarthyism, you know.

The function of the Left, extending the analogy, is to provide a coating over the virus, spoofing society's normal defense mechanisms into thinking terrorists, for example, are simply "militants" or people whose civil rights are being violated in the Gulag of Guantanamo Bay. And they do this successfully until the host dies.

8/24/2005 11:48:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Bacteriophage
A virus that infects and lyses certain bacteria.

1. Biochemistry. The dissolution or destruction of cells, such as blood cells or bacteria, as by the action of a specific lysin that disrupts the cell membrane.

Back when I took Genetics, they were really ramping up using bacteriophage viruses as *tools* to decode the genome, assist in recombinant RNA experiments, and etc.
...just in case someone wants to try some further analogies.

8/25/2005 12:00:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Sure hope our little genius Zub doesn't complete his left turn and join up while he's in Londonistan.

8/25/2005 12:08:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8/25/2005 12:14:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

wretchard said...

In an abstract sense physical cancers or viruses do their work by spreading bad information. This is exactly what computer "viruses" do. They use the resources of the host system to destroy it.
///////////////////////
China a staging ground for computer attacks
Hackers able to penetrate unclassified U.S. government networks


By Bradley Graham

Updated: 11:49 p.m. ET Aug. 24, 2005
Web sites in China are being used heavily to target computer networks in the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies, successfully breaching hundreds of unclassified networks, according to several U.S. officials.

Classified systems have not been compromised, the officials added. But U.S. authorities remain concerned because, as one official said, even seemingly innocuous information, when pulled together from various sources, can yield useful intelligence to an adversary.


"The scope of this thing is surprisingly big," said one of four government officials who spoke separately about the incidents, which stretch back as far as two or three years and have been code-named Titan Rain by U.S. investigators. All officials insisted on anonymity, given the sensitivity of the matter.


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9071131/

8/25/2005 12:17:00 AM  
Blogger sam said...

Panel approves most military base closures:

Disagreeing with the Pentagon on several key requests, the U.S. government's base closing commission voted Wednesday to keep open two New England Navy bases as well as an Army depot in Texas.

As it began voting with lightning speed, the panel also signed off on closing nearly 400 Army Reserve and National Guard facilities in dozens of states, creating instead new joint centers.

He said the task was especially difficult because Rumsfeld’s proposal included more than twice the recommendations in the four previous rounds of base closings combined.

Previous commissions — in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 — altered about 15 percent of what the Pentagon proposed as it sought to get rid of bases considered no longer needed. But analysts say the current environment — including the emphasis on homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001 — make it difficult to predict just what the commission will change.

Announced in May, the proposal set off intense lobbying by communities fearful that the closures and downsizings would hurt their economies and by politicians worried they would be blamed by voters for job losses.

The commission is scheduled to work 14 hours each day, although members are hoping to complete their work before the weekend. Army, Navy and joint-service recommendations will be considered first, followed by the Air Force.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9059684/

8/25/2005 12:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hackers Attack Via Chinese Web Sites.

"Like everybody connected to the Internet, we're seeing a huge spike" in outside scanning of Pentagon systems, said Lt. Col. Mike VanPutte, vice director of operations at the task force. "That's really for two reasons. One is, the tools are much simpler today. Anyone can download an attack tool and target any block on the Internet. The second is, the intrusion detection systems in place today," which are more sophisticated and can identify more attacks.

Pentagon figures show that more attempts to scan Defense Department systems come from China, which has 119 million Internet users, than from any other country. VanPutte said this does not mean that China is where all the probes start, only that it is "the last hop" before they reach their targets.

He noted that China is a convenient "steppingstone" for hackers because of the large number of computers there that can be compromised. Also, tracing hackers who use Chinese networks is complicated by the lack of cyber investigation agreements between China and the United States, another task force official said.

8/25/2005 12:33:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Bacteriophage is a big food-production sanitation problem...I can't recall precisely the mechanism, but it 'blooms' on stainlees steel and many of the easier to use sanitizers won't kill it. Chlorine does, tho, IIRC.

Good analogy, Wretchard. Had we caught OBL the howl would be, "Iraq is the belly of the beast, why didn't the moron Bush go after Saddam?"

The reason they don't want the box unplugged is, they own 48% of it, and are jealous of your 52% stake, and they don't want the box unplugged on account of it's you that wants to unplug it.

The thought that leaving it plugged-in is ruinous, can't rise to cognition because it's blocked by the activity of keeping it plugged in (or plugging it back in as soon as you unplug it).

"So, there, it IS part mine, you know!"

Look for this as a campaign theme soon to come: "We will obstruct always, but you won't, so if it's important, better hand it over."

8/25/2005 12:40:00 AM  
Blogger sam said...

Fighting breaks out between rival Shiites:

Al-Sadr issued an appeal today for an end to the clashes, urging his followers to go home.

Meantime, negotiators plan more meetings on the constitution. There's no indication Parliament will meet today's latest deadline.

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3763926

8/25/2005 12:51:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

We'll very soon know the enemy's surge capacity.

8/25/2005 12:55:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"For God's sake, please, we must unplug the box--otherwise the virus will contaminate the world and reconfigure human identity itself."

"Oh, yeah? Well, it's part mine, too, and I don't wanna. And why are you always trying to divide us?"

8/25/2005 01:01:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Buddy,

You wrote:

"We will obstruct always, but you won't, so if it's important, better hand it over."

This goes to the search within the Democratic Party for a new Truman or Roosevelt. Otherwise who would you "hand it over" to? But the fact that a search must be conducted suggests the party has changed so much that a formerly common species is now, to all intents and purposes extinct, like the once-widespread Tasmanian Tiger whose likeness is now only to be found on beer bottles. If we could understand how the Trumans vanished from the Democratic Party we would be near to understanding the roots of the current world crisis.

8/25/2005 01:03:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

That's easy, Wretchard, so long as we stay with the current analogy: way too much insulation. Uh, can there BE too much insulation?

8/25/2005 01:20:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

lgf: Daily Kos Master Plan Countdown... unveils his top secret plan to destroy the Democratic Leadership Council:.14. Amount of ransom money Kos wants from the DLC to call off his attack: one ...www.littlegreenfootballs.com/ weblog/?entry=17178&only - Similar pages

8/25/2005 01:26:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

#5 hamsterfood
Somebody put that guy out of *my* misery.
#8 atlasshrugged 8/22/2005 06:44PM PDT
uh...........i thought they already were dead

#9 magicalpat 8/22/2005 06:46PM PDT
I can only hope that included with the Top Secret Plan, is a list of candidates KOS will back in 2006 and 2008. I'd love to get an advanced screening of which politicians will get the kiss of death.

8/25/2005 01:30:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8/25/2005 01:32:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

They had a downright conservative agenda this year.
---
"The DLC is the last DECENT group left in the Party. Its where all us..Scoop Jackson types went when we weren't "welcome" in the main party.
Aannnnd...It is Shrinking as we speak.
When did these loathsome people get hold of the entire Party
?"
Vickie

8/25/2005 01:35:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

What I meant was, for a high-value target like the USA to survive intact, its pres must be sized to the task--by the wisdom of the crowd.

Election campaigns must match the one or two critical threats of the time (whether foreign military or domestic cultural), to the selection of candidates.

So, everything depends on the quality of the electorate's threat assessment.

How did half the electorate suffer such a decline in this cognitive ability? By building a false sense of security, which allowed a devolution into the corrosive politics of the personal.

What is a false sense of security? Well, say USSR is on the march to warm water and black gold in the Persian Gulf, and say radical Islam is exploding around the world's fuel tank. If you can then make "Disco Duck" the number one song, and elect one Jimmy Carter president, then you have a false sense of security.

but why did we have this f.s.o.s.? Got me there...LSD in the Journalism Dept's drinking water? The Beatles? We just plain wanted to go dumb?

But that's where it started, the great fluttering of 1976, the Bicentennial, the Captain and Tenille, the election of one James Earl Carter.

Who then quickly of course made such rank mess of the world that the Global Nomenklatura dare not ever admit to anything forevermore, and thus the drive to Know Nothing (but "feel" everything) became, and remains, the Democratic party of the World Left.

Cure? Only the lifespan of us Boomers offers any hope of relief, alas.

8/25/2005 02:13:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Snakepit of recovered reason?
That'd be the Hotel California, such a lovely place!
They live it up at the Hotel California!
What a nice surprise (bring your alibis)!

You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!

8/25/2005 02:33:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Doug,

Re: "lgf: Daily Kos Master Plan Countdown"

On second thought, Kos might be onto something. When your environment is fragmented the best thing to be -- from the point of self interest -- is a rebel. Absent a dominating center you have a kaleidoscopic coalition and declaring war means you get bought off. The thinner the margin of power the greater the incentive to sell your allegiance to the higest bidder. That was the story of the Middle Ages: betrayal, plots in the dark, poisoned cups of wine.

By taking on the DLC, Kos can't really lose. The crowd behind him is impervious to logic, impervious to rebuff. Robber bands thrive in the ruin of once great empires. Kos, chieftain of the Wargs.

Which coincidentally answers the question of why the Democratic Party is having a hard time finding a new Truman. Trumans are products of their party, not the makers of them. Once a core set of beliefs is replaced by a crazy-quilt of special interest coalitions the only party leader possible is a man willing to be all things to all men and nothing to anyone. Hence, two terms of President Clinton. But what do you do for an encore?

