The wisdom of crowds
Consider the new Lara Croft from Bethnal Green, the constituency of George Galloway.
Karima Adebibe, a 20 year old from Bethnal Green, will be playing the video game industry's iconic heroine. To prepare for her role as Lara Croft, Karine will have to undergo SAS (Special Air Service) training and survival program.
Bloggledygook carries the story of a German Muslim group that has dared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp and deny the Holocaust there.
By denying the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad not only denigrated the Jewish victims of the genocide but also the 200,000 Roms and Arabs murdered in the "gypsy camp" of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other camps, the institute spokesman said. The fact that the president of an Islamic state repeated Nazi anti-Semitism was harmful to the image of Islam and "a disgrace for all the world’s Muslims", he added. The Berlin-based institute, founded in 1927, is the oldest Muslim body in Germany.
Commentary
There's a saving power in the ordinary world. German Muslims who can see Jews as neighbors and those who can see Karima Adebibe as Lara Croft can never be truly lost. The greatest blows against the fantasy ideologies occur when ordinary people stand up for daily things which aesthetes have held themselves above. Tolkien well understood to what airless places men are led in the quest for solitary power -- "no taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me," was Frodo's description of the arid sustenance of the Ring. The struggle against the unremitting stupidity of Political Correctness or the remorseless hatred of Osama Bin Laden are both at heart an effort to reclaim ordinary life -- with its laughter, pity and guiless admiration -- from the faded wraiths who envy our mortal humors.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/16/2006 04:56:00 PM
123 Comments:
Doubt that the invitation is accepted or the trip made.
Gotta be in Havana come Hurricane Season, sixty days of so prior to US elections.
Ms Adebibe gives sonia a run for her money, that's for sure.
The man is obsessed I tell you, and I don't be talkin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yo.
Political Correctness is a Worldly Pleasure unto itself.
...in the minds of the believers.
If one follows it strictly enough.
The exquisite pleasures of unbounded denial.
When the Glory of God, Baha'u'llah, seized power from the kingly caste and from ecclesiastics, He didn't hold it for Himself, but gave 'power to the people...'
What Wretchard quotes here, and the real-world manifestations quoted here (http://www.cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html)
are but different expressions of the same dynamic:
"I have given Power to the People!"
Mercy sakes, Wretchard, that is a good post.
The Army of PC Zombies:
Muhammed's acolytes in training.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Acolytes (Marvel)
These renegade mutants follow Magneto as if he were a shepherd and they the herd.
They have adopted his belief that humans and mutants cannot peacefully coexist and have sworn to live and die by his command.
I have often thought that Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson did at least as much to build a bridge between the races as did Martin Luther King, if not more so.
They always displayed themselves as ordinary guys who just happened to be black. I don't think anyone could laugh with them - or even at them - and still think of blacks as subhumans or animals to be exterminated.
And yet we have an MLK day, and not a day to honor people who simply made us realize that we are all human.
Perhaps the greatest sociological achievement of the West is that we allow such people to be successes.
How many Muslim comedians are there?
Lara looks good, and so does the QDR.
Aviation Week & Space Technology reports with "Seismic Shift" (p.30, AWST, 2/13/06).
When the MSM last reported on the Quadrennial Defense Review, it was a negative puff-piece insulting Rummy. Why? Wtf does Rummy have to do with the next 25 years - he's not going to be in office.
Which leads to the main variable: what if some weak-assed, nutty, Judy-Garland-style-politician like Bill Clinton manages to mislead the World's Last Hope?
If that happens again in the next two decades, the world will be denied the World's Best Peacekeeper's best efforts. This QDR speaks of capabilities that seem like Kelly Johnson dreams. But just like Kelly's Blackbirds, America has a history of creating new technology that overcomes other countries' war-like notions.
Seismic Shift (AWST article on the QDR
If the Clinton team got religion
(Maybe a dirty nuke at Chappaquidick or some such)
and switched over to our side,
they'd still F... It Up out of sheer incompetence, inability to choose good people, and meddling with those good men that were left over from previous admin.
rwe,
Cosby's current preachments are priceless, but are as pearls to the swine to the dumbed-down products of the NEA, mass culture, and the welfare state.
Iraq? Pakistan? Change in Afghan militant tactics raises fears about new help:
The Afghan government's anti-terrorism chief, Gen. Abdul Manan Farahi, said al-Zarqawi is believed to have trained at an al-Qaida base in Afghanistan before U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, but he doubted that the terror leader would return.
There have been some 25 suicide bombings here in the past four months. Before that, such attacks -- commonplace in Iraq and also carried out by Islamic militants in Pakistan -- were rare in Afghanistan.
Change in Afghan Militant Tactics
Jamie's Link from Previous Thread
The Logic of the "Peace Process"
RWE,
Let us not forget Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong who were welcomed into Americas living room much earlier yet. The multi-cultists have decided not to build upon our society but to burn it down completely and start over making society over in their own hateful image.
No, yuuuur the one that hates, uh ah, you’re the one.
