Disappointment in Samarra
The Stupid Shall be Punished posts on the destruction of the al Askariya mosque in Samarra, Iraq, probably as a result of sectarian violence.
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The Daily Telegraph has this report:
"Gunmen entered the shrine at dawn and planted bombs and blew it up," Abdullah al-Jubaara, deputy governor of Salaheddine Province which includes Samarra.
In a statement, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's foremost Shi'ite cleric, called for protests following the blast. He also demanded seven days of mourning over the destruction of the shrine, where two revered Shi'ite imams are buried.
Iraq's prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari declared three days of mourning after the attack, which he described as an attack on all Muslims.
A resident of Samarra said people had started to gather for a demonstration.
The complex is one of the holiest Shi'ite shrines in Iraq. Today's explosion is the third attack on a prominent Shi'ite target in as many days.
Most readers following Iraq the Model will know that the negotiations to form a government of national unity are going very slowly. Michael Totten in Kurdistan is suggesting that the Kurds are pulling up stakes and leaving the Sunnis and Shi'ites to duke it out.
Iraq may not survive in one piece. The overwhelming majority of Iraqi Kurds are packing their bags. Most have already said goodbye. Erbil (Hawler in Kurdish) is the capital of the de-facto sovereign Kurdistan Regional Government. Baghdad is thought of as the capital of a deranged foreign country.
In January 2005 the Iraqi Kurds held an informal referendum. More than 80 percent turned out to vote. 98.7 percent of those voted to secede from Iraq. Not only have the Kurds long dreamed of independence, when they look south they see only Islamism, Baathism, blood, fire, and mayhem.
Commentary
We'll know pretty soon whether there's enough will in Iraq to make it work even nominally as one country.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/22/2006 02:00:00 AM
172 Comments:
They've declared a three day period for mourning -- but more likely to buy time. The destruction of the mosque has two effects, but which will predominate remains to be seen. First, it will jolt the haggling politicos into realizing they've got three days to come up with a government of national unity. Second, it will make the Shi'ites mad as hell.
So it's probably a footrace between the dealmakers and drumbeaters of war. The thing is the political parties have a lot invested in a government. If a full-bore civil war breaks out then the prize slips from their grasp. But an all-out civil war probably isn't possible for so long as US forces prevent the influx of mass quantities of weapons and ammo. For war you need logistics and civil wars are no exception.
If external (read Saudi and Syrian) forces sponsored this attack to prevent Iran from obtaining control over Iraq by the ballot it will get complicated. Maybe that's another reason for the three days of mourning. To figure out just who the masterminds of this attack were.
I'm only guessing but that mosque was probably guarded by Shi'ite security. So whatever took it down was better than the mosque guard force. Just speculating.
The World War 4 Report(it's a serious site, honestly) says:
"There is really a three-way civil war underway throughout the Islamic world. The three inter-related conflicts are: 1.) Sunni v. Shia, 2.) fundamentalism v. secularism, and 3.) national liberation v. imperialism. The sad irony is that it is the social iniquities that underly this last contradiction that provide the raw material of endemic rage—which is increasingly exploited, siphoned off as it were, into the prior two. Fundamentalists conflate secularism and imperialism (given a propaganda boost by their neocon enemies, who do likewise), and pose the only alternative as a purified, hegemonic Islam which must, of course, crush internal heresy."
Good to know the enlightened, light handed treatment by the Brits produced such great results.
But we outdid them in spades by giving Sadr free reign while we gave "the insurgency" time to build, unmolested.
Those that mourned every bullet hole in a bomb filled Mosque, and were willing to let our Marines die instead are having their day in the sun.
History Ended is History Just Begun.
Again.
Free Kurdistan!
the Suns vrs the Shits has been going on since old Mo's grandkids couldnt play nice in the sand box
Wow, someone's holy site got destroyed...
Amazing when an islamic site is destroy the call for 3 days of mourning goes out, when the palestinians completely destroyed Josephs tomb not a word from the world....
The goal of going to iraq was to stop them from being an international menace, that has been accomplished.. If they wish to kill one another locally that is their islamic freedom of speech
pass the rinds, man does the show get better DAILY..
cartoon wars, suicide funeral bombings, and now mosque bombing....
whats next? Euro-style football with your enemy's head?
How and where does Sistani stay alive?
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I wouldn't call it sectarian violence. Religion is a facade, a flag, for what essentially is an ethnic tribal conflict. Ancient Israel tried to solve this problem by uniting different tribes under a one god bureaucracy. Later when that failed, a one king bureaucracy was tried. As time passes such arrangements tend to dissolve when territorial squabbles erupt.
In the case of Israel, it’s not coincidental that the only tribes that cared to maintain the old bureaucratic identity alive were the tribes in charge of maintaining that bureaucracy. That is, the tribes of Judah and Levy. The rest walked away.
A more in depth analysis of what's going on in Iraq should look to see who the shiia really are ethnically, likewise as regards the sunni.
Vying for the Stupid Prize:
POLL: SOUTH KOREAN YOUTH WOULD BACK COMMUNIST NORTH OVER U.S....
While the new Iraqi constitution calls on Islam to be the National religion - that no law shall be adopted that is incompatible to it....
If we can't facillitate change to this, to strike it from the text, we will have lost one of the first major battles in the War.
20 more carrier groups and "Let them all eat cake" has its appeal.
Now I KNOW he's a dentist.
Been lookin at snouts so long he thinks...
Hey, Mika, your damned Jooish Comment just disappeared, again!
...the one about Porks 12 inch "Snout"
Go back to a real Browser, go Gentile!
(when in Rome, etc)
Doug, when in the jungle I go Safari.
Wozniak was Jooish?
---
At any rate, I think you should re-post that in visible type.
Otherwise it will look like I'm daydreaming about 12 inch snouts.
Probably give me nightmares.
Auf Wiedersehen
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Doug, maybe you just yen for jooish king truffles.
Islam is a religion of peace.
Anyone with 20/20 vision could see this coming. From before the Invasion.
The US, when it did
Not pick a side.
Not defeat the Iraqi Insurgents.
Not secure the Iraqi Borders.