8/25/2005 02:44:00 AM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

For an encore? You RULE or RUIN! If you can't have a president, no one can. If you can't run the country, no one can. If you can't be virtuous, no one can (even if you have to lie to make it so).

8/25/2005 02:55:00 AM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

Hence, two terms of President Clinton. But what do you do for an encore?

Two more terms of President Clinton - of course.

8/25/2005 03:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

unaha-closp 3:38 AM,
Please!
We really can do without bringing terror into our midst!

8/25/2005 04:29:00 AM  
Blogger RattlerGator said...

buddy larsen, you're damn good with those on-point lyrics, man.

But I guess you know that, huh? Nice touch; thanks.

8/25/2005 04:45:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

In the same vein as that earlier post I was referring to, the left is rarely required to confront who they have become, due to their enablers in the MSM.
A result, as Rush puts it, they quickly step right into sacks of dog excrement as soon as they are presented the opportunity, with increasing regularity.

The idea that the Sheehan Circus is putting people off never crosses the mind of the "activists," although few democrats that have to run for office put in an appearance.

Their various criticisms of Judge Roberts reveal them to be everything they say they are not:

His kids are adopted. (something to be written up in the papers, of course, without any consent being asked)

Not only that, but they are TOO WHITE.
And so was they neighborhood he grew up in!
We are not to notice that Dean, Hillary, Kennedy, etc. did also, of course, or that it should matter.
...or that Kerry grew up in, and maintains homes in SEVERAL all white neighborhoods.

He also did not experience enough hardship to prepare him for the job, but we are again not supposed to compare him to Hillary et al.
on and on.
But most of all, of course, he is not suited due to his political views.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on the other hand, is just fine.

8/25/2005 04:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

...and any criticism from the right is quickly fended off by character assassination and name calling for their critics.

8/25/2005 05:00:00 AM  
Blogger Rick Ballard said...

Buddy,

The boomers are a result, not a cause. Political cycles seem to run on a (roughly) three score and ten year length in the US so far. Recognition of the beginning/end has been marked by a "great event" which is well noted at the time and provides the marker - Ratification, Civil War, Great Depression and 9/11. The intellectual spade work that prepares the ground for the change usually predates the climactic event by 30-40 years. Locke and Montesqieu, the Christian anti-slavery leaders, the Fabians and Gramscians, Kirk and Buckley - as yet the boomers have produced absolutely nothing comparable and I doubt that they will.

Clinton was there as the tide slacked, quite possibly the last Democrat President. The Republicans did survive (more or less) the Great Depression but the Republican Party today bears very little resemblance to the Republican party of Lincoln or Hoover. Wretchard is correct in identifying Kos as a scavenger feeding off the dead body of the party - but so was Clinton. Clinton gorged himself as the largest hyena while Kos is just a jackal coming to feed as the hyenas drag their swollen bellies off to the shade.

It appears that we will have a few more years in waiting while the body is picked to the bone but there will be no more Trumans. There will be some rather odd alliances - McCain/Clinton or another dolt Republican/Clinton. And there will be some Republicans who are deservedly ignored (Hagel, et al.) who listen to advice concerning the feasibility of a coalition of the undifferentiated muddle - "true centrists" but none of them have ever had an original idea, nor will they.

I can't see the shape of the coming opposition party as yet but I have no doubt that we will recognize it by '12.

8/25/2005 05:05:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

Buddy:
You are getting the enemy's name wrong.
Pres Bush DID meet with Cindy Sheehan.
The one making the demand for the new meeting is more properly named Cindy Fonda, Cindy Hayden, Cindy Baez, Cindy Kerry and perhaps even Cindy Bin Laden.

8/25/2005 05:18:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Several different replication cycle types are known for viruses.

For a picture of the alien like appearance of the 'phage, scroll down to the following:
"Structure of a T bacteriophage virus."
(Dr Purves taught my genetics class)

Image from Purves et al., Life: The Science of Biology, 4th Edition, by Sinauer Associates (www.sinauer.com) and WH Freeman (www.whfreeman.com), used with permission.Other bacteriophage can infect a host and insert their DNA into the host DNA.
Under certain conditions the viral DNA can detach and direct replication of new virus, eventually killing the host cell.
Once inside the cell, the nucleic acid follows one of two paths: lytic or lysogenic.
Bacteriophages invade the host cell, take over the cell, and begin replicating viruses, eventually lysing or bursting the host cell, releasing the new viruses to infect additional cells.
Replication cycle of a bacteriophage virus. Images from Purves et al., Life: The Science of Biology, 4th Edition, by Sinauer Associates (www.sinauer.com) and WH Freeman (www.whfreeman.com), used with permission.
Still other viruses invade animal cells and replicate without killing the host cell immediately. New viruses are released by budding off the host cell's plasma membrane, turning the host cell for a time into a viral factory.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus associated with AIDS, replicates in this way.

8/25/2005 05:28:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

meant to bold this:
.turning the host cell for a time into a viral factory.

8/25/2005 05:29:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

That's wild, Rick: Today on Hewitt, Irwin was complaining that Roberts diverged from the way the Constitution has been interpreted for the last 70 years!
...in his mind it is perfectly reasonable to assume that even though it had been interpreted differently *prior to* that time, and they had to diverge from that, it is beyond reasonableness to presume that we can now diverge again in pursuit of getting back to what to the Constitution actually says!

8/25/2005 05:51:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

If we could understand how the Trumans vanished from the Democratic Party we would be near to understanding the roots of the current world crisis.
/////////////
reagan was an fdr democrat until he saw how infiltrated by the communists the democrats were.

8/25/2005 05:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Charles, you remind me that I recently heard of a review of a Jimmy Stewart Book in one of the British papers.
(our MSM haven't yet stooped to do that.)
He mentioned that Stewart was a silent Ally w Reagan in his personal war with the Commies in Hollywood.
Another great one.

8/25/2005 06:07:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Would Andy Warhol ever have stooped to the level of portraying a mom who lost her courageous patriotic son in war, using that loss to achieve her (extended) 15min of fame?

8/25/2005 06:22:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Papa,
I find it Bizarre that no one considers Richard Clarke's giving them a free ride home worthy of discussion.

8/25/2005 06:24:00 AM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Papa Bear,

I think it was TE Lawrence who said that the main export of Arabia has been monotheisms. They are the factory of creeds. But in the wordly department they haven't done so well. Saudi Arabia has a workforce of 6.9 million and expatriate workforce of 5.4 million -- and the expatriates do many if not most of the really important jobs. Per capita income has been in decline since the 1980s. It's a fraction of Israel's per capita income. And the expatriates are forbidden to openly practice their religion.

In some superficial respects Saudi Arabia resembles ancient Sparta, with a caste of spirit-warriors sustained by helots -- expats in this case -- who are without rights. Where should the moneymen put their trust? In worldly arts at which they are at best third-rate or in the export of religion, at which they are supreme? The long term claim to fame of Arabia will never be oil. It will be Islam. And they know it.

8/25/2005 06:32:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8/25/2005 06:58:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Wrong, thread, sorry.

8/25/2005 06:59:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Pathology Writ Large.

8/25/2005 07:03:00 AM  
Blogger Jeff Kouba said...

These murderous are indeed sick and twisted. As I wrote about here, I can never understand what exactly the radical Left thinks of these people. Do they not perceive the terrorists as a threat?

8/25/2005 07:19:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

1084 Dept:
. Study Finds 29-Week Fetuses Probably Feel No Pain and Need No Abortion Anesthesia.
The unbiased medical student responsible for this worked for SF Abortion Clinic that performs 600 abortions/yr!
Ingraham had a guy on who said that premmies at 24 wks obviously react to painful stimuli, and hospitals do not do incissions w/o anesthesia.
---
...but inside the womb, it is see no evil, hear no evil.
(except for many young couples seeing their sonograms, thank God for that.)

8/25/2005 07:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"1984"

8/25/2005 07:35:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

re: treating the disease

In keeping with the body/cancer metaphor, to kill, immunize, or cure the disease we must have more knowledge and data on how it interacts with the healthy tissue of the system.

We must understand that cells are diverse in constitution and have evolved independently over time stewing in their own culture, so strengths, weaknesses, and defenses will differ from one body politic to the other. Sun Tzu writes, "Let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances," which is sound advice. We must understand each culture if we are to successfully immunize it; we must develop unique techniques for unique problems.

If Bin Ladenism was merely a cellular disease, our best approach would be to quarantine the infected cells and immunize the the others, as mentioned above by several posters. Thus we pursue the Bush doctrine, where we fight the malignant cancer of Radical Islam with the white blood cell of self-determination--the virulent meme of martyrdom with the healthy meme of individual worth.

But this particular disease works on more than just cells. Al'Qaeda needs to infect tissue to sustain itself and grow, but, because we are all connected now, it only needs the circulatory system to attack. The dangers of merely playing offense are highlighted by this fact. Compounding the problem, every attack that arrives via the circulatory system weakens the body as a whole, and cells that were once healthy grow anemic, and once anemic cells are taken over completely. Before long the weakness of a few can cause the death of the whole. Pacifists, multiculturalists, and elitist one-worlders are examples of such anemia, and the more influence these cells peddle the more susceptible their body politic is to infection and exploitation.