By-the-by, I grew up as a young lad in the 60’s and listened to the many albums by Bill Cosby, “Why is there air?”, Fat Albert, et. al. Later, Laugh-In brought us Flip Wilson and Liberace, who not black, but gay as a blue-jay. And I’ll never forget ol’ what’s his name… Paul Lynn. A generation later and we are lectured by humorless snots who would see us brainwashed to meet their satisfaction. I no longer try to go along to get along. I am just done with the browbeating and tsk-tsking. My father had many black friends and we’d vacation together with Indian friends, Jewish, Italian friends. I’d of never known that a bunch of cultists would spend the rest of my adult life rubbing my nose in their sh!t. Who in the ‘f are they to tell me how to behave. Be careful, wouldn’t want to offend someone I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, but let me be the one to lead the congregation, we should all feel ashamed of ourselves. Blah blah blah.
I hope the Muslims can step up to bat and defend their dignity and show their disunity with murder and hate mongering.
According to Debka, Israel's own Lara croft, Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour, declared his party’s platform aimed for an Islamic state headed by a caliph to replace the Jewish state.
Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour is head of Unified Arab Israel list. The list is a merger between Sarsour’s Raam and Ahmed Tibi’s Taal party.
Pretty much the Reformation died in France in 1572 during the infamous St Bartholomew Massacre
The reformation died in England with the restoration under the reign of William and Mary of Orange in 1689.
In Germany the reformation died a slower death first at the hands of the 18th century pietists and then at the hands of the 19th century ariens.
but in all cases the caste system of the middle ages that had been broken apart by the changed ideas and technologies of the 1500's--that ancien caste system was restored again over the next several hundred years in Europe--only to be destroyed again on the battlefields of WWI.
What is happening now is that these ancien caste systems are being restored again across europe and russia. And of course china still holds to her nomanclatura.
And the middle east has always had its impermiable ruling classes.
The wierd anti american behavior of so many American elites comes not from anti americanism but rather to changed loyalties. These are not loyalties to "we are the world we are the children" but rather loyalties to ideas or casts/classes or ideas of casts/classes that cross national boundaries--ie the transnational elites. these are the clever people who conspire to inflict on the american people unlimited liabilities in return for nothing.
They believe in things they don't understand and we suffer.
It was here in the USA that the calvinist ideas of the reformation were put into practice as it was the prebyterian form of government that served as the model for the US government. It is this jewel of good governance that drives so many of the world's ruling elites ca ca.
A place like Downtown Manhattan has more in common with downtown london paris or berlin than it does with a small town 50 miles up the Hudson river.
but a place like downtown manhattan controls a great deal of the media output of the USA.
this not something lost on moslems.
The UAE bought a 2% control over TimeWarner today.
annonymous,
Pretty sad that your story is one experienced by many our age willing to admit it, and therefore able to assert:
" I no longer try to go along to get along. I am just done with the browbeating and tsk-tsking."
To which the maggot Naggin would reply:
"Oh, You don't know how to make Hot Chocolate (whitey)"
---
Laura Ingraham compared soundbytes of Naggin with the Mayor of (equally or more devastated) Biloxi, and refreshingly enough, they are polar opposites.
Not once did the honorable mayor cast blame as he detailed the seriousness of the situations and the complications facing all those tasked with fixing it, from POTUS on down.
Seems Naggins only "qualification" for office is the color of his skin.
Similar losers have been elected in Hawaii when they were put into office on a straight ethnically decided vote.
Don't know if you saw my post referring to a WSJ article that said Two Hundred and Fifty thousand has been spent PER CAPITA for Katrina victims! Politicians going along to get re-elected, ...on our dime.
W,
I going to disagree with you.
There's no such thing as a good Muslim. As there's no such thing as a good Nazi. You are either a Nazi or a Muslim, or you're not. You either subscribe to these expansionist supremacist hegemonistic blood cults, or you don't. The choice should be made clear so people that are affiliated with these cults and that seek their protection are forced to bear the consequences as to whom they give their allegiance.
mika.
I think the better comparison to Muslims is Germans, or if you prefer, Japanese. They'll always be that yet not always be your enemy. It would be fair to assert there is no such thing as an innocent in al-Qaeda. But as to Muslims in general there are thousands risking their lives in American service right now. You are born into Islam and can't help it; but you choose to be in al-Qaeda.
As a practical matter there are certain Muslims I know who I could trust implicitly. Why? Because I've trusted them with my life in situations where it would cost them nothing and gain them much to put me over the side. And there are certain Americans, some of the leftist persuasion, who I wouldn't trust at all.
Just my way of thinking, that's all.
W: You are born into Islam and can't help it.
That's a false assertion, or rather the implication flowing thereof. If one is of age to make a decision to be in the army, one is certainly of age to make a decision as to whether one still wishes to subscribe to the ideology of Islamism or that of Nazism.
Why should we be timid in putting that question forward? Why should we not ask, why do you still subscribe such an ideology?