Not Declare Victory when it HAD been achieved,
And by being ever more indesisive,
our Actions have led to this.
Even here at Belmont, Club members begin to favor "Cut and Run".
An inept Officer Corps, in the US Military, has led US to this ever more sorry outcome.
For to long we have been fearful of Victory in the halls of the Pentagon.
The entire Dept of Defense, it's thinking is well, never Offensive.
Which may well be why we "manage" conflicts and no longer Win Wars.
Time to scrap the DoD and return to a War Department.
Time to go "Back to the Future", to when Performance counted, not empty Rhetoric.
Why not Osama?
Now that he is unassailable by US Military, I hear how"unimportant" he is, was and how he will be "inconsequential" in the future.
Empty excuses, made by Losers.
Time for a new Team America, one that will fight America's battles, not "manage battlespace" to achieve stalemates.
Since at least the 1930s, successive Iraqi administrations have attempted to change the ethnic make-up of northern Iraq by expelling Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians from their homes and repopulating the areas with Arabs moved from central and southern Iraq. Arabization first occurred on a massive scale in the second half of the 1970s, following the creation by the Iraqi government of an autonomous zone in parts of Iraqi Kurdistan. During that period, some 250,000 Kurds and other non-Arabs were expelled from a huge swath of northern Iraq, ranging from Khanaqin on the Iranian border all the way to Sinjar on the Syrian-Turkish border were forcibly displaced. These comprised entire families, including women and children. Simultaneously, the Iraqi government brought in landless Arabs and their families from the nearby al-Jazeera desert to farm the former Kurdish lands. The land titles of the Kurds and other non-Arabs were invalidated. The land was declared government land, but was leased on annual contracts only to the new Arab farmers. However, they did not receive freehold title to the lands.
In 1988, the Iraqi government launched the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, killing some 100,000 Kurds and destroying many of their villages, which left hundreds of thousands of Kurds homeless. Although the aims of the Anfal campaign was not Arabization-the aim was genocide-in its aftermath Kurds were not allowed to return to their destroyed villages. Their property rights, too, were invalidated, and Arabs were brought to settle and farm some of their lands.
The policy of Arabization continued right up to the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003. Kurds and other non-Arabs in Kirkuk faced constant harassment, and were forced to choose between immediate expulsion or joining the Ba`th Party, changing their ethnic identity (commonly referred to as "nationality correction") to Arab, and "volunteering" for paramilitary forces such as the Jerusalem Army (Jaysh al-Quds). Families who refused to comply were issued expulsion orders requiring them to leave their homes and were then expelled to the Kurdish-controlled areas. The government of Iraq expelled approximately 120,000 persons from Kirkuk and other areas under Iraqi government control during the 1990s in furtherance of its Arabization policies. Arabs were encouraged to settle in the north through financial incentives and subsidized home prices.
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http://www.aina.org/reports/hrw0804.htm
This is all very recent history. There are many much older grievances to settle.
ot newflash:
Iran extends its sponsorship of terrorists to Hamas, promising training facilities for Palestinians - on top of generous support for Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Iraqi fighters
what is the importance of this since iran has supported PA/PLO terrorism for decades?
Since they admit it, they can deduct all said expenses on their w-2s!
As Mr Limbaugh says, words matter.
Defense or War, there is a difference, don't ya know.
Semantics, ain't they grand!
Defense rarely wins the game.
The Longer the game, the less likely for Defense to prevail.
A "long bomb" will eventually be completed, the reception made and the points scored.
Or the Opponent could settle for less.
Death by a thousand cuts, no individual slice worthy of response.
But in a Long Game, you'll bleed, to death.
Time for a "Course Correction",
we've run aground.
d’Rat,
I’m with you. But.
We’re in a middle of a grand experiment. Personally, I don’t believe much will come of it. We’re now about 2/3 along into it. There’s not much left to go and see this experiment to its conclusion. With so much already invested, wouldn’t it be prudent to take a wait and see attitude?
Splitting Iraq along those lines is the only possible solution to the conflict.
Start with Tomorrow's grievence and work back, mika.
If the more Historic Grievence is reached, after tomorrow's is settled, and the current grievences, the ones that have living victims, not mystic communal memories, should be addressed.
No land claims from prehistory, no abstract of title that goes back to creation.
We live in the present, may have a chance to inhabit the future, but the past, only the dead reside there... gone but not, unfortunately in some situations, forgotten.
For the Iranians, who take this seriously, the attack is a two-fer: hit at the Great Satan the US and the Lesser Satan Sistani.
to understand islam is to understand that "apostates" are far WORSE than infidels or other people of the book...
the shits verses the suns is a BLOOD fight... both CLAIM to be the one true PATH of the Prophet....
Maybe it's time for these different groups agree on the basic ethical constructs of islam and create a united ethical islam?
naw.......
Pass the rinds, it's going to be entertaining, I am GLAD i can run my diesel on canola oil when ME oil is radioactive....
I have always said, the 1st place an Iranian nuke would hit is NOT israel, but Saudia Arabia
For certain, the history of Iraq so far has shown that democracy is more complicated than mere voting; its success is embodied in a tradition that is manifest from democratic norms.
These norms must replace traditional binary heuristics (U R Shia? OMG plz die k?) that seem to dominate what passes for Shia and Sunni ethnic identity. One of these new norms would be "you're an Iraqi first, then a Shia or Sunni etc". In the book, the Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand makes the point that a new political philosophy was born, one which propagated quite well as a result of the trauma of the civil war (which did not spare many intellectuals who had the gruesome distinctions of serving as medics).
The northern intellectuals who had been so certain of the righteousness of their cause saw the baffling carnage it produced. In a phrase, menand claims that the experience persuaded american political philosophy away from the declaration of independence and towards the constitution. Practical administration trumped idealistic pursuits for utopia.
The brutality produced a correction factor that may be essential to policing a democracy - that there is no democracy without a monopoly of violence and that this monopoly of violence is best not ever used, the better for people to intractably squabble for an entire political term and than try again at voting booths.