If we are to win, we must kill or quarantine the infected cells and immunize the rest. Just as importantly, we must create a distinguishing and prejudiced cell wall to filter and monitor the life-blood as it flows into the surviving tissue (it is here that the Bush doctrine is failing; we need to close the border now). And last of all, we need to confront and minimize the influence of our anemic cells as they try to weaken us and take us under.

And so the call goes out to the people of the West. "One of you ... must do this."

8/25/2005 07:48:00 AM  
Blogger moderationist said...

An argument can be made that 9/11 may have saved America from a terrible future.

8/25/2005 07:59:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

doug
Richard Clarke is not giving them a free ride, he is getting one.
Now that he is living on the proceeds of book sales there is but one priority for Mr. Clarke, sell books. All the MSM face time he can get helps him in that regard.

Currently and through out the 20th Century there have been "Evil Ideologies" at loose in the world. They all have tried to spread their contagion to the healthy.
Whether it be Fascism, Communism, Mexican Nationalism, Bolivarism or current scourge of Mohammedanism.

As a doctor or administrator of medicines it is important to identify the contagion and devise a treatment program to combat it. In the GWOT analogy our Government has certainly failed, up to now, in the identification of the contagion. We have developed a treatment program that has rolled back some of the symptoms of the associated infections, but the tumor grows stronger each day. Unaffected by the minor medications applied.

8/25/2005 08:03:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

What Democrats Should Be Saying

By David Ignatius

Friday, August 19, 2005; Page A21

Today's Democrats have trouble expressing the most basic theme of American politics: "We, the people." Rather than a governing party with a clear ideology, they are a collection of interest groups. For a simple demonstration, go to the DNC's Web site and pull down the menu for "People." What you will find is the following shopping list: "African American, Asian Amer./Pacific Islanders, Disability Community, Farmers and Ranchers, Hispanics, GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender) Community, Native Americans, Religious Communities, Seniors & Retirees, Small Business Community, Union Members & Families, Veterans & Military Families, Women, Young People & Students." That's most of the threads in the national quilt, but disassembled.

8/25/2005 08:07:00 AM  
Blogger al fin said...

China is largely landlocked (major sea lanes obstructed by unfriendly powers) and has to use proxies. Muslim terrorists are excellent proxies on one level. North Korean nukes are another excellent proxy on another level. Perfect deniability.

Just as the USSR supported terrorism and insurrection around the globe, so does China. Just as the solution for 1980s terrorism and instability was the dissolution of the USSR, so is the solution to 2000s terrorism and instability the total overhaul of China.

8/25/2005 08:11:00 AM  
Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

Brilliant analogy. We have become host to an opportunistic disease. If nuclear-biological-chemical are considered WMD what can we say of an aggressive organism that evades detection and undermines an immune response? A virus has been introduced through the body politic and it courses through the veins of Western Society. If there is such a thing as unsafe sex there is certainly a point where unsafe immigration has been reached. Send us your unwashed masses no more.

Diagnosis
Treatment

Now, the effective dose must be less than the lethal dose.

8/25/2005 08:15:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

1896 and 2004
By Michael Lind | bio
From: Politics
Karl Rove is an evil political genius, but he is a political genius. As he hoped, 2004 was a realigning election like 1896. In 1896, McKinley's victory finished off the agrarian populists and confirmed that the U.S. had entered the urban-industrial era. In 2004, Bush's victory finished off the urban-industrial liberals and confirmed that the U.S. has entered the suburban-service sector era.

Look at the county map at uselectionatlas.org. The Democratic Party is not a national party any more. It is an archipelago of inner cities and college towns, allied with the collapsing remnants of the labor-intensive manufacturing sector, embedded in a suburban/exurban nation-state. If a competitive Democratic Party emerges from the ruins of the 1968-2004 Democrats, it will be as unlike today's Democratic Party as the New Deal Democrats of FDR and Truman were unlike the isolationist, agrarian populist Democrats of William Jennings Bryan.

Aug 11, 2005 -- 01:14:57 PM EST

8/25/2005 08:19:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

The Democratic Party is not a national party any more. It is an archipelago of inner cities and college towns, allied with the collapsing remnants of the labor-intensive manufacturing sector, embedded in a suburban/exurban nation-state.


This is the county map of the 2004 elections

8/25/2005 08:23:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

re: diagnosing and naming the disease.

Pope Benedict XVI put forth the most apt description so far of the virus we fight: Civilization is in a zero-sum game with its dark nemesis Barbarism. Put in that light, the danger is larger than terrorism or even Radical Islam.

MS13 is surely a carrier. Likewise tyranny.

An interesting question (with vast implications) is what kind of label to apply to licentiousness and uncontrolled appetite. Do we need a moral revival to survive?

8/25/2005 08:26:00 AM  
Blogger Cosmo said...

Wretchard writes: "The function of the Left, extending the analogy, is to provide a coating over the virus."

And Aristides writes: "we must have more knowledge and data on how it interacts with the healthy tissue of the system"

Amen to both.

When I hear Islamist apologists talk about 'violations of the establishment clause' and when the first concern of apologist sympathizers after any attack is the mythical 'anti-Muslim backlash' I can see the West's institutions and civility being used to strangle it.

8/25/2005 08:26:00 AM  
Blogger Cosmo said...

Once again, Papa Bear reminds us of the longerer term challenge. The Jihadis are a warm-up act for the main event of the 21st century.

In that regard, however, I hope al fin is correct.

8/25/2005 08:30:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

If Mohammedanism is the disease then Sudan's Dafur region is a symptom. The deaths of upwards of 500,000 people could be a foreshadowing of things to come.

The US Government has declared the actions there, in Dafur, to be genocide. The Mohammedan Terrorist state of Sudan operates without cause for concern. We have not declare the Sudanese Government "Criminal".
Indeed Ms. Condi visited there, herself, and her entourage verbally abused and physically assaulted. The Sudanese later "apologized" for the behavior.

"... WESTERN DARFUR, Sudan (CNN) -- Sudan's foreign minister has apologized to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after authorities roughed up journalists and staff members traveling with her.



Who is the "enemy" in Dafur?
Who supports the Terrorists there?
Or is Dafur just another Front we are losing on, not to be discussed.

8/25/2005 08:53:00 AM  
Blogger Lanny Nugen said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

8/25/2005 08:54:00 AM  
Blogger NahnCee said...

Just so I'm understanding the metaphor(s), when we talk about radiation to cure the cancer, that *is* code-speak for nuking Mecca, right?

8/25/2005 08:59:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

wretchard et alia

Does it feel to anyone else like we're losing this struggle?

President Bush does not sound very convincing anymore when he talks about "staying the course" in Iraq; even the usually stalwart Strategy Page speculated this morning about what it would look like if we just left Iraq.

Jamie Irons

8/25/2005 09:00:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

US wants to renegotiate draft UN reform agreement: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Only weeks from a summit on UN reforms, the United States has reportedly called for a drastic renegotiation of the draft agreement and wants to scrap many of its key provisions.


A total of 750 amendments contained in a confidential 36-page document obtained by The Washington Post have been presented this week to selected envoys by the new US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, the newspaper said.

8/25/2005 09:03:00 AM  
Blogger Lanny Nugen said...

Cancer eventually eats away at the body and then dies with it. That can't be the goal of radical Islam. Who would they have to follow them if there's no one left?

You make a wrong connection here, 11maxiwilo66. Islam doesn't want to kill all human. It wants to be the final authority of this world and whether the world could degenerate into 7th century is not its immediate concern.

And the answer for China stupidity is to just looking at this hypothetical situation that if China doesn't follow the communist way of life and goes the way the Japanese in 1945, what would China become today? I am sure it would become a powerhouse in the world economy and could give USA a good run for its money. But it is not and it will take at least another 50 years to catch up with the world's dominant economies dynamically. That's 100 years plus degeneration before becoming something that can benefit mankind (assume that they still can but one never know how long stupidity would last), considering Chinese IQ is pretty high in the world rank.

8/25/2005 09:04:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

US wants to renegotiate draft UN reform agreement: report
/////////////
now if they could only get some language in there about killing the cost of desalination as way of turning the world's deserts green and doubling the size of the habitable planet--they'd have a complete package.

8/25/2005 09:06:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Austin Bay comments on the situation in Africa

He definately puts a pro-US spin on it.

" ... "The Horn of Africa" -- with Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea its immediate neighbors -- the former French colony serves as a base for waging preventative war.

"We're involved in waging peace," U.S. Marine Corps Col. Craig Huddleston told me when I visited the U.S. headquarters at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti. Camp Lemonier currently houses 1,400 U.S. troops belonging to Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). At one time, Lemonier hosted a French Foreign Legion unit. France still stations a couple of battalions in the country. ..."

1,400 US troops is just a "couple of battalions" same as the French.
Puts 2,800+/- Western troops on the "Horn" Working in a population of 660 million.
At that ratio we ould have about 12 men in Iraq.

"... Six hundred sixty million people live in CJTF-HOA's area of operations, which includes the Sudan and Yemen. Half live in extreme poverty. One source estimates that 26 million people in the region have HIV. With the Sudan come two internal conflicts: the current genocide in Darfur and the "uneasy peace" in the south. As this decade began, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a brutal border war -- and that peace remains uncertain.