As a matter of fact there are a number of Muslim comedians, at least in North America, though no famous ones as far as i know. Whether they are truly or typically Muslim or on the road to assimilation and/or apostasy i don't know. But they are out there because they need to joke as a way of dealing with the tension between the culture of their forebears and the new world. I don't know if they're funny; i've only seen clips on tv that didn't strike me as hilarious as far as i can remember.
Mika,
The slide to total war is the process of moving from individual to group accountability. In peacetime we judge people according to their individual acts; in wartime we shoot people according the color of their uniforms. Saint, genius, blackguard ... none of that matters. An article of clothing provides all the information we need.
History keeps us from having any illusions about what we are: capable of anything. Civilization consists in recognizing it. Pacifism is the art of forgetting everything we know about ourselves, not out of ignorance but from pride.
I think what you are asking is: if Islam is the enemy why is not every Mussulman the foe? Sentiment aside. My short answer would be: because the cause of individual accountability isn't lost yet. We still have the power to punish the guilty without including the innocent, though pacifism has done everything in its power to hinder that. The world is not in uniform yet -- with all that implies -- though the time grows short.
anonymous: I was thinkinbg the same things, about Sammy Davis Junior, and I probably should have thought about Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, and quite a few others.
But as singers, dancers, and musicians they clearly were exceptional people, and thus could be placed in a special category. Not only that, but they were black and based so much of their presentations upon black culture.
The later black comedians, Richard Prior, Eddie Murphey, Chris Rock were black, acted proud of that fact, and emphasized their differences as compared to "white" culture. They also could be set aside in a special category, "entertainers" just as sports stars are.
But Cosby and Wilson were just ordinary guys who for the most part did not call attention to the color of the skin or claim some unique culture. MLK was the same way. So is SECSATE Rice, or for that matter, Gen Powell.
Is it any wonder that Bill Cosby, after seeming to turn toward radicalism for a while in the early 70's, is now one of the harshest critics of what passes for black culture today?
Where is his equivalent in Muslim culture? Or for that matter, where is his equivalent south of the border?
The left has painted themselves into a corner on the multiculturalism issue WRT Islam. Unfortunately they are, as usual blind to this fact.
I know many left leaning card carrying Dem's who are still blaming every problem created by their policies on Bush and they are literally loosing their sanity.
Many of the "Muslims" in US service are actually Christian Arabs. One isn't automatically Muslim because one is Arab. And if it weren't for the absolute violent intolerance of apostasy in Islam, more Arabs would forsake Islam. Islam does not want agreement, it wants submission. When an individual submits to an intolerant, violent creed, he puts not just his soul but his life at risk from those of his creed's enemies who won't go quietly to the grave. The Islamic crowd is not wise at all, but ignorant and fearful.
rwe:
"Where is his equivalent in Muslim culture? Or for that matter, where is his equivalent south of the border?"
Those Muslims in Poland who have challenged Ahmadinejad did not just pop out of the graound. They have resided in that country, developed their independence and are now speaking courageously against the flow of their radical contemporaries. To think they do not have leaders is naiive.
In our instant gratification society, we rarely take the time to get to know thaose who are not seeking their own 15 minutes of fame.
It has taken a while, but now even our Host agrees, the Policies of JFKerry expoused in "04 in regards the WoT are now those of the US
" ... the cause of individual accountability isn't lost yet. We still have the power to punish the guilty without including the innocent, ... "
The GWoT has devolved into a giant Police Chase, it is certainly not a War.
Terrorism, well now that has become a "problem", something to be "managed" like Prostitution, Gambling & Drug running, how special.
How post modern.
W,
When, do you think we will be punishing Osama, Dr Z or their Iraqi cohorts?
When will Pakistan be punished for founding the Taliban?
When will Pakistan be punished for continuing to support the Taliban?
When will Pakistan be punished for giving aQ Sancturary in Warizistan?
The US has proven, it does not have the Power you describe. We cannot reach out and touch the Individuals responsible.
That is why there was, and still is, a need for a War.
When will Pakistan be punished for providing Iran with Nuclear technologies.
Anyone that believes the Dr Khan was acting as a "rouge" in establishing that Network is not thinking clearly.
The Military leadership in Pakistan knew what the good Dr Khan was up to. That is why he is free and US agents are not allowed to speak to him.
As a fall guy he is even less believable, to be the Responsible Party than Col North was.
But that's the story, their stickin' to it.
'Rat,
Some guy that's coming out with a big scary novel about terror actually said:
"A few guys that learned microsoft flight simulator" pulled off 9-11 in an interview in the last few days.
...that was a perspective shared by my son when he was 16.
It didn't take too long for me to disabuse him of his naive fantasy by bringing up all the other things they did that took actual money, time, planning,commitment, and BACKING.
Kahn just looked up a few things on the internets, printed them out, got an airline ticket, and VOILA!
Then coordinated all those Army trucks to haul the centrifuges to the port of embarkation, load 'em onto ships or planes, and send them on their way to the many untold destinations around the World.
With out the Internal Security guys in Pakistan knowing, or caring.
In a Military Dictatorship.
Those Generals were playing pretty footloose and fancy free with their Nuclear technology.
You see, doug, it was not really all that important to them.