The solution here may be a brutal showing of force by the nascent government (analagous perhaps to gangs of NY ;-D ), perhaps with the US voicing opposition, but with the leaders of Iraq publically laying out the distinct IRAQI rules of what was previously a Shia and Sunni game. It doesnt need to be anything grand. Infact the shorter the better, probably, so long as an obvious and unequivocal monopoly on violence is demonstrated, and press theatrics create in the public mind that the Iraqi tribe is stronger, and will only get stronger, and sectarian alignments will mean being maligned to this Iraqi tribe. my $.02
..the past, only the dead reside there.
So let's burn the history books and be done with it.
But then again, mika, history is what sets the stage.
There is no Oil in Pakistan.
A War there does not upset the "World Spice Flows"
Pakistan is where the "Back" of the Mohammedans resides.
"Break" it, the "Movement" will be set back. Far more than frittering with Iran, when the Enemy, by Law, is Wahhabist aQ terrorists, not Iran.
If we attack Iran, our Armies will be drawn and streched, to quartering, I do not know.
But there could be no other play, after Iran. We WOULD be fully extended. Just holding the Iranian Oil fields and Iraq.
If it is about US Oil addiction, take the Saudis, just steal it, like any good addict would do.
Fully defendable in a "liberal" Court. An addict stealing from the Pusher, what's the beef there?
It may not 'degenerate into chaos' but I'm reading a lot of opinion that says, "Kurdistan is ON ITS OWN!"
Emrika won't fight to keep the Kurds IN a losing, second-rate, semi-autonomous setup...
The day they hang Saddam, Kurds go it alone!
An addict stealing from the Pusher, what's the beef there?
Only you’re not the only addict. As I said previously, your solution is a WW1/WW2 solution. Been there, done that.
Fighting wars and growing nations is messy, contentious and unpredictable? Who knew?
30 percent of our entire diesel can be replaced by soy, olive, canola oils
this usage would DESTROY the addiction on ME oil...
not talking about ethanol
I am talking about STRAIGHT oil from the grocery to the tank, (add some diesel or kerosene for thinning)
only drawback? 10 degree weather, needs to be thinned....
but no one wants to hear this, they just want cheap ME oil
everytime I buy my canola oil from the supermarket I KNOW i am screwing the arabs and oil companies...
In fact, you could take pork rinds, fry them in lard and then USE THE USED LARD (once processed) as diesel fuel...
the diesel engine was designed to run on PEANUT OIL!
Wouldn't it be held to be the Pushers fault?
We would play the victim, on Al-Hura, our Washington DC based Arabic News Channel. No bad News allowed on the Channel.
There is no War on Al-Hura, either. Just successful Muslims living in the US, watching wonderful fireworks displays, celebrating "Freedom".
But al-Jeezera is trusts 5 to 1 over Al-Hura, on the Arab street.
No time for an analog Moby Dick, in the digital age. No matter the improved "quality" of analog. I still have a turntable, it's just not hooked up.
I have not heard lately, is it safe to drive from the Airport to the "Green Zone" in Baghdad?
It's been three years, I'd like to hope so, but Mr Michael Totten's driver and translator both thought it would be suicide to drive around Baghdad.
The main challenge to your idea, kinch, is that the Iraqi Government does not have a Monopoly of Force in the Country.
Even when US capabilities are factored in, they do not. To many Militias and private Armies.
So just how destructive would the ISF have to be and more importantly, against what faction would they deploy?
then porker,
move to Georgia, over there by the Carter place in Plains and get to growin'.
Have at it, amigo.
Az Law mandates an ethanol mix of some sort, makes Gas cost a bit more, stink a bit worse.
Air pollution control, there is to much dust in the air, from the desert, so we have to burn a special mix of Fuels.
A Federal Kyoto, that makes as much sense.
Everybody's hanging the crepe. The logic would seem to be, the mosque blow was done by its security force, at Iranian behest, as part of their Bomb campaign. To make some look away from the Bomb, to make others scared to cross the Mullahs. In fact, this is so obvious it probably isn't true.
desert rat said...
Az Law mandates an ethanol mix of some sort, makes Gas cost a bit more, stink a bit worse.
Air pollution control, there is to much dust in the air, from the desert, so we have to burn a special mix of Fuels.
A Federal Kyoto, that makes as much sense.
Mr Rat,
you are confused...
i am talking about DIESEL, not gasoline replacement.
Using vegetable oil REDUCES emissions and pollution, that is why in mines they use veggie oil instead of diesel to run generators.
there is NO epa issues if you spill it on the ground, it is NOT toxic and it is easy to produce from soy, peanuts, corn etc...
dont need to move, i live in OHIO, however I CANT buy it in bulk!
As for stink, my diesel benz has a nice french fried potato smell
dan,
If you deTribalize Pakistan, you'll have "broken" it.
It is, as you say a "requirement" of Civilization.
mika
The US was on the winning side, and has sailed on quite well, thank you, in the aftermath of WWI & WWII.
Let those that lose, or live in untenable positions worry about our potential for Violence.
I do not.
The addicts of the World can just divvy up the stash, after the Dealer's dead.
Those are the two options for solving the Mohammedan Challenge, without Total War. Neither involve Iran.
Iraq has it's Democratic Government, it can stand with it's Army. Our Job there, well past done.
It is time for aQ, the place is not Iran, but Pakistan. Where Dr Z and Osama have Sanctuary. Where we pay "Tribute" to the General President so Osama can be kept "quiet".
Wahhabists attacked US, not Iran.
Pakistan up there on that Chinee border, Rat--
C’mon d’Rat. The Russians and Chinese are just as greedy a bunch as a bunch of capitalist pigs. In the age of Atomic weapons, you’ll send us all to the slaughter haus.
Larsen: Pakistan up there on that Chinee border, Rat--
Exactly. Let the barbarians keep ‘em in check.
Then let US come home.
If the Challenges to great, the Opponents to strong, or large or smart. If we are to far from home, like Alexander, let US come home.
If we cannot chase down and behead the killer of thousands of US, let US admit it, at least to ourselves, and come Home.
We've done it before, come home defeated. The Department of Defense, has not won a real War, yet. I doubt arresting the President of the City State of Panama, a US Colonial outpost, counts as a War.