"This is a complex area," Huddleston said, as we walked from his headquarters to the airbase. "The War on Terror in the Horn of Africa is a war of economic aid, security training and political engagement."

What about intelligence gathering? I asked.

Huddleston replied with a quick nod. "But the best intelligence is local people, local police. People who know their own area and are able to act for themselves, and take the extremists off the streets." ..."

Austin Bay @RCPolitics

8/25/2005 09:07:00 AM  
Blogger corbusier said...

The virus analogy is an apt description. A virus is itself dead and requires a host to sustain itself and replicate. Terrorist cells provide little in teaching a lifestyle or a implementing a social policy, since their main concern is to die before it all happens. This cult of spiritual and physical dealth inherent in extreme jihad ideology resembles much the vacuous and lifeless nature of a virus. The host, be it in Britain with its generous asylum policies, or Germany with its generous welfare benefits, indeed sustain terror cells. Most members are on the dole and live off the funds provided by others, as they are engaged not in life-affirming activities like a paid job, but in death promoting activities like making bombs. The good news is that withdrawing sustenance to these terror cells will lead to their disintegration. That means toughening asylum laws and cutting easy welfare to idle immigrants should do quite a lot. It also helps to cut off Saudi funding as well. Still, I am fearful that terrorist ideology has already infiltrated the principles of the extreme left. It’s not enough to shrug off these fringe groups, but to debate with them head-on and use whatever means possible to viscerally demonstrate how they make common cause with terrorists.

www.architectureandmorality.blogspot.com

8/25/2005 09:13:00 AM  
Blogger Charles said...

365 And A WakeUp
August 23, 2005
Rolling with the Heavies
Here in Iraq the M1 Abrams tank is the apex predator, even at rest its sleek lines convey a sense of lethal menace. The M1 isn’t so much a vehicle as a rolling battleship, it’s massive belts of armor were designed to absorb or deflect direct hits from the main guns of enemy tanks. There must be some parallel between the ballistic laws governing deflection and the laws of aerodynamics, because the M1’s low profile mirrors the shapely lines of an exotic sports car.

Being an light infantry officer doesn’t afford you many opportunities to work in conjunction with these mountains of steel, so when I had the opportunity to jump onboard an M1 heading out on patrol I seized the opportunity. As the driver spools up the engine there is a low whistling whine and then a soft growling hum that seems to course through the tank. You don’t really hear it as much as feel it, when the turbine is running you can literally feel the tank shiver with horsepower. That is the first thing that surprises you about an M1, when the engine is running the Abrams practically bleeds power. That sense of coiled intensity is no illusion, when the driver lurched the vehicle forward I was thrown against the rear of the hatch by the hard wave of acceleration.

There are two hatches on the top of an M1, one for the TC (tank commander) and one for the loader. Since we would be patrolling with hatches open that meant we would spend the mission standing on our respective seats.. When you stand in that position your chest is about level with the thick armor roof of the Abrams, and your upper body is free to use the machine guns that festoon the turret. As we loaded the weapons I felt like we were loading toy guns. The machine guns weren’t any different from the weapons that adorn our HMMWVs, but next to the menacing profile of the main gun they looked like little more then an afterthought.

As the Abrams slipped into traffic the engine was finally free to unload its staggering might and the tank accelerated forward like a shot. In a few seconds I could feel a stiff breeze cooling my face, and a few seconds later I noticed the Abrams was catching up to the civilian traffic. The driver eased off the throttle and we continued forward at a steady trot, the vehicles ahead of us gunning their engines to avoid the ominous figure in their rear view mirror. The second thing that surprises you about riding in an M1 is the butter smooth suspension. When our HMMWVs drive down the roads the journey is usually a jarring, kidney rattling affair. But in the Abrams all you feel is the steady throb of the engine curl up through your feet, the suspension just absorbs the uneven roads as if you were riding a polished piece of ice.


We spent most of the morning patrolling one of most fearsome roads in sector without hearing a single shot. For a few hours that contested piece of road was as quiet and still as a mountain lake, the insurgents knew that tangling with the Abrams was a sure path to the next life. Standing there in the turret, surrounded by tons of thick armor I could understand why so many tankers are loathe to dismount their vehicles. Inside those overpowered fortresses you don’t protect terrain – you dominate it. The M1 leaves the insurgents utterly impotent; all they can do is crawl into a corner and wait for you to leave. And that is the essence of power – defeating the enemy without ever firing a shot.

8/25/2005 09:17:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"He definitely puts a pro-US spin on it."
---
Censor Austin Bay!!!

8/25/2005 09:33:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Boy, that Pruitt Family of Nampa ID:
What a bunch of Dupes!

8/25/2005 09:34:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Nahncee, 8:59,
You got it, pass it on.

8/25/2005 09:37:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Jamie,
Get out of the Bay Area Much? :-)

8/25/2005 09:39:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

I *feel* sleep deprived:
Bring the Boys Home!

8/25/2005 09:41:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Yon,
Air Force SSG Will Shockley relays news that an American soldier was just killed nearby in Mosul. (15 August 05)

One week later, memorial services were held at a Fort Lewis chapel to say goodbye to Jose L. Ruiz, 28.
--------------------
God, those high quality digitals are hard to take sometimes.
---
Please stand by for the "Gates of Fire" dispatch explaining the circumstances of the firefight wherein LTC Erik Kurilla was shot. "Gates of Fire" should be available no later than Thursday, 25 August. Accuracy demands time.

8/25/2005 09:45:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Tony Blakely, Newts's ex press agent writes this concerning the 21% of the Public that believe "we can win in Iraq, but won't"

"... The president says he is sending as many troops as the generals ask for -- which is true. But recently, retired generals, and others, are saying that they are afraid to ask for more. If that is true, it is rather unheroic of the generals not to give the president the unvarnished truth of what is needed. Moreover, it is the president's job not just to listen to the generals but to fire those generals who do not deliver credible plans for victory -- as Lincoln and FDR routinely did. ... "

He goes on and says

"... A recent hard-fought assault "in force" by our troops in the Sunni triangle that took several casualties was a mere thousand troops -- a mere battalion-level strength -- not even a brigade.

If, as many presidential supporters suspect, the president is making do with current in-country troop levels because we don't have enough troops worldwide at our current force levels to properly fight the war in Iraq and also fulfill all our other responsibilities, the president should say so. ..."

Blakley

Yes, the Bush Administration is, more and more, resembling the Johnson Administration.

Syrian camps that house Opfor combatants, unmolested, have a direct parallel to the Parrot's Beak of Cambodia, throughout the Johnson era. Nixon took the Sanctuary away in 1970.

As in Vietnam is not the number of trops, it is the application of the Force that is being mismanaged. We have adequate numbers, just poor management of them.

There are only SIX miles of road from the Airport to the "Green Zone"
from US NEWS
"...The highway connecting the Baghdad airport with the Green Zone--what the military calls Route Irish--has come to be known by many westerners in Iraq as "the road of death" and "the most dangerous road in the world." Late last year, insurgent attacks prompted the State Department and the British government to bar staffers from using the road, requiring helicopter transport between the airport and the Green Zone. Private security consultants recommend travel only in armored cars. As a result, the airport road became a symbol of the military's inability to provide security in Iraq. ..."

If 130,000 troops cannot secure SIX MILES of road, just how many men will the current Generals need?

Johnson never understood the nature of the tactical opposition and therefore could not rally public support and Bush cannot even tell the American People who they are at war with. Americans will not tolerate an endless "Struggle" against nameless foes.

It is a recipe for disaster.

8/25/2005 09:46:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Rat 8:53,
Maybe Condi will be like of them mugged liberals now?
Reformed and ready to reform State Dept?
One can hope.

8/25/2005 09:54:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Andrew,
Still not coming up for me!

8/25/2005 09:59:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

vitamin viagra is all you need, doug

8/25/2005 10:00:00 AM  
Blogger Jamie Irons said...

Doug:

Jamie,
Get out of the Bay Area Much? :-)


Short answer, "No." ;-)

I hope my near despondency is just a product of this lunatic-infested environment. That would be comforting!

Jamie Irons

8/25/2005 10:10:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Jamie,
Aping Dr. Sanity, you should do a Daily Analysis of the Place!

8/25/2005 10:21:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

She does Outer Space, you do SF,
Who would be farther out?

8/25/2005 10:22:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Speak fo yosef, 'Rat.
Habeeb Yousef, that is.

8/25/2005 10:25:00 AM  
Blogger Ash said...

Wretchard, are you a believer in intelligent design? Using logic similar to yours in this post:

"The universe is like an intricate watch.

A watch must have been designed by a watchmaker.

Therefore, the universe must have been designed by some kind of creator."

False analogy

This Al Qaeda is like a cancer is fun, but is it really insturctive. Mankind can also be likend to cancer on earth, look how we replicate and spread. Shall we radiate ourselves?

8/25/2005 10:30:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

One, two or even a dozen nuclear devices will not destroy the world, nor will they make it "terminal".

Anything under a million dead is just another day in the life of the world. That it could be US dead, just brings it into sharper focus. The Genocidal death toll of the 20th century makes a million deaths seem paltry by comparison.
If the deaths in Darfur are acceptable, either as collateral damage in a greater "Struggle" or as lives to far away from US to bother about, well, we have set the moral tone.