There was a terrorist raid into Kashmere to plan.
6:37 AM - Left out Training and Practice.
In REAL Simulators, and REAL Airplanes.
"How many Muslim comedians are there?"
At least one that I'm aware of:
Link to IHT article on Danish satirist Omar Marzouk.
Quote:
"I don't care if my jokes bomb. They go straight to heaven where they get 72 virgin jokes"
If we had had the technological ability in '43 to take out Hitler would we have played it "smart" for two more years instead?
...how many little hitlers does that apply to now, in addition to the genuine article in Tehran?
Muslim Humor:
Stoning a teenage rape victim *before* beheading her.
Ha Ha.
Reality Home TV footage of teenage Gay boys in a cage before Hanging.
Ha Ha.
Terrorism Works.
State Sponsored Terrorism REALLY works.
Why can't anyone spell "Yamamoto" anymore?
"How many Muslim comedians are there?"
Dave Chappelle, for one.
The 14 April 1943 message schedule for C-in-C of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isuroku Yamamoto’s visit to Ballale and Buin was immediately recognized by Hypo traffic analysts and given to Marine Major Alva Lasswell, who worked on it most of the night. The first decrypt was hand carried by Commander W. Jasper Holmes to Layton, who immediately notified Nimitz. Nimitz passed the information to Halsey, who forwarded it to his subordinate air commanders. Further decrypts of this and a supplementary message were also made by navy stations. Rear Admiral Marc. A. Mitscher, Commander Air Solomons advised Halsey that Army Air Force P-38’s on Guadalcanal had the range to interdict Yamamoto’s flight. Halsey and Nimitz approved his recommendation. Early accounts that Washington, including Secretary Knox or Roosevelt, had to approve the shootdown attempt are unsubstantiated and have been discounted.
Dan, 7:45 AM
But if we dick around long enough, something as pleasant as that, or worse, is BOUND to happen.
Even if Madame Hillary is the one to hit the switch.
"What does it mean to an opium farmer that the country's main oil pipeline or its country's electricity has been knocked out? What does it mean to a family that lives on bread and the goats in the yard and on the wife's and daughters' rug-weaving?"
---
There were quotes almost identical to that in a piece I linked a few days ago:
People on the street said:
"We carried on our daily lives through the Iran/Iraq War,
What's the big deal?"
Doug: What's the big deal?
That's the point. We need to make it a big deal, otherwise the problem is never going to go away. People need to be forced into making an informed decision. This statistic of a billion plus and growing, fast, needs to be reversed.
A place like Downtown Manhattan has more in common with downtown london paris or berlin than it does with a small town 50 miles up the Hudson river.
but a place like downtown manhattan controls a great deal of the media output of the USA.
////////////
The way to understand this is to understand that many countries that are represented in the UN really consist of one city that has no jurisdiction outside of the capital for that country.
The countryside behaves independently of the capital.
Similiarly you have immensely powerful cities like new york or london or paris or berlin that have have more cultural affinities to each other than to the towns and villages that surround them. Nor do these mega cities actually exercise civil control over their countryside.
dan,
Retired Maj. Gen Robert H. Scales, a former commander of the Army War College wrote this in the Wash Times.
It covers the basic US options, overtly military, in Iran.
While not the final word, it is an excellent primer
A strategy for disarming Iran
" ,,, In war, geography counts. Iran has avoided hundreds of years of colonial regime change because of its formidable natural defenses. The country is enormous, perhaps three times larger than Iraq. Vast deserts shield the interior. A thousand-mile chain of the Alp-like Zagros Mountains effectively blocks any easy landward advance from Arab counties toward Tehran. ... "
Doug: They did consult the JAGs before launching the mission to shoot down Yammamoto, in order to make sure that it was a legitimate act of war. Hard to believe, in the usual context that we think of WWII.
But only a couple of years later Truman had to give his approval for the atomic attacks, but I don't think that any lawyers were consulted.
By that time the Japanese had demonstrated that they cared nothing for their own lives, and that was enough for us. And the Islamic Facists demonstrated that on Day One.
Dan,
I find it a sufficient provocation, them just being affiliated with that murderous blood cult. Why don't you?
If you accept even the possibility that history has a direction that direction would be towards political, economic and social organization that provides an improving standard of living for the greatest number of human beings. The historical trinity is liberal democracy, free markets and institutions that promote free association and expression.
The 20th century was an egregiously violent period of history during which the historical trinity confronted the last vestiges of monarchism and the particularly virulent anti-historical forces of fascism and communism within a relatively brief time frame. Although I don't believe that historical outcomes are preordained I also don't believe it an accident of history that the polity that singularly best represents the historical trinity emerged from 20th century as the dominant conceptual and material force on earth.
Islam is also an anti-historical force. Islam has its benign spiritual elements but they are too inclusive and too tightly wrapped in a political shell to define it as a religion. I recently heard a lecture/discussion with a Sufi college professor. He described spirtual Islam, the relationship of man to God, in terms I easily understood and identified with from my Judeo-Christian perspective. When he spoke of the man-to-man relationship in Islam he used many examples from the Koran and from history to demonstrate that Islam was tolerant, educative and progressive. The professor never made the connection, and the moderator never brought it up, but every contextual reference from the Koran and every historical example given by the professor occurred AFTER political conquest.