The Western Hemisphere should be more than enough for US to manage.
Defending Tyrants and Despots, all in the name of Stability.
No wonder Mr Bush has had such a hard time.
His proponents do not even believe in his message of Liberty and Freedom, why should anyone else?
In KSA and Pakistan the US suppoerts Tyrants and Dictators.
But oh, we shed US Blood for Iraqi's purple fingers.
Why in Iraq is Democracy to be installed, while in Pakistan Costitutions are flushed, Freedoms are violated, Nuclear Weapons are Proliferated and our Enemies find milk and honey.
Defend the indefenseable with cries of Stability, sounds a lot like Dr Kissinger and the Saudis still wave the baton. The US is playiing their tune, right on key.
Rat--it's not just a question of neutralizing Hugo and becoming Oceania. It's also the fact that Saudi light is magnitudes cheaper to put into a PRC jet fighter's gas tank than any other fuel source on the planet. If we let the global allocation-by-market collapse, whoever ends up with the Persian Gulf will outproduce Oceania in no time.
Good that McCain is a Navy man.
We here in USA can't imagine a hostile having an economy our own size producing a military our own size, and operating without all this bothersome democracy foolishness.
And, as if Brazil wouldn't throw in with the strong horse as soon as it comes into the clear. And India ain't no fool, either.
Breaking eggs is one thing, but having to put 'em back together again is a whole different matter. Ask Humpty Dumpty.
All the more reason to define the real Enemy and Win the War.
The continued stalemate situation, with high costs guarenteed by turmoil across the production belt, only serves our opponents well.
Each day US and Europe bleed a little more.
Culturally, Economicly, in Resolve and Spirit.
In Boston, an Editor of an "cutting edge" newspaper admitted FEAR was making Editorial decisions, here at Home.
Iraq had been ruled by a Monopoly of Force, by Saddam.
Today the Force is so divested, the toothpaste is not about to return to the tube.
There will be, at some point, payback for the years of abuse the Shia of Iraq have taken from the Tribe of Saddam. No matter how long we stay. Ask mika, he harbours grievences thousands of years old, as does porker and C4.
America has exactly two things to offer the world: "Lifestyle" (a good offering on the right, or Constitution side, not so good on the left, or Hollywood side) and "Order" (which is the offering that can and is being devalued by the AQ/International left combine).
As far as our economic-efficiency model, it's no longer proprietary, the world has it--as we wanted, so it could feed itself.
When you break the eggs, buddy, whisk briskly and add hot sause and jalapenos,enough so that no one notices how spoiled and rotten those eggs really were.
Truth was they were cracked, long before the made it to the kitchen.
" ... We remain uncomfortable with Islamabad's nuclear arsenal, yet we've managed to overlook it in the greater interest (to us) of pursuing the Long War, a k a the Global War on Terror. Given its blind commitment to Riyadh, the Clinton administration even suppressed field reports of Saudi backing for Pakistan's nuclear program in the mid-'90s. ... "
From the NY Post by RALPH PETERS
yet those thousand year old grievances are carried forward by people who were born clean-slate babies.
d'Rat,
It's not always necessary to have a hot war to enable a shift in alliances. We are winning this thing. Our list of allies is growing, our rival's list is shrinking. Breaking up the Jihadi Empire, whether sunni or shiia, is to our advantage. Same for breaking up the Soviet/Russian Empire, Chinese Empire, etc. Democracy is a good tool for that. But it may not work everywhere. In some places we'll need to back the use of force to dismantle enemy strongholds. Iraq, Iran, Hamastan, immediately come to mind. You just need to have more patience. To everything a time and season.
Today's destruction of the al Askariya mosque is a barbaric act and worthy of condemnation. It is also an odd event, at least for me, especially when I consider that on several occasions in the last few weeks I have been told that Islam respects other religions. This is why, I was also told, adherents of other faiths and creeds should accord Islam the same respect. This is why, I was assured, the Danish cartoons were so offensive: they mocked Islam in a way that Islam never does to others.
Each time I heard this argument, I have waited for the other shoe to drop, yet it never does. No one ever mentions the fact that Islam has a hard time respecting Islam. No one thinks I and other observers know that Islam is, in so many ways, a house divided against itself.
Setting aside Islam's espoused respect for other religions, it is still implausible that an outsider, seeing all the sectarian violence between Islam's two main branches, can believe that outsiders could ever be respected more than co-religionists. He who spills his own brother's blood would never do better by me.
Desert Rat, you need a glass of whiskey thrown in your face and a good shot across the chops.
That's what we do for hysteria, when things get a bit tough and the weak ones want to cut and run. (Or when one is poisoned in a Shanghai Bar and a blonde in a red dress has the antidote in her cleavage.)
Honestly, your puling is getting on my nerves. War is a messy business and we are engaged in it fully. Our military is doing an incredible job that moves under the radar of the bad-news press. Play some games of chess, for heaven's sake. Check out some strategy games. Study history and not from sound-bites or Spielberg films.
Kurdistan might be an excellent new country and a solid ally. Iraq's chaos might bring us right into the heart of Iran and help us bring down the government who wants to cleanse the world with nuclear fire. Syria is not just for breakfast for our special forces.
From my armchair, I know that I do not know everything. Please be aware of the same.
Now smack yourself, hard, and cease that chin quivering.
Re Ralph Peters--whom I believe in--and against my anti-Clinton principle, ya gotta admit that Wahabbism disguised itself quite well for many years as an adjunct of the "Israel/Palestinian conflict". Only in the very recent has it become clear that the jihad isn't really about Israel per se.
I don't want to pile on after that Bonnie-whack, but really, there is something fundamentally out of whack with proposing on the one hand an imaginative propaganda war to win hearts-and-minds, while at the same time trying to break the basic societal structure which as you say is thousands of years old.
I don't get it. it seems to me that we either have to try to find an accomodation--kicking ass for sure where we're attacked, but otherwise staying put and staying "measured"--which is understood intuitively by all--OR, just kill millions on millions of peasants in order to drive the bad ideas back underground (for awhile).