Enjoy the show.

8/25/2005 10:31:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Ralph Peters is just back from the Horn of Africa. Reporting in the USA Today he says, in part

"... On a trip to Kenya and Tanzania last month, I saw recently built mosques wherever I went. ... I counted seven mosques along one street in a Mombasa slum — most of them new but neglected.

The construction boom is part of ... "the other jihad," the slow-roll attempt by fundamentalists from the Arabian Peninsula to reclaim East Africa for the faith of the Prophet. We dismiss Osama bin Laden's dream of re-establishing the caliphate, Islam's bygone empire, as madness. But Saudis, Yemenis, Omanis and oil-rich Gulf Arabs are every bit as determined as bin Laden to reassert Muslim domination of the lands Islam once ruled.

No region is as vulnerable as Africa. The differences between the Saudi ruling family and bin Laden aren't so much about goals as about methods. The Saudis were furious over the 1998 embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam not because of the viciousness of the acts, but because the attacks threatened to call the West's attention to quiet subversion by fundamentalist Wahhabis in the region. ..."

" ...The violent jihad waged by those who hijacked Islam in the Middle East is our immediate challenge. Even so, terrorists from the Horn of Africa have already been implicated in the London subway bombings and other attacks. The time for engagement is now — not after widespread radicalization has destroyed the future for millions of Africans and drawn still more states into the maelstrom of terror ..."

Ralph Peters


We have 1,400 troops to represent US in a sea of 660 million people.

8/25/2005 10:53:00 AM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

Desert Rat,
That is not correct when you consider the impact on the global economy that would happen were the million dead (with the implied threat that there will be more) to be in Tokyo, New York, etc. Rightly or wrongly, the reason Darfur doesn't bring a response is because it has no direct effect on 99% of the world.

8/25/2005 10:55:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The US could lose any number of major/ minor cities and survive, even flourish after the attack.

Look at China, Japan, Germany, Russia, Korea and England to a lessor extent, where entire cities were burned to the ground, piles of rubble. All recovered.

The loss of any major US metropolitian area, while tragic, would not be fatal to the Nation.
To suggest it were is to vocalize a lack of confidence I find defeatist.

We live in a nation of 350 million people. Like Russia did, post WWII, we could absorb the loss of 20 to 35 million and keep on ticking. Unless you believe those Russians to be made of sterner stuff than US.

8/25/2005 11:00:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

___Kurilla___

8/25/2005 11:05:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

helo
Of course there would be economic dislocation. There always is in war
Some people gain, some people lose, everything. War has always been like that.

The idea that border bandits may again be able to blackmail civilization is not new. Chingas Khan being, historically, the most successful at it.

If we are REALLY at war, then the idea of major US losses, as we discuss nuclear strikes against Iran and KSA's Mohammedan religious shrines should not be taken out of context.

A nuclear strike or a dozen will not defeat US or the West. It would just be the start the dance.

8/25/2005 11:08:00 AM  
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...

DR,
The problem is not the physical loss that would be associated with an action like that. The problem is that the loss of confidence/security that would occue would have a HUGE impact on the global economy.

8/25/2005 11:11:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

helo
the other point is when the win/ lose columns are tabulated, the mohammedans keep winning. Name the field and they post a win. Worse they've done so far is a tie, in Iraq, and down by a couple points in Afghanistan, but it is still early in that game.

8/25/2005 11:14:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

""Give me some ammo! Give me a magazine!" I yelled, and the young 2nd lieutenant handed over a full 30-round magazine. I jacked it in, released the bolt and hit the forward assist. I had only one magazine, so checked that the selector was on semi-automatic.

I ran back to the corner of the shop and looked at LTC Kurilla who was bleeding, and saw CSM Prosser's extremely bloody leg inside the shop, the rest of him was still obscured from view. I was going to run into the shop and shoot every man with a gun. And I was scared to death.

What I didn't realize was at that same moment four soldiers from Alpha Company 2nd Platoon were arriving on scene, just in time to see me about to go into the store. SSG Gregory Konkol, SGT Jim Lewis, and specialists Nicholas Devereaux and Christopher Muse where right there, behind me, but I didn't see them.

Reaching around the corner, I fired three shots into the shop. The third bullet pierced a propane canister, which jumped up in the air and began spinning violently. It came straight at my head but somehow missed, flying out of the shop as a high-pressure jet of propane hit me in the face. The goggles saved my eyes. I gulped in deeply.

In the tiniest fraction of a second, somehow my mind actually registered Propane . . . FIREBALL! as it bounced on the ground where it spun furiously, creating an explosive cloud of gas and dust, just waiting for someone to fire a weapon.

I scrambled back, got up and ran a few yards, afraid that Kurilla was going to burn up if there was a fire."

8/25/2005 11:15:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

When the bullet hit that canister, Prosser—who I thought might be dead because of all the blood on his leg—was actually fighting hand-to-hand on the ground. Wrapped in a ground fight, Prosser could not pull out his service pistol strapped on his right leg, or get to his knife on his left, because the terrorist—who turned out to be a serious terrorist—had grabbed Prosser's helmet and pulled it over his eyes and twisted it.

Prosser had beaten the terrorist in the head three times with his fist and was gripping his throat, choking him. But Prosser's gloves were slippery with blood so he couldn't hold on well.

8/25/2005 11:18:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

The US could lose any number of major/ minor cities and survive, even flourish after the attack.

Can you claim to know this? The statistical likelihood of the US flourishing after a nuclear attack cannot be computed, because nothing like that has ever happened, and the odds of us flourishing seem very, very low. Even to say such a thing gives me the creeps.

We do know one thing. We are flourishing now. Changing our current dynamic, even in subtle ways, could lead to drastically different and unfavorable outcomes. Changing that dynamic with a nuke in Manhattan could be disasterous.

Our best move is, and will remain, the elimination of as much entropy from the system as is possible. Morality and responsibility at home, ethics and accountability abroad, these are our best weapons against decoherence. Build redundancy into the system, and it gets more stable.

But a nuke? There will be no sugar to help that go down. When the shattered pieces of our system finally settle into a new pattern, it will be a Brave New World indeed. I like where we are now. Let's protect it.

8/25/2005 11:21:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Iraqi Army and Police officers see many Americans as too soft, especially when it comes to dealing with terrorists. The Iraqis who seethe over the shooting of Kurilla know that the cunning fury of Jihadists is congenite. Three months of air-conditioned reflection will not transform terrorists into citizens.

Over lunch with Chaplain Wilson and our two battalion surgeons, Major Brown and Captain Warr, there was much discussion about the "ethics" of war, and contention about why we afford top-notch medical treatment to terrorists. The treatment terrorists get here is better and more expensive than what many Americans or Europeans can get.

"That's the difference between the terrorists and us," Chaplain Wilson kept saying. "Don't you understand? That's the difference."
---
NO

8/25/2005 11:24:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

How little faith you have in America. Descend into chaos because the technocrats in Washington were killed, not likely.
Each State has a Governor and Legislature. The would not be anarchy. We would not collapse in a single stroke. Our system is not so fragile or our people so weak as you obviously believe. If they are, well then, our gene pool must not be what I've thought it was.

Yes there would be pain, loss and dispair, but not defeat.

Unless we still did not know who the enemy was.

8/25/2005 11:25:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Aristedes,
I claim to KNOW that the streets of Honolulu looked like the Twilight Zone for weeks after the death of 3,000 Americans.

8/25/2005 11:27:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Analysis:
Desert Fever.

8/25/2005 11:32:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

There IS the difference between what we could survive, and what, in possession of our minds, we allow to happen.

8/25/2005 11:35:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Your rattling off of treaties that the Mullahs have signed on to makes me sick at my stomach.

8/25/2005 11:36:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"to my stomach"

8/25/2005 11:38:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Unless we still did not know who the enemy was."
'Rat,
Have you read my interchange w/Buddy IN THIS THREAD?

8/25/2005 11:41:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

the even flourish, while not an exact parallel references the economic stimulus that occurs after Natural Disasters. Earthquakes, Tropical Storms, etc. creates a basis of comparison
While admittedly different in scale and cause the devastation of a "small" 20-35 kiloton device, which is what the Pakistani have,
would be more than recoverable.
As much as,if not more so than say, Hurricane Hugo. As far as property damage is concerned.

The loss of live would be regrettable, The entire world will have sympathy and regret. Much as we regretted the lives lost in Cambodia, Biafra, Rowanda and Dafur.

8/25/2005 11:44:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Ich Bin Ein Biafran.

8/25/2005 11:47:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

Put this into perspective. We have 300,000,000 people in this country. 300 million individuals with their own thoughts, beliefs, and experiences.

Culture and custom keep these people's behavior within certain parameters. Their modes of action and reaction are built on very specific paradigmatic foundations that survive only because others around them share their assumptions and illusions. Yet no two people are the same. Each individual, each reactionary unit, has a unique experiential history purchased within the general commonalities of his culture.

Quite simply, we have 3 x 10^6 individual variables, which means the possible combinatorial patterns among this group is large. Very large. While the information streaming into these units remains mundane and non-radical, we generally will have a set probability function of behavior that hovers around the average American. There will always be outliers, yet the disposition of America will be found at the median. This median is important because it is what defines, and in many ways determines, the stability of our society. This median chooses our leaders via elections, and sets the example for the generation to follow.