What I took from that lecture was that even from the most mildly mannered, well educated, spirtual aspect of Islam that conceptual terms like justice, tolerance and love have an entirely different meaning. From the Islamic perspective it is an injustice that Sharia does not define the political structure, tolerance is only for the subjugated, love and mercy are only for fellow believers.
That is not to say that all Muslims are bad people. Far from it. Humans are too complicated to catergorize them so broadly. Islam itself, however, is pernicious. I don't know if it's possible to separate the spiritual from the political, or if anybody even thinks it's desireable. But before I would even consider the seriousness of a "moderate" Muslim's conversation I want to know where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights fit into the equation, and for how long.
dan,
Not that particular piece, no.
There are other viewpoints then General Scales.
My own solution would be a radical departure from staying the course or invading Iran.
The US was attacked by Wahabbi Mohameddans, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Government of the General President is by no means secure.
The 48 Nuclear Warheads that exists in aQ's Homeland, those are the first and foremost threat to Civilization.
I would go to the heart of the matter, leaving the Iraqis to sort out their internal problems internally.
Dan, trimming a population of 1.2 billion by a few million does not make for a holocaust. How many atomic bombs do you think it would take to have people decide as to whether they really believe in mahmud's supremacy cult?
To say such a thing about Mr Bush and Mr Cheney, dan, that sure is a switcher-oo for two.
Right out of the Wahhabist Saudi's play book. They attack US, we attack their greatest Enemies, one after another.
While their Proxies in Pakistan stand ready. Any bets on how deep Saudi influence is in Pakistan, both with the Holy Warriors and the Army General Staff?
Who ever said the Sauds couldn't play the Great Game?
That leaves only the airborne "coup de main" option, doable with help from a robust international coalition and only remotely possible if we have reliable intelligence about the location of Iranian nuclear warheads, missiles and launchers. A takedown of Iranian nuclear capabilities would begin with special operations, light infantry and air transported light armored units arriving by an aerial bridge to establish forward operating bases, essentially secure but temporary enclaves, deep inside Iran near known nuclear facilities.
I agree that this is the most likely scenario, if we decide to use the military.
I'm not sure we will, though. I think our current game is judo and misdirection.
For better or worse, I think Bush and Condi will make a long-term strategic maneuver that will, in the short-term, look like weakness. It might even be weakness, political or constitutional or whatever. It might be based on blinkered thinking, or on vain hopes. But I no longer think we will see a unilateral military expedition in Iran.
What's left, when you take the military option off the table, is creativity, cleverness, and grand strategy.
Speculation:
If we are to win with diplomacy (in the long run), I think we are going to have to give the Mullahs what they want: nuclear capability. I also think that we will need some way of validating their possession at the UN. Such validation would serve both parties: the Mullahs gain legitimacy and the UN retains a modicum of relevancy. If that was all we gain, of course, it would not be enough. Without more, the Mullahs would be able to credibly claim to have defeated the West. They would look like winners and we would look like losers.
But, I think, that might be the point. The Mullahs might have placed so much emphasis on winning this particular battle that they are prepared to accept typical 'Western' garnish on the deal.
I started thinking about this as a possibility upon reading about the history, and effect, of the Helsinki Accords on the Soviet Union (and remember, Condi is a Soviet and Cold War guru). The Helsinki agreement was thought to be a huge failure for American diplomacy, because it formally recognized and legitimized for the first time Soviet control of Eastern Europe. Senator Jackson condemned it as an act of weakness, as did many others.
For the same reason, Brezhnev thought he won a major victory. Here, he told his people, was validation for all our sacrifice. Here was the international respect and legitimacy for which the Soviet nation had sacrificed so much. Here was progress.
But embedded in the agreement was the now famous statement of human rights. The Soviets, in their obsession with 'legitimacy', bought and swallowed a poisoned apple, and gave fuel to the fire that would eventually consume them. After all, they could hardly hide the human rights clauses while trumpeting the agreement as a success in international law. Dissidents were given hope, and the great unraveling began to speed up. It is a great example of how what appears to be a short-term defeat can bring about a long-term, and final, victory.
Note that it was the Western Europeans who championed the human rights clauses. Note that Brezhnev thought it was typical Western garnish, irrelevant and inconsequential. Note that giving Brezhnev what he wanted most led him to accept what he needed least. Note that the Soviet Union no longer exists.
History never repeats, but it does have some amazing similarities. I would not be surprised if something like this was our play against Iran.
We can always destroy, and we are powerful enough to withstand almost any storm. It might be time to test our strength by showing weakness.
I say this, of course, out of one side of my brain. I am also perfectly capable of supporting and backing a military intervention.