Or, third way, come on home and learn Mandarin.
Don't waste your whisky, bonnie, my nerve is fine.
You miss the point, I'm afraid.
Buddy is beginning to see it.
The Saudi's, they have their Nukes, parked in Pakistan.
You wonder why Tehran is nervous?
Where did the Iranians get their Nuclear Plans, from the Saudis, by way of Pakistan.
Who has set the timeline, whom has had the inititive from the '90's and before. The Wahabbists of the KSA.
Who has the best propaganda machine in the US, it is the Sauds my friends, on many levels of ownership and payola.
Ask Dr Kissinger why he did not Chair the 9-11 Commission, or George Mitchell.
Their Client lists contained the Saudi Crown Jewels.
bonnie, I've stood my ground while other ran, for ice cream.
My nerves are just fine, but after giving four years of my boys life to this endevour, he's headed south, at least 'til his six year window shuts. No need to be called back, for this kind of effort.
Waste your own time or life if you feel the need.
Me and mine, the System has gotten it's share and more.
rat,
havent you made the point that force is one part of the equation of power, but that will to use that force is necessary for any sufficiently middling force to be at all, well, sufficient? If the nascent government used (with said "will") its police and its army (for sufficient numbers?), could they oust the entrenched militias and the imam's little sovereignties?
A salute to you and your boy, Rat. I pray his safe return.
bonnie
You got spunk but if you keep throwing whiskey around like that we'll lose our Aussie allies.
The AQ vs House of Saud conflict--that's where I don't follow you, Rat. The pitched battles between the two--all staged?
It was done by AQ to foment civil war - this has always been one of their lines of attack.
Its a last ditch effort - their Gottdamerung - to prevent their total loss in Iraq.
It could have been Sunnis or it could have been Mercs. Same result - same source.
Would the ISF attack the Sunni militia, kinch, they have in the past.
Would the ISF attack the Kurdish or Shia Militias. Hard to say.
Mr al-Sadr's 32 seats in the Government sort of precludes attacking his militia.
Wouldn't you think.
So in reality the Shia/ Kurd Government with it's majority Shia/Kurd ISF will attack the minority and hated Tribe of Saddam, Sunni. Whom have made up the majority of the native Iraqi Insurgents, up to now.
This could occur in any city in the "Sunni Triangle". Raze a city to set an example, like Hama in Syria under Papa Assad. 10,000 -15,000 dead, many casualties, more homeless. At one extreme.
I doubt we would stand by and let it happen.
On the other end, continue as we are in Ramadi. Iraqi Federals taking Civil Control of the town, street by street.
Do not hear much in the way of progress, nor regress, from Ramadi any more.
Stalemate, at least for now.
Agreed, but charisma is a two-way street. GWB's stature has been undercut so badly by domestic politics that the model he holds aloft is not too inspiring.
Hard to focus on democracy as being good for what it denies, rather than for what it might produce.
Since the Mosque in Mecca take over, what piched battles?
A few shoot outs between Criminals and the cops.
Most of the time, in the KSA, the bad guys seem to get away.
Like in Yemen, a couple of weeks ago.
None of the money men have taken a fall. There was a list posted here, months ago, of the Finaciers of the Golden Chain. These folks do not live under rocks, well, not all of them.
Four or five "Princes" were exposed in a leak to the FBI.
Those Princes all met their death, prior to US questioning.
Osama's dad was the Kings right hand man, for decades.
It ain't rockket science, it is much more like bonnie says, chess.
Just where did they invent the Game, bonnie?
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
No, I wouldn't be at all surprised if AQ mounted a few attacks on itself, in KSA, for PR purposes. If AQ is running KSA, then I'd be surprised if it didn't so do.
I guess my point is--from a realpolitik pov--every day that USA can hold together the orderly world-mkt allocation of oil, more and more transnational private enterprise links up into mutually-beneficial wealth-creating common-good-lifting deals. The race is between entropy and it's war-parties, and Joe World-Pack and the little family he's trying to provide for.
I'd think you'd flip that buddy.
aQ is not running the KSA.
The KSA is running aQ.
A false flag planted so close to home, it is taken at face value.
Supreme deniability, makes Col North seem like a preschooler.
Even spun that most of the hijackers were Saudi, has being part of a giant aQ, Osama propaganda conspiracy.
Mrs Clinton could never figure out why her "Rightwing Conspiacy" never gained traction, while the Saudis depiction of Osama as a Supreme Propagandist had no problem. That, in retrospect is telling.
USA is already looking the other way--publicly--on the seized Baathist docs that are understood to contain so much damning reference to the very nations we now need in order to contain the war (and, see UN Security Council vote, it's working) that maybe it is better to break down AQ bit by bit while keeping a face-saving door open for the House of Saud. The House of Saud would then be--if it *is* AQ--on notice, forever. IOW, if you're right, rat, the thing may be being won in the lowest-cost way possible.
Or, lost, in the lowest-cost way possible.
*That's* chess, for ya.
Maybe someone will resign before kings have to be killed.
The question really seems to be whether we continue to play the game or whether it is time to kick over the table. But which table, under which of the many games we're playing?
If enough of the world comes to support our side, we are justified in continuing to sacrifice pawns and play for time. If, however, they are sneaking enemy pieces onto the board, or just handing us the rope we need to hang ourselves (we'll pull them over the edge after us with it, but they may not know that), we should at least let it be known that we are not above upsetting the board.
chess analogy holds--no game ends with all the pieces still on the board.
Exactly, dan.
Which tribes in what locale?
How about those giving Sanctuary to Osama and Dr Z.
If you are going to fight a War, fight it.
If it's to tough, come home.
Wonder what Leonard Furlong would do?
Hey, Starling:
Not only is that a Dynamite Comment, but you scooped every form of media by a week about Democrats getting religion on Port Security AFTER the unions started leaning on them!
WSJ has an article, Limbaugh has increased security since being threatened, (not by Islamists, Unionists!) I'll see what links I can find.
"What the hell is with this unkillable tribalism? "
---
Dan,
How the Hell should I know:
Just look at some of these threads over the past week!