A radical change in information flowing into these units will expose otherwise dormant and unnoticed fissures in and between communities, as each person tries and fails to comprehend what just happened and seeks solace in a like-minded group. Large statistical collections, like 23, 48, 32, will break down into much smaller packets and disorder will reign. Some will think they need to do something drastic, others will wait for Government, some will loot, others will kill, some will sell all of their stock, others will speculate amidst falling prices. As each unit seeks to navigate the new and unknown terrain, chaos will reign supreme.

Or we could all spring forward in a unity that has never been known. The point is we do not know. The point is we don't want to find out.

8/25/2005 11:49:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"As much as,if not more so than say, Hurricane Hugo. As far as property damage is concerned."
---
Hugh Hewitt's wife has been rear ended TWICE recently.
(Since those Book $ started rollin in,...sniff.)
Is that an analogous human disaster?
or, I should say, and AMERICAN disaster?

8/25/2005 11:52:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Or we could all spring forward in a unity that has never been known. "
---
Oh, Man! Praying for that!
...but on the other hand, not looking foreward to the circumstance that might precipitate said unity.
We could also all be
.United In Death!tm
...the movie.

8/25/2005 11:56:00 AM  
Blogger desert rat said...

There are 4,000 open homicide warrants for illegal alien fugitives. They, for the most part, have fled south of the border where, due to death penalty issues, they will not be extradited from if captured.

The death toll from just those open warrants would, most likely, exceed the total 9-11 toll.

The economic dislocation and suppression of wages has created an equal of greater economic loss to US citizens caused by the Southern Invasion since 1980 is greater than the combined losses of 9-11.
The lack of a symbolic tower collapse does not make the results this invasion from the South any less ominous, just harder to see and comprehend.

8/25/2005 11:57:00 AM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

That should read 3 x 10^8.

8/25/2005 11:57:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

"and fails to comprehend what just happened and seeks solace in a like-minded group"
---
I'd probably seek solace in the
"What the F... Just Happened?"
Group,
If only temporarily.

8/25/2005 12:01:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
They just came here to *work,*
For the CHILDREN, of course.

8/25/2005 12:04:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The fact that you guys think that Osama is right, that after aQ has 'softened up' our allies, we will be dropped with a single stroke, breaking down into chaos and anarchy, chilling.

8/25/2005 12:05:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Keikis" in Pigeon.

8/25/2005 12:06:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
See my analysis above,
you should be chillin.
Out.

8/25/2005 12:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

!

8/25/2005 12:07:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

At least you remember Biafra, doug

8/25/2005 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

It's just that, like man, it doesn't seem like a very cool scenario, you dig?

8/25/2005 12:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

almost rhymes w/viagra.

8/25/2005 12:11:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

oops,
Back to them Zionists, I may have to check out.

8/25/2005 12:14:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Are the Chicoms Jewish?

8/25/2005 12:15:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Links, we yearn for links.
(not just Chinks)

8/25/2005 12:16:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

He didn't mention Israel, Palistinians or Zionists.

He's right. The only folks still running sewing sweat shops in Guatemala and Honduras any more are P Diddy and Kathy Lee.

The relaxation of trade barriers and quotas have seen manufacturing production & jobs flee places like Mexoco and Sri Lanka for the modern factory floors of China.

8/25/2005 12:20:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
Didja ever see the ever so environmentaly friendly way that Chicom CHILDREN "recycle" all our computers?
...Children, rummaging around in a dump full of discarded PC's filled w/toxic crap, "recycling" so the Starbuck Greenies can be at peace w/themselves.

8/25/2005 12:26:00 PM  
Blogger Mike H. said...

Cure,
Radiation therapy --> information disbursal (what are their long term ghouls ;))

Radiofrequency Ablation
(www.cancerablation.com)
--> Special Forces operations (in areas not normally traveled)

Major Surgery --> eg. Saddam

8/25/2005 12:59:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

George, thanks for reminding us of what we all have known since about a week after 911.

C4, thanks for responding (I'm honored that I drew out the boldface), but I still find your argument disingenuous. Here, read this, and then, take a look at a mere example of the massive faction awaiting GWB to slip on religion and give them their opening to eat the West from the inside out, like that li'l monster did to John Hurt in that movie, "Alien".

8/25/2005 03:09:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Ash,

"This Al Qaeda is like a cancer is fun, but is it really insturctive. Mankind can also be likend to cancer on earth, look how we replicate and spread. Shall we radiate ourselves?"

From the cancer's point of view it is the organism and we are the food. Of course the Left denies the existence of a single valid viewpoint, hence your question. Memo to cancer: we're all cells aren't we? Can't we just get along? Kumbaya. Kumbaya.

I've never given Intelligent Design much thought, so I have no position on the logical argument. But I can see why it would disturb the Left, even if were demonstrably true, especially if it were demonstrably true. It would force the validity of one point of view over another. Then you might have to make a choice between cancer and patient, "militant" and victim, enemy and friend. And God knows, if you will excuse the expression, that those things don't exist. They are false analogies.

8/25/2005 03:09:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Ash, another way of trying to see what Wretchard is saying: Take a long slow scroll through my 'mere example' link. See all those people? Hardly a one has ever built anything--not a car on an assembly line, nor a barbed-wire fence on a prairie, nor a hamburger in a McDonalds. Hardly a one has worn the uniform for their country. Hardly a one has ever started a small biz or had to meet a payroll, or fixed air conditioners, or sold insurance, or worked on a drilling rig. Hardly a one has ever drawn a paycheck from private industry. So, how do they survive? Off the government. What do they want to change? That same government. Who pays for that government? Joe Sixpack. Who do these people most threaten? Joe Sixpack. Who do they think they are? The future. What kind of future? One where nobody will know what a bunch of frauds they are--or at least will be too terrified of them to say so. Quite a ways along, already.

8/25/2005 03:42:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

buddy
with 21% percent of the Public now responsing "we could win, but won't" when questioned on Iraq.

As part of the Greater, Global War Iraq is important. We need to win, not hold our own.

The language of the proposed Iraqi Constitution and the Afghan Constitution are nearly identical concerning both civil and women's rights. The NY Times is quoted as saying
"... it balances the goal of an Islamic state with the promise to abide by the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. America's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was right to call it "one of the most enlightened constitutions in the Islamic world." ..."

Nearly identical language in the Iraqi document brings this from the NY Times, now
"... Now the United States seems ready to walk away from its fine words about helping the Iraqis create a beacon of freedom, harmony and democracy for the Middle East. All that remains to be seen is whether the White House has become so desperate for an excuse to declare victory that it will settle for an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy. ..."

As James Taranto writes in the WSJ
"... Gail Collins & Co. are heavily invested in the idea that America shouldn't have liberated in Iraq in the first place. Failure in Iraq--unlike in Afghanistan--would vindicate them, and that is why they are so eager to find signs of it. What really unsettles America's defeatists is the prospect of success."

WSJ Online

8/25/2005 03:50:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Forgot to point out, nature and language forbid a large 'elite'. Once it's large, it's not elite--only some seperable top part can be the definitional 'elite'. The elite knows this ("who will do the work once we take over?"), so it really doesn't seek, as do other bureacracies or organiations or conglomerations of like, to expand itself. What, then, does it want, but servants? But, how will the servants be fed? Well, Joe Sixpack must feed them (there's no one else to). But, isn't Joe Sixpack now a servant? Well, yes. Isn't this a death wish for society? Well, yes, but, not right away--in the meantime, we will have WON, we'll have FUN, we'll GET EVEN with EVERYTHING that has ever offended us.

8/25/2005 04:03:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

If the Goal of the War on Terror is the safety of my Children and Grand Children, then let US start where the threat is largest. The influx, no, invasion by infiltration of over 3,000 unarmed combatants nightly into Arizona.
This is by far the greatest threat to my children's Safety, Security and American Culture.
The Imams and Mullahs pale in real world comparisons of US lives lost and economic deprivations caused by the criminal activities of these invading noncombatants.

8/25/2005 04:04:00 PM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

Buddy,

GWB taking the war to the door of the fundamentalists and winning the war is the option of preference. Better to have a winning war than to have an eternal war.

You are worried about the peaceniks now? Well wait for another 3 years of Bush saying we are fighting a tactic, a nebulous organism in some kind of unwinnable war. Do you think the peacenik fringe will be weakened by 3 more years of failure to achieve victory? Why?

8/25/2005 04:09:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Cancer cells are "too healthy":
Health=survival survival=defense
defense=death.

8/25/2005 04:17:00 PM  
Blogger Red River said...

Parasites are part of every eco-system.

Leftists are the battered wife syndrome - the co-dependent for the pathological among us - always blaming everyone but the perpetrator.

8/25/2005 04:18:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Don't Miss Presbypoet's 11:41 AM Post, IED esp C4 & 'Rat.

8/25/2005 04:23:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

I don't know, Unaha. Put that way, is does seem silly. But "peaceniks" is a comfortable word, implying harmless eccentrics. I guess my thought is along the lines of they are near the point of having that Zombie Army that their philosophy in the end posits, and one short-cut link to put them all together is a GWB that is closer in fact to the one they've been claiming exists, already, for so long.