The post was, if anything, food for thought.
opotho
Those statements are not in conflict. Islam is an ideology. Individuals are, well, individual. Many individuals are Muslim because one or both parents were Mulsim. Many individuals who identify themselves as Muslim probably don't think much about it beyond the basic spiritual aspects, it at all. There is a world of possibilities for each individual.
dan
That Mr al Sadr is a major force in Iraqi politics is a direct result of US Actions. His ability and power is part and parcel US Policy.
We could have easily set Mr Allawi or Mr Chilabi up as President with an adequate Force to maintain them, if Stability had been Policy.
Our Policy has not, however, been one of Stability, but of Radical Change.
We have invited the Iranian influence in Iraq, indeed our actions have evcouraged it.
Whom are the British in Basra protecting the Iraqis from, other then themselves?
Opotho;
'How do we square these two statements?'
Wretchard is looking at individual Muslims, whit is looking at the religion as a whole (as currently practiced/proclaimed by it's leadership.)
I think that the real question is how much do you water down your struggle against the group (in this case the religion of Islam, as currently practiced) as a whole in an attempt to avoid targeting the "good" individuals.
With a secondary question being (if you are looking at this from the "big picture" perspective) are individuals who allow the rest of the group (of which they are a part) to act in this manner "good", and worthy of worrying about? (This obviously excludes those relatively few Muslims who have spoken out against the fanatics.)
Aristides,
That will work if there is reasonable assurance that they won't use the nuclear weapons, and/or provide them to someone else to use. In that aspect, I think that North Korea is actually more trustworthy than Iran (although I still wouldn't "bet the house" on Kim being rational) because I question whether current Iranian leadership is thinking "long term." Are we willing to "bet the house" that they are?
Isn't dealing with Islam primarily a political problem for us rather then a problem that can be addressed militarily? Can we really bomb them into thought change? I think not. In fact an attack from US is more likely to deepen the political problem, make it more radical, as opposed to alleviate it.
Doug wrote:
"But if we dick around long enough, something as pleasant as that, or worse, is BOUND to happen"
Why is it (Islamists nuke US) BOUND to happen? Wasn't this the fear of the a nuke armed Soviet Union? It is quite a stretch to think it is inevitable and to predicate action upon that prediction.
Desert Rat,
A few threads ago you posed the question as to why Iran's pres was interested in getting bombed. An interesting article in Asia Times on this:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB18Ak02.html
Exhelo,
That's the $64,000 question. Will the Iranians use or disseminate the nukes, once they have them?
I have no special insight on this question, but my gut instinct is that the answer is a function of time. I believe the Iranians will use or disseminate their weapons eventually, but I don't believe it will happen right out of the nuclear gates. In fact, I think front-loading a big Iranian victory in this process makes use/dissemination less likely. Deftness at one game usually does not lead one to quit the game. Revolution in strategy and paradigm does not follow success, it follows failure and crisis. If we give them a diplomatic victory, I think they will stick to that game until their options are exhausted.
Of course, this depends to a large degree on them not being collectively insane.
I think I know what they want. I think they want power and prestige more than they want martyrdom. I think they will pursue this over the short and medium term. I also think this gives us an opportunity to do a judo flip. In short, I think the center of gravity here is the Iranian people, and we still have time win diplomatically and morally.
It's a gamble, sure. But so is becoming the world's most hated hegemon.
In the end, the Mullahs will be gone and America will still be standing. All that's left is to fill in the detail.
opotho said...
Charles, my reply wasn't meant as a tweaking of your idea at all. I just seized on an opportunity to talk about the weird goings-on in a town on the Hudson north of Manhattan.
////////////////
its worth noting that the founders wanted all their state and federal capitals to be away from all the financial and commercial centers because they believed that the urban centers didn't promote morality.
Thats the reason that the capital of New York is Albany and not NYC or the capital of California is Sacramento and not LA or San francisco
opotho: The main problem is that a very significant percentage of the leaders of that religion support the violent actions of those members.
Why not go after the ideologues and their power base(s). That is, why not nuke 10 major centers of islamic power and historical significance (Makkah, Yathrib, Najaf, Karbala, Qom, Isfahan, Cairo, etc.) and raze all other minor structures by conventional means. Wouldn't that put a cork on this movement?
The Islamic paradigm is monological, existing separately from, and often in spite of, reality. It is a static structure of beliefs and imperatives. It is based entirely on revelatory truth.
The Enlightenment paradigm is dialogical, existing in response to, and in anticipation of, reality. This makes it dynamic and responsive, and therefore adaptable. It is based on discovered and tested truth.
One of these is inherently unfit to survive evolutionary pressures and crises. One of these, on the other hand, is structured on the principles of evolution and can withstand such forces.
If Islam is to survive, it will have to put away certainty, and pick up curiosity and adaptability.
QED.
Optho,
I agree with Wretchard’s notion that we can still hold individuals accountable as opposed to writing off the whole group. I do not think that the entire Muslim world is the enemy and hence they all must be killed. In the same vein I think that showing images of the fallen and cartoons offending Muslims both can be freely ‘expressed’. Simply because you maintain that “they” are the enemy does not then mean I am not free to express a thought. Similarly by declaring us the enemy have ‘they’ no more rationale for constraining our freedom of expression. I think you are unnecessarily constraining freedom of expression in the name of an ill defined broad never-ending war that is a war more in the sense of “war on drugs” then in the sense of nation states in conflict.