"The KSA is running aQ."
---
Seize the Oilfields!
Bankrupt the Bastards.
Hold terrorism hostage.
"the model GWB holds aloft is not too inspiring."
---
One of those Balsa and Tissue and Nitrocellulose Models.
Everytime Algore and Bubba are on Foreign Soil, they fire a few Ground to Air Missiles.
Cannot "change the dynamic" if we have to "Stay the Course"
We are on a course to no where.
Jr's in Okinawa, goin' to Korea and comin' home, eventually.
But he is the thrid Generation of Rat to stand to, in the defense of Korea.
Gramp Rat, he was there while the blood flowed, freely.
Me, I was there for a year, knew the Plan, we'd be tripped over, most likely, if a million NorKs ever came South. They never did.
Jr, he's goin' for a few weeks, doubt if the NorKs come now, either.
It examplfies that now, after more than fifty years and three Generations, Korea is still a problem. A greater threat now than during the past thirty or forty years.
The Korean example exposes the dangers of containment and isolation. To try to contain Mohammed, would be much much more difficult.
But first and foremost, the Mohammmedan Nuclear Threat must be removed. It exists, today, in but one country, and it ain't Iran, it's Pakistan.
If, after deNuking, the General President and his Army wish to Join with US and assist as the scourge that is aQ is removed from the Earth, they are welcome.
If not, that would be up to them, wouldn't it.
The Press of Boston have not been muzzled since the days of Thomas Paine, 'til now.
Gagged by Mohammedan extremists and threats of violence.
Never has so strong a Force Occupied our Shores, defeating our Arms and sapping our Resolve.
While the Government watches with approval. Let US limit the debate with ignorance, maybe if we're quiet, the Bad men will just go away.
Yeah, bonnie, color me frantic.
now dan, he's just one of the marker bouys, along the Course we're Staying.
Don't get to riled up, he's got his 32 seat Bloc in the Shia Alliance, That is the largest single Bloc there is, you know.
He's the Future of Iraq, their next Andrew Jackson.
He certainly is not an Enemy, just cause his boys shot at US.
Forget about it. By gones.
He's who we freed Iraq for, dan, him and his ilk. His "group" "tribe" "clan" "sect" always was going to win an Election, from the beginning.
Bremer said as much in his book.
We stayed the course of Elections, regardless.
We gave the Secular guys a year to "prove" themselves. They were rejected, soundly, twice.
Read on BC yesterday that the SoK youth would vote 2 to 1 for NorK control over US hegemony. Well that kind of crystallized it for me. Let’s demand a vote in every country that receives US aid and have them put it to a vote. It would be downright wrong of us not to practice democracy. Now I don’t get to vote on whether we do or don’t provide aid to Pakistan. Well hell, let the Pakistani’s decide. Hey Joe Punjab, do you resent the U.S. propping up you military dictatorship? You do? Fine, the next US taxpayers dollars sent to Pakistan are going to be in the form of cruise missiles. Try it out anywhere. South Korea, what do you think, what do you really think? You prefer tyrant for life Kim Jong Il over tyrant for eight years GWB. No problem. We respect democracy. FU~! Next, Germany, well will just take a show of hands… FU~! Were out of here! We cannot spend the rest of the 21st century propping up tyrants. I mean it. I really, really mean it. It would be just, true, democratic, and it would separate the wheat from the chaff. Once we tossed off a few sacrificial lambs to the slaughter, maybe we would gain some real solid allies. And if not, think of the money we’d save. Can’t buy off a world of fickle friends.
Now that is what I call real gunboat diplomacy.
Read on BC yesterday that the SoK youth would vote 2 to 1 for NorK control over US hegemony. Well that kind of crystallized it for me. Let’s demand a vote in every country that receives US aid and have them put it to a vote. It would be downright wrong of us not to practice democracy. Now I don’t get to vote on whether we do or don’t provide aid to Pakistan. Well hell, let the Pakistani’s decide. Hey Joe Punjab, do you resent the U.S. propping up you military dictatorship? You do? Fine, the next US taxpayers dollars sent to Pakistan are going to be in the form of cruise missiles. Try it out anywhere. South Korea, what do you think, what do you really think? You prefer tyrant for life Kim Jong Il over tyrant for eight years GWB. No problem. We respect democracy. FU~! Next, Germany, well will just take a show of hands… FU~! Were out of here! We cannot spend the rest of the 21st century propping up tyrants. I mean it. I really, really mean it. It would be just, true, democratic, and it would separate the wheat from the chaff. Once we tossed off a few sacrificial lambs to the slaughter, maybe we would gain some real solid allies. And if not, think of the money we’d save. Can’t buy off a world of fickle friends.
Now that is what I call real gunboat diplomacy.
Sorry for the double. I think I squeezed too hard.
That's what I've been saying.
Look to the reality, who's won and why.
Where did the Enemy flee and Why?
Where does the money flow?
But most important of ALL
Who is the Enemy?
Until that answer can be articulated , clearly. Names of Countries, tribes, Clans, Families and individuals etc. that are marked for destruction.
A man's actions could destroy his family. It is how Saddam ruled.
He was at War with his own people.
With whom are we at War?
If we are going to be treated like bastards then maybe we should be acting like bastards. There is a history, after all.
If that's where it's going, then the sooner the better. Dan is dead right as to where the responsibility for this mess lies. Yes, Bush is holding the pencil, but it's the idiots right here among us that drive the whole world running around haywire. that god-forsaken 2004 presidential campaign did more damage than anything to this war effort--and it was by deliberate choice, as if the whole world was some precinct in Jersey.
"The Korean example exposes the dangers of containment and isolation. "
---
Yeah the folks we died for want to go back to Maolinism,
against us.
People like Patton and MacArthur saw all this coming. Prophets dishonored in their own land.
Dan,
Shame on you!
Disrespect toward a
Shiite Muslim LEADER
despicable fraudulent wanna-be gulag kommandants.
So what, Buddy, they should have disrespected Move On, Michael Moore, and Jimmah?
Are you nuts?
that's weird--my 'gulag' post was in response to Doug's 'jimmah' post. How'd it git on top of it?