But, I'm not a zealot--I know I don't know squat--I just got on this as a result of C4 perfidy, always offering GWB helpful suggestions which always amount to "please destroy yourself".

8/25/2005 04:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
I Repeat,
They just want a good job so they can take care of their (American Citizen) children.

8/25/2005 04:31:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"I just got on this as a result of C4 perfidy,..."
---
I don't get ANY credit?

8/25/2005 04:33:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

"Memo to cancer: we're all cells aren't we? Can't we just get along? Kumbaya. Kumbaya."
---
Visualize Cell Membranes as Structures that JOIN Us, not Wall Us Off From One Another.
Oh, Lord.
---
Then Visualize Lysed Cell Membranes:
We're REALLY Joined,
In the Soup.

8/25/2005 04:42:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Forgot:
Visualize Whirled Peas

8/25/2005 04:43:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

You don't need credit, you need charity.

8/25/2005 04:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

:-(
Where's the LOVE?

8/25/2005 04:48:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

You mean my rating's shot, and I'm livin on borrowed lines?

8/25/2005 04:50:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Hold off on C4 Buddy:
Wretch is gonna run out of Black Pixels.

8/25/2005 04:53:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Ah, just kidding...borrowing a line is the sincerest form of flatulence, anyway.

8/25/2005 04:55:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Sorry to repeat,
---
Trang, I like:
Lyin w/her eyes while her hands are busy workin overtime,
A Soap Impression of
Her Gay Sugar Daddy
which she ate,
And donated to the
National Trust.

8/25/2005 04:57:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Does Lactose Intolerance Qualify as Sincere?

8/25/2005 04:58:00 PM  
Blogger Rick Ballard said...

Just to cheer up the losers:

Re-enlistment

Bush reply to Sheehan

Doug

We need to all use bold - it sets off the importance of our statements and thoughts.

And italiced bold for really, really important stuff.

Besides anything that causes Chowderhead to waste more time in composing his drivel is worthwhile.

8/25/2005 05:23:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

OK

8/25/2005 05:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

For Trangbang68

8/25/2005 05:38:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

I never said or implied that "...'Rat can assure you that an Oil Embargo would be worse on us than a Nuclear Attack. ..."

I've said that there is little chance of a nuclear attack, on US, soon.
I've said that the retaliation, military and economic, towards US in case of "Pinpoint" conventional strikes against Iran would be greater than anticipated.
I've said the US would survive a nuclear attack.
I've said that our behaviour in Iraq has been, militarily timid and hesitent. That we should be more aggressive in persecuting the enemy.
I'ver said we should stand up the Iraqis faster and in greater depth
I've said that we could accomplish more with less, with better leadership on the ground. That the military High Command tends to be more like Powell clones then Patton's
I've said to secure Public support the Administration has to do a better job communicating with the Public and the GWB was no Ronnie Raygun when it comes to communicating a message.
I've said that if the "Goal" of the War on Terror is the Safety of my Grandchildren, the US would be better served secureing the southern border of the US, as a first priority.

But, I say again, I have NEVER SAID that a Nuclear Strike against the US would be better for US than an Oil Embargo.

8/25/2005 05:44:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

HERE IS HOW TO ARGUE!

8/25/2005 05:49:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

BEGGING THE QUESTION or ASSUMING THE ANSWER
Example: We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime.
But has it been established that violent crime is in fact diminished by imposing the death penalty?
---
I contend that Ken Hamblin is Right:
If the penalty for Jaywalking was immediate termination,
Jaywalking offenses would tend to diminish.

8/25/2005 06:09:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...just seeing what it's like to get under a 'Rats Skin! ;-)

8/25/2005 06:10:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

I'm going back to my Coonskin Cap, thanks.

8/25/2005 06:11:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

Over at Westhawk's blog there is the definitive case made for "Jaw, Jaw, Jaw" with Iran. What they describe as “deterrence for rogues”
Not that that is what is desirable, but practical.
Then, of course, there is my predictable response.

Westhawk

8/25/2005 06:30:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat,
You are Right, and this is CRIMINAL:

The doctors rolled LTC Kurilla and the terrorist into OR and our surgeons operated on both at the same time. The terrorist turned out to be one Khalid Jasim Nohe, who had first been captured by US forces (2-8 FA) on 21 December, the same day a large bomb exploded in the dining facility on this base and killed 22 people.

That December day, Khalid Jasim Nohe and two compatriots tried to evade US soldiers from 2-8 FA, but the soldiers managed to stop the fleeing car. Then one of the suspects tried to wrestle a weapon from a soldier before all three were detained. They were armed with a sniper rifle, an AK, pistols, a silencer, explosives and other weapons, and had in their possession photographs of US bases, including a map of this base.

That was in December.

About two weeks ago, word came that Nohe's case had been dismissed by a judge on 7 August. The Coalition was livid. According to American officers, solid cases are continually dismissed without apparent cause. Whatever the reason, the result was that less than two weeks after his release from Abu Ghraib, Nohe was back in Mosul shooting at American soldiers.

LTC Kurilla repeatedly told me of--and I repeatedly wrote about--terrorists who get released only to cause more trouble. Kurilla talked about it almost daily. Apparently, the vigor of his protests had made him an opponent of some in the Army's Detention Facilities chain of command, but had otherwise not changed the policy. And now Kurilla lay shot and in surgery in the same operating room with one of the catch-and-release-terrorists he and other soldiers had been warning everyone about.
I'd probably shoot the lawyers AND the Chaplain,
but that's just me.

8/25/2005 06:43:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

'Rat, I think Ledeen would approve of your Iran Proposal.

8/25/2005 06:47:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

It has been months that I've been looking for America's Goal in the War on Terror. Now that President Bush has enounceated the "Goal" we can debate the effectiveness of his Policies to achieve it.

The safety of my Grandchildren will not be secured in the deserts of Iraq and Iraq. Not if the deserts of the American Southwest are overrun by upwards of 6,000 infiltrations a night.
We will have lost the Homefront long before our last troop departs Iraq.
Russell Pearce an AZ legislator says
" ... Article IV Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion." If three to four million "illegal" aliens coming across the border annually is not an invasion, I don't know what is! ..."
" ... The Pew Center for Hispanic research – and this is a relatively liberal group – estimated more than a year ago that at least 500,000 illegal immigrants live in Arizona.



But that was a couple of years ago. The number now is in excess of 600,000 people.


That’s more than one out of every ten people who live in our state!



One out of every ten people you pass on the road, one out of every ten people you see at the store and MORE THAN one of every ten people you see in our classrooms and probably one out of every two in our emergency rooms is here illegally.



Why the additional numbers there? Because illegals often use our emergency rooms to obtain free primary care; and because generally, the birth rate among illegal immigrants is substantially higher than the population at large. This results in more hospital visits and more children in the classroom. ..."
" ... Right here in Arizona the average LEGAL family pays at least an extra $2,000 every year to support illegal aliens and another $2000 in taxes to make up for the $400 billion in unpaid taxes by the underground workforce that don't pay taxes and still use services such as education ($8000 annually per child). And those are just the direct expenses. They don’t include the cost of increased crime, city or county enforcement and jail cost, increased car insurance, increased medical/health insurance and other direct, but non-governmental expenses. ..."
"... This illegal alien invasion is absolutely the most important issue facing Arizona.



Am I overstating the importance of this matter? Not if you look at the facts.

For example, Arizona is experiencing a level of violent crime unprecedented in its entire history – and that’s saying something for this wild west territory. We are #1 in the nation for crime. And yet we have a governor that has fought Prop. 200, does not want to keep them from getting taxpayer benefits (free stuff), and does not support law enforcement helping the feds in this serious crisis.

There are actually hundreds of stories of innocent, legal citizens, being injured or killed, or nearly frightened to death, in connection with illegal aliens – stories that for reasons I cannot fathom, routinely go unreported or underreported in our state media.

Like the recently returned U.S. Marine Iraq war veteran who was mugged by illegals while visiting the sand dunes outside Yuma, or the group of bird watchers north of Douglas who came upon an entire caravan of armed smugglers carrying bails of cocaine, or like the ranchers in the southern part of the state who must carry a gun and search their homes every time they return from the store – just to make sure that illegals are not hiding there; or the violent illegal alien gangs roam our streets robbing, stealing, injuring and killing our citizens, and the police officers/border patrol agents being shot and killed, including my son who was shot and critically wounded by an illegal while serving a search warrant on illegal aliens wanted for murder.

Over 4000 homicide warratnts (murder) issued to suspects who have fled south across the border.

Meanwhile, we have one of the highest stolen car rates in America. Where do the cars end up? Mexico. Who takes them there? C’mon! Who do you think? And we have one of the highest rates of uninsured motorists in America. Do you think some of those uninsured motorists could be here illegally? ..."

There is more, hope this guy runs for Gov.

Pearce for Gov

8/25/2005 06:55:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

C4, got a link to those 4 killed in 5 yrs? That seems hard to believe.
---
'Rat,
Just heard Major Mark Bieger in Yon piece is from Phoenix!
...been there about 9 months, maybe you'll get to see him soon.

8/25/2005 07:29:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

...and the police officers/border patrol agents being shot and killed, including my son who was shot and critically wounded by an illegal while serving a search warrant on illegal aliens wanted for murder.
Sorry to hear that:
Hope he's ok now.
It's a situation that cannot go on.