If you had the responsibility of assessing the potential impact of European monarchies on the extension of liberal democracy and free markets over the next several generations would you recite your interpretation of 500 year old history or would you evaluate the contemporary situation?
Bin Laden and Zawahiri have written about 30 discourses over the past few years. It's probably fair to say that their writings are reflective of the contemporary thought of the Muslim Brotherhood, Islam's most pervasive political movement, and perhaps more broadly these writings are reflective of the political aspirations of pan-Islamic Salafism. If you have an argument that Salafism should not be synonomous for Islam in the current landscape I would like to hear it.
EVERY "CLERIC" THAT PUTS A PRICE ON THE CARTOONISTS SHOULD BE TAKEN OUT,
Predator Style:
Screw the "collateral" damage.
Fellow Animal Followers.
Dan, more Islamic history and data.
whit,
I've got a link two threads back on Mexican-Punjabi-Americans in CA who for the first 50 years became more and more assimilated.
...now they won't go to the churches anymore, since the new arrivals from Pakistan are taking them back to the 13th Century AGAIN.
Money quote is a Mexican-Punjabi Pioneer doing his version of Pryor:
"Those Indians Are Crazy!"
"MAD is an option I would not take off the table a priori. Granted, it is in extremis, but it also assumes that some last shred of rationality might just exist in the back of the mind of that madman in Tehran. "
---
fred,
After a few Demo Prequels, it would work with the people if not the mad*men* (plural) in charge.
Opotho: mika - seems a bit extreme,.. Our big difference is you that you suggest your plan would "put a cork in it".
Why do you disagree? Was I being too modest in applying the correct force to achieve this goal. Actually, now that I think of it, it might be better to nuke 40 or 50 cities, (say, a mil per nuke) just to be sure we're not too modest in applying the correct force. My only regret in all of this, is thinking of all the wonderful scientific and intellectual heritage to be lost along with those madrases.
"This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet (ed. Danish cartoonists) deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/17/D8FQV798B.html
Rather than believe that this nut job's words actually mean something the Danish cartoonists should assess the risk by grabbing their history books to compare Islam and Christendom in the year 1280.
desert rat,
A Japanese newspaper reported that after September 11 President was offered, perhaps in a pro-forma way, the nuclear option, which he rejected. That's a reminder that the path to total war has always been open to the US. The Global War on Terror is an attempt to resolve the issue with limited war by narrowly employing force against state sponsors of terrorism.
In the specific case of Iraq the idea was to punish Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath but not Joe Iraqi. The Left and pacifism are doing everything in their power to oppose limited war and to substitute in its place the ludicrous notion of a police operation. We must get warrants to wiretap Al Qaeda. We must mind our P&Qs when interrogating Hambali. We must allow the agents of the Jihad, disguised as Holy Men, to organize cells in our midst. Pacifism, by these acts, will make limited war fail. But the alternative is not as they imagine a police operation but an increasingly total war.
optho,
The origin of the conflict is not an issue for me. The notion of what is taboo, and offensive is. For some reason so many of 'them' find the cartoons offensive. Similarily many here in the US find images of our own dead soldiers offensive. To both I say, well, sorry, but hey, that's life, feel free to feel offended. But somehow you are bringing in this grand War thing as a justification for suppressing the freedom of expression. Why, will our offended populace be demoralized and our will sapped and our soldiers fail to fight? This undeclared war against an undeclared enemy which is a looooong war justifies the suppression of a freedom we cherish? That is far to Orwellian for me.
Peshawar/AP
An ill-contrived question is not redeemed with affectation.
W,
But now we are not even fighting a Limited War, that is the point. Whether the cause is Lefties, Moonbats, poor Army Doctrine, the MSM or any combination there of, we are in the midst of a Police Operation.
No where are the Allies on the Offensive. The Terrorists are on the Offensive and have the big Mo'.
Ms Rice went to Congress to get $75 Million USD for the Propaganda War. Just a couple of weeks ago, DoD asked for $75 Billion to continue Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One tenth of 1% of the Military's Budget is not nearly enough to fight the War of the Mind.
But no ones fightiing a War, except the few men on the ground and, of course, their families.
No, dear optho, the extended length of this War has not been due to the dissenters.
It is due to the Policies implemented by the Bush Administration and by the Military. With the Military being in charge of the Operations. Or at least that is the Public Face of it.
The Generals have not been slowed by either the WaPo or Dan Rather, but by their own Training, Doctrine and Institutional CYA.
The lack of Victory is always the responsibility of the Commander, not the onlookers nor the comments made by pundits, fools, jesters or Calypso singers.
see optho this is where we disagree. I don't think it is idealism that I propound but rather the problem stems from the simplistic notion that there is a military solution to what is primarily a political problem. Invading and occupying Iraq has done little to move us toward our goal of a free and democratic middle east. In fact it has been counter productive.