There will be, at some point, payback for the years of abuse the Shia of Iraq have taken from the Tribe of Saddam. No matter how long we stay. Ask mika, he harbours grievences thousands of years old, as does porker and C4.
all i want is universal human rights, the right not to be beheaded, the right to move, the right to own land, the right to vote and the right to dissagree with anyone without having a bullet in the back of the head...
as for my grievences:
I want the vatican to return all looted 1st & 2nd temple artifacts
I want europe to refund all property it stole via the crown & church
I want all jewish refugees from the arab world to be justly paid back for the wholesale theft it did on my tribe
I want egypt to back back unpaid wages from 400 years of slavery
I want royalities from every christian and moslem everytime they tell my families stories from their bible or koran... (since without my Torah, neither group has shit)
likelyhood that i'll ever get ANY of those?
ZERO...
Why? the world aint fair....
so i want from this moment forward, is the right to live, unmolested by the peoples who have NEVER stopped molesting me...
Those who have stolen my (collective) art, businesses, homeland, property and even our children, i say, keep them all, I will create new, better and more than you can steal or destroy.....
PRfA,
Just stay in Ohio and all your dreams will come true.
"Anyone with 20/20 vision"
---
OK, Club members, let's have a show of hands.
If you have trouble raising your arm, just ask the friendly govt home care provider for assistance.
Well said, Pork.
What, exactly, is C4's grievance?
---
Existence of other peoples is not an option.
Doug, jeez i'm glad my post wound up on top--
did it again!
Buddy 1:07 PM,
Google is imposing Brokeback Standards on Conservative Websites as a Balance to their China Policy.
---
Our Motto Is:
It's Fun to make Fun of America.
So, Desert Rat, what specifically is your proposal for dealing with the nuclear weapons of Pakistan? How do you suggest we get rid of them? What backlash will that have on Pakistan itself, and on the relationships we have with other Arab nations? That will, of course, eliminate the assistance we do get from Pakistan. How will we operate militarily in that part of the world without it? Do we go after North Korea next? Will us forcing Pakistan to give up their nukes entice Kim to give up his, or will it entive him to act militarily?
Collateral Damage is appreciated.
I must've died, and am posting from the past.
Durnit, everything here in heaven looks just the same. Fooey.
oy, I've been found out--
Buddy,
I don't even SEE your Gulag Post:
Are you Jooish Too?
Maybe Google gets a bonus when they wipe Jewish Posters off the Blogosphere?
It's a clear shot through Warizistan, ex helo.
Piece of Cake.
I want royalities from every christian and moslem everytime they tell my families stories from their bible or koran... (since without my Torah, neither group has shit)
Show me the contract porker. JC picked up the rights.
Show me the contract porker. JC picked up the rights.
the contract is directly from moses to the jewish people, it is NOT changable, but thanks for ignoring everything else
You wanna read something depressing? Read this:
'Consigning the Lucky Country to the same trash can of history as Old Europe'
porker
It wasn't changed. It was assigned.
Here we go again:
Where's Opotho?
Well, just how good an Ally is the General President, that would be the first question.
Clandestine deconstruction for what $100 Billion USD.
8 months worth of Iraq, so maybe $500 Billion would be a more reasonable offer, may have to double it by the time we're done.
Depending upon the offer being rejected or not, the weapons could be siezed, providing intel etc. was up to snuff. Big assumption.
The 82nd could do it, Death from above.
If they could not be siezed they'd be destroyed. Just as Irans capacity is to be destroyed. B-2's etc.
I'd certainlt give peace a chance, that and large quanitities of cash
Thank God you came up with my idea for the first strike with Dollars, 'Rat.
May not look like John Wayne, but it sure beats a bunch of blood and more bucks anyhoo.
General could be the richest man in the world.
Someone earlier posted how nuts it was not to do that right after 9-11.
But that is old think.
We are the moderns.
aka morons.
And maybe.
If Mr Kim did not find out Pakisatan has deNuked, it would not effect him.
If we had to hard in some manner, than yes it could have an effect on him.
The SorKs are opposed to any change. Whatever happens, other than the status que, is bad for them. In varied degrees.
But then I didn't site Seoul so close to the Border. It was not US that decided to repopulate it.
I do not think of China ever being Invaded through Pakistan. Korea, yes, but my knowledge of that Region is a bit thin, since Silk Trade dryed up, who was there to care.
Sorry to hop back in so late. God Bless your son, Desert Rat, and may he come home safely.
The chess board, as you say, is in full play but there are pieces that have been removed.
If we walk away the chess pieces will be renamed from "Baghdad" and "Tikrit" to "New York" and "Washington D.C." and "The Bay Bridge." I prefer to keep playing with the board in place. Better their mosques than my Smithsonian.
But they are already in Boston, muzzling the Press. They are in New York and Washington, now shaping our World.
But then perhaps the Fearless Mohammedans are not the real Enemy? Perhaps we should submit.
What, I wonder, would Leonard Furlong do?
that China route is the one that enriched the mongols--they dropped into India and did rapine and robbery on massive scales. I think around the 1100s--I gamble without google--
But no one's ever gone the other way, have they?
Oddly enough, there is a story that the Brits surveyed the passes back in the early 20th, for just such an eventuality. Wish I could recall the details.
"50 million would-be jihadis"
---
Yeah, right now they are just mellowing out, wouldn't want to anger them.
?
Buddy,
Bubba made some passes when he was in the neighborhood on the same trip that he made a pass on a mummy in Egypt.
You don't want to know the details.
The tripod triangulator?
Yeah, there a 50 million jihadis there, doug, just chillin'.
If we ignore them, maybe they'll leave US and Europe alone.
Ya think.
As I said, if fighting against Global Jihad is to hard, if the Globe is to large, we should beat it on home.
If the task is not to great, we should get on with it. Before Dr Khan builds another 48 warheads for some other 'stan.
Or has he promised the General President he won't. Dr Khan is a National Hero, you know. No representitive of US can speak to him, directly. A lot like that Mr Sistani in Iraq.
US folk are unworthy of their time.