8/25/2005 07:33:00 PM  
Blogger unaha-closp said...

Theres too many of them to kick out,have got to make them legal. And by legal I mean tax them.

8/25/2005 07:56:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

welcome orlandoslug
Pilloried? I think not.
I, myself, hope things turn out better in Iraq then they have in your example, though
'...similar to that of the Phillipines. ... "

again, welcome aboard

8/25/2005 08:09:00 PM  
Blogger Rick Ballard said...

Doug,

First ask for the formal surrender documents that Saddam signed. In fact, ask Saddam who the President of Iraq is today.

I'm done dueling with idiots for this evening. Sure hope Cosmo and Tilo aren't worn out after one pass.

8/25/2005 08:24:00 PM  
Blogger desert rat said...

The Rand Corp has this on comparing Occpations and Casualties

"... The highest levels of casualties have occurred in the operations with the lowest levels of U.S. troops, suggesting an inverse ratio between force levels and the level of risk. Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo had no postconflict combat deaths. The postconflict occupations in Germany and Japan proved relatively risk-free because both Japan and Germany were thoroughly defeated and because their governments had agreed to unconditional surrender. The low numbers of combat deaths also show that postconflict nation-building, when undertaken with adequate numbers of troops, has triggered little violent resistance. Only when the number of stabilization troops has been low in comparison to the population have U.S. forces suffered or inflicted significant casualties. ..."

Rand

Then there is this site

45 deaths in German occupation

Justin Katz seems to have researched the data pretty well, says this "... Not only does RAND begin the clock after the complete surrender of the enemy, but it apparently leaves out 45 deaths that a 1953 Pentagon report listed "as a result of enemy action" for 1945 and '46. That's still much lower than the Iraq total, but it's above even the 43 deaths that RAND notes for Somalia. I suppose the difference is the definition of "enemy action" versus "combat," and I wonder how the various casualties in Iraq would fall. ..."

8/25/2005 08:41:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

It may have nothing to do with the current topic, but the Rand Corporation is no longer a trustworthily non-partisan think tank. In the 2000 and 2004 elections, it repeatedly brought out flawed studies aimed at debunking various successes of the Bush team--beginning with a dissing of the Texas precursor to "No Child Left Behind" just before the 2000 election. The program, now showing indisputed positive results for the nation's kids, was data-mined for anecdotes from disgruntled education industry incompetents and slackers who found the new rigor an affront, and pretty-packaged for the MSM as "The Hidden Story of Texas Education". Of course, Texas education was one of the pillars of the campaign, and the campaign barely had time to debunk the Rand story before election day. It was a cheap hit job, and showed depressingly clearly the penetration of the no-holds-barred politics (the Rand Corp had been so respected) that by 2004 had become so obvious in our information institutions.

8/25/2005 09:07:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Buddy,
Seems like one of those ever increasing functions:
At this rate, and tommorrows after that, what will "news" and "information" be like in 4 more years?

8/25/2005 09:14:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

link (not very comrehensive, but it's late)

8/25/2005 09:16:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

rat, you're so right--it does stink, the polarization. Like, even here, feeling a little soiled by adding the asterisk to Rand that was born in 2000 when somebody over there decided to distort a report in order to help elect Al Gore.

8/25/2005 09:21:00 PM  
Blogger Jack said...

Cutler, don't you wish? ;-)

Hrmph. They're about as entrenched as the jihadists, but more concentrated.

"We're a pretty effective 'cancer' ourselves, as the Islamists are finding out.

The central issue is, exactly as it was in WWII, not whether we win but how many people will get killed in the process."


In a vacuum where the last man standing 'wins,' yes. Unfortunately, outside the vacuum, we can both lose.

8/26/2005 12:19:00 AM  
Blogger Mr.Atos said...

This is a very convincing tandem analysis, and one that may very well help us to better understand the nature of the danger on Man's horizon. In a fractal sense, terran organisms could be recognized to behave in a similar fashion regardless of their scale. Patterns of conflict and consumption take place at the cellular and microbial level, the same as in a more macrocosmic theater, like human aggression.

The healthy body fights a very effective assymetrical offensive on a daily basis against the agents of destructive insurgency. Normal activities are unhindered, as these quiet skirmishes manifest themselves in various locations. Damage is localized and repaired, but the security of immunity maintains the tissues in optimal condition. Conversely, the body is threatened by unhealthful conditions. Filth, injury, malnourishment or poison, and risky behavior contibute to impair the body's defenses, compromising its immunity from attack. Under those circumstances, the disease prevails and spreads with lethal potential.

8/26/2005 03:54:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Cedarfard -

when the August 9th 1945 Mission Accomplished banner went up,..

I rest my case.

No, so far all you've presented is hyperbole. Your "August 9th 1945 Mission Accomplished banner" being a case in point.


And what is the rest of your case? Decimate and starve Iraqi cities as we did German, Japanese cites. Ha! Better check with your clients that's really their wish.

8/26/2005 07:44:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

Mr. Atos, your final paragraph above deserves to be an addendum on Wretchard's essay. It's the natural closure of the disease analogy.

A wanton PC overstress weakened the body immune system and the disease took hold.

8/26/2005 08:48:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

Tools for thought, here. There are two types of (general) classifications of cancers: clastic and blastic.

-clastic cancers eat away, destroying healthy tissue as they grow.

-blastic cancers grow twisted, perverted forms of the base tissue from which they grew (bone, or cartilege or glandular tissue).

And for a ray of light: the most effective method of dealing with cancer in real-life (at the cellular organic level, not the terrorist-meta level) has been Vitamin B-17, a vitamin which contains a cyanide molecule locked inside every molecule of the vitamin. (cyano-cobalamin)

NORMAL tissue lacks the enzyme mechanisms to break the bonds holding the cyanide, and just gets some vitamin value from the molecule.

CANCEROUS cells, in their twisted and grossly energy-hungry state, DO have the ability to break the cyano-cobalamin, BUT when they do, they're immediately splodey-doped by the cyanide now volatile inside the cell!

Its elegant! Its natural.
Now, what's the meta-analog to this?

8/26/2005 09:02:00 PM  
Blogger Karridine said...

And while I'm here, I'll use my background in neurology to AMPLIFY what Atos eloquently states a few posts up!

When we ask our physical body to 'be tolerant' (to 'tolerate' alcohol, cocaine, THC, valium, viagra, and any of a hundred other toxic, abnormal chemical/nutrient conditions that YOU can think of) our body TOLERATES, by learning to REDUCE or END its IMMUNE defenses!

Hence chronic suicide, Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome!

I see the SAME DYNAMIC at the humanity level: "Tolerate ANSWER and CAIR and UN; tolerate Saddam and Islamo-fascism and anti-Semitism and Belsan; tolerate homosexuality and NAMBLA; tolerate overt racism and slavery and oppression by drug addiction..."

And we wonder why humanity suffers?

8/26/2005 09:23:00 PM  
Blogger gumshoe said...

after 20 minutes of reading
what i considered a difficult but valuable discussion here,
i couldn't help but be struck by
this image and "news-story":
____________________________________

FURNITURE NOT SO FUNNY TO FEDEX : A Tempe software developer has outfitted his apartment with furniture built entirely from FedEx boxes and shipping materials, but the company's legal department is not amused

http://www.azcentral.com/home/
home2/articles/0826fedexfurniture-ON.html
____________________________________

other than an low-level pop-culture gesture, self-publicity,
and a potential lawsuit,
what,of value,did this young guy accomplish?

the PoMo mentality *is* viral.

an *adaptive feature*
rather than *a bug*,perhaps...

the marketing-meme folks of the dotbomb era sought to ride the (viral)tiger...
(Seth Godin,anyone?)...
we're still trying to discover what
the tiger is...i don't think,
ultimately,it is al Qaeda or Islam.

the Internet truly is
"something new under the sun".

"we are the primitives of an unknown era"...was a quote that stuck with me in that 10 years of acceleration.
(~1990 to 2001).

i'm no expert on networks but...


1)
is terror a type of "marketing"???
(Wretchard's comments on SA's
"main exports")

2)
how does terror both
practice "might makes right" AND
stand it on its head
at the same time?


3)
...what is being done to use them to build healthy tissue???

-a strong international organization of *Democracies*?? (as opposed to say the swamp at Turtle Bay...)

- an international *Manhattan Project* for energy??

PS - if FedEx was smart they'd turn right around and make a star out of the kid themselves...

8/26/2005 09:59:00 PM  
Blogger gumshoe said...

anybudee said:

"Does anyone happen to know of a satifactory link that has overlays of Islam's spread over the centuries?

Those would be successive MRIs of the cancer patient known as Earth.

10:29 AM"

_________________________________

Bernard Lewis provides several maps
in his small ppbks on Islam:

"Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror" , Random House 2004,ppbk,

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/
0812967852/ref=lpr_g_1/103-9182733-3668612?
v=glance&s=books&n=507846

it has four maps in the intro pages:

1)"Age of the Caliphs"
2)"Ottoman Empire"
3)"Age of Imperialism"
(maybe the left needs to peruse
that one..)
and
4)"The Middle East Today"
_____________________________

8/26/2005 11:06:00 PM  

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