"Wretchard writes: ... as to Muslims in general there are thousands risking their lives in American service right now. ... I've trusted [certain Muslims] with my life in situations where it would cost them nothing and gain them much to put me over the side.
Islam is antithetical to Western Civilization. To argue otherwise is foolishness or ignorance.
How do we square these two statements?
whit (et al), I thought we'd dispensed with your brand of bigotry in the "Past as Prologue" thread."
---
You evidently dispensed with it in your mind only, Opotho.
I find throwing the bigot word around like that offensive, your superior knowledge of the great religion of Islam notwithstanding.
*I* thought comparisons of Christianity of the past with Muhammedism as practiced today were dealt with in the first few months after 9-11.
The fact that they are trying (and succeeding to some extent) to impose sharia on others BEFORE they are in the majority and when their military might is negligible means NOTHING, *TODAY?*
What the Hell are you thinking?
ex-helo and Boston make a lot more sense to me than you do.
What good is a discussion of history when it is at the expense of the immediate present?
Islam + Political Correctness = Suicide
desert rat,
But now we are not even fighting a Limited War
It's starting to look that way. From here on there are two ways to go. We can enter a period of paralysis from which we will be woken only by a new and probably larger disaster; or create a new sense of urgency from the post September 11 experience.
In my more optimistic moments I think we are in the latter. We are so much better informed and experienced today than four years ago. And some I daresay, angrier. The question is whether we can harness the experience to the anger to renew the limited war more effectively.
The shrillness and sheer mendacity with which the old appeasers defend their cause suggests to me that while they appear fierce, they are actually on their last legs. I think there's still hope for the world but we are going into the fourth quarter.
'Rat 1:53 PM,
Given that it is the second term, time is running out, we have no idea what will come next, even though I would normally argue,
I won't.
Lack of Decisiveness is a Decision, and the costs of can-kicking are unknowable.
opotho said...
As for me, "if my thought-dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine" (Dylan). That's why I need venues like Belmont Club...
7:44 AM
//////////
Opotho
I lived on 112St & RSD for about 17 years. I left in 1991. You won't become a free man until you figure out why it was that Melville began his book "Call Me Ishmael" ie the story of a guy who leaves New York.
Can it be reasonably argued in retrospect that the monsters that put a price on Rushdie's head, the sponsers of Stethem's murderers, etc etc should not have been dealt with soon after the assaults on humanity occured?
Religion is as Religion Does.
Addition to 1:59 PM:
There is also that minor issue of daily calls to incinerate Israel, the Great Satan, and etc.
But far be it for me to take that seriously, or worse, call it bigotry.
Invading and occupying Iraq has done little to move us toward our goal of a free and democratic middle east. In fact it has been counter productive.
Thud.
So what you're saying here, if I can tweak it out, is that the Middle East is less free and democratic than it was in 2002? So by liberating a country and bringing democracy we somehow enslaved a country and took democracy away? Or am I missing some nuanced point, here?
Ash, you must understand why many of us here do not take you seriously, even while we spend time trying to bring you around. You would have us believe that bringing democracy is tantamount to taking it away. You would have us believe that an Iraq with Saddam was somehow more free and democratic than a Iraq with a popularly elected democratic government.
Read Michael Totten. It might open your eyes (not holding my breath).
W should rename his previous entry, "I Am Spartacus" to "I Am A Bigot". And for the record:
I AM A BIGOT!
aristides if you want to treat democracy in the narrow sense, that is as simply voting, then yes we have made Iraq more democratic. This, however has done little toward our larger goal of reducing terrorism and fighting the rise of Islamofascism.
brb, narrow sense
lol @ ash
Ash,
Sometimes you can do a rain dance all year long, and nada. And then, come New Year, it would pour.
Personally, I would not have bothered with the "rain dance". I have no moral compunction in following the recipe I described above. But for some people, W Bush and yourself being an example, doing the rain dance gives them an important emotional relief. The rain dance however, is irrelevant to whether it's going to rain, or not.
Democracy is a process. Often a messy process as we've seen from its development in the world's oldest democracy. Not only has Iraq had national elections which were well paricipated, they have a written constitution and functioning institutions which operate within the constitutional framework. There is a free market in many areas of the economy and a vigorous, independent press.
To suggest that Iraq is not more democratic than it was under Saddam is an absurdity. If you want to set perfection as the standard have at it but mix in a little common sense please.
What does "win over" the moderate Muslims mean? The US had made it clear by its small footprint in Afganistan and Iraq that conquest and destruction are not its intention. By its intervention in Kosovo and by its massive humanitarian aid contributions it's clear that the beneficiaries of American might and largesse are not culturally selected. Instead of jailing the board of CAIR they get invitations to the WH. The list goes on.
By win-over do you mean give-up something? What shall it be? Israel? Freedom of the press?
I really thought then, and think now, that bringing up Ireland is almost halfway there to those that bring up McVeigh as an "argument" about how and where to find terrorists.
Seems like the FBI pretty well dealt with domestic terrorists already (except for some Greens) whereas we have a LONG way to go with the Mohammedans