I got chills listening to the Coast Guard official's answers to Hewitt's numerous questions about UAE providing stevadoring services.
...like the company, not the Coast Guard screens employees, for instance.
...but what do I know:
My Common Sense is now considered Paleo Madness.
Jeez!
---
Wretchard,
Dershowitz is going to be on Hewitt later.
Trish 3:10 PM,
It's the only way we'll get the whole f'n world to love us:
Like them South Korean Youth's for instance.
We're not worthy of much of anything, anymore, 'Rat.
...even home grown checks on port security.
Radioblogger Already has Admiral's interview with Hewitt.
Frank Gafney is next.
Hewitt, like me, was not convinced.
I am not the only moron.
...but then Hewitt IS over 30.
Trust, and verify after the Boom.
Maybe I shouldn' have had kids.
Buddy has a wsj link that says it's good for business.
So it's gotta be good.
I shoulda been born 30 years earlier.
Gafney says Admiral is whistling past the graveyard.
For the EXACT same reason I had.
Them Aarabs are too damned stupid to game us.
Plus they are our friends, right?
GWB does not want to appear to treat ANYBODY different.
That would be profiling, which is sinful.
...as is thinking up is up.
Hewitt says the company is hiring UAE Nationals.
...they'll never figure out how to weasel their way in their.
...plus, it's more money for Palestinian Charities.
Sucks to be a Bigot.
Don't worry about the PA, doug, after all these years of US paying the frieght, Iran says it'll foot the bill, for a while.
Great news, if little PA babies start to starve, it's Irans fault not US.
Compassionate Conservatives delenda est.
Hewitt said he and Gafney worked on infiltration in Reagan admin.
But what they know?
Some rah rah writer at wsj probably knows better.
C'mon people, would you rather the arms industry business go to Zooropa, Russia, China. We're making good progress. The completion is almost vanquished. When we'll have a monopoly we'll make the rules.
Doug,
You have an audio link? I'm too lazy to read the transcripts from Radioblogger.
DOD wants to cut funding for C-17 and MOTHBALL IT?
What, convert B-52's into troop carriers?
I heard it on the radio, I sweear.
We're winning the war of the Bean Counters 'Rat.
Sucks to be a patriot.
I thought he said there was an mp3.
I caint think and read at the same time, so if I wanna learn, it's gotta be audio.
I'm not seeing the Dershowitz or Gafney material. No real time audio radio station?
You ARE Freakin Lazy!
Hewitt Admiral Interview
Do I get a Free Root Canal Now?
It was on live on 830KRLA.com but you missed it.
If you search you might find another station, or catch it on the air, but THAT would take effort on your part.
I'd be happy to oblige. We'll use caffeine for analgesic.
Huh?
I thought you were Dr. Feelgood.
Lay the Nitrous on Me.
You have me confused. I'm Dr. Strangelove.
Hewitt says Bush Justice is arguing for greatest federal encroachment in history.
Water on private property 22 miles from navigable waterway to be under federal control due to Interstate Commerce.
Greens Win.
In the 70's, my famous Revolutionary (Front of Sports Illustrated) Environmentalist Prof never was so bold.
Compassionate Conservatism = Big Government, Big Federal Enviro Agencies, Islamic Defense Infrastructure.
I feel great about being compassionate.
Your Fired!
Saheeb Skyhook's got your job now!
pbuh
General Jack D. Ripper: Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.
Polluted my vital bodily fluids.
Can Dentists Work on Calcified Erections?
Now that you are no longer employeed, you can volunteer to rebuild the sacred shrine.
Cool.
Well, if you want some Mormon tattoos, you can use a Cavitron.
Some Mormon is talkin about Semitic DNA.
Too Heavy for me.
Can't read the book of Morman, write, and listen at the same time.
I can't remember my handwritten signature, much less my genetic one.
LOL!
Dr Strangelove at the controls of the Cavitron.
The world as we know it is doomed.
Those two Imams in there are REALLY buried now.
I think the Dershowitz thing is coming at Radioblogger.
Hope you don't have to read it.
I care.
Compassionate, you know.
Compassionate? Is that the Russian ambassador you're talking about?
Howdy Doody time in the USSRofA.
Dan,
How do you see a viable outcome once something happens to Gen Mush?
Sadr was dead 3 years ago by me.
Talk about some upset folks, though, Dan:
Those enraged Shiites were carrying Sadr Posters!
Roger Simon writes screenplays.
That would be the ultimate in Peace, Love, and Compassion:
A Jewish Writer donating his services!
That's a nice business proposition, Doug. Howdy Doody time in the USSRofA.
Dan,
Scared S...less since 9-11,
knowin they have them,
knowin they hate us,
knowin they hate life as we know it.
Amazing. Carter backs UAE seaport-operations deal. Handing Bush political poison is more important to Carter, a former US President, than national security. John Snow and Bob Dole should both be arrested.
Doug said: "you scooped every form of media by a week about Democrats getting religion on Port Security AFTER the unions started leaning on them! WSJ has an article, Limbaugh has increased security since being threatened, (not by Islamists, Unionists!) I'll see what links I can find."
Doug, thanks for the ringing endorsement of my Port Authority post. I am working on an update and so forward to any links you can uncover and pass along. We'd all be better off and better informed if the MSM weren't so easy to scoop ;-)
As with one of my Danish Boycott posts, the update will include some reactions of my MBA and undergrad students, all of whom are having a hard time understanding the resistance in some quarters to this deal. Part of my job this week was explaining them to that not everyone was opposed.
One rather humorous story I can pass along concerns one of my Palestinian students who wrote about this.
Like most of the kids here, she claims to bear no ill will against the US but definitely doesn't like Bush or the Republicans. Yesterday I happened upon her in the student lounge working on her blog entry. She asked me what was a "veto". I asked why she wanted to know and she told me Bush had said he would veto any attempt to block the sale. It seems she assumed he was putting the kabosh on it. (No, she didn't actually use that Yiddish term!)
When I explained to her that though Bush has yet to veto anything, I believed he would do so and help the deal go through, there was stunned silence. I could see the wheels turning...maybe Bush doesn't actually hate all Arabs.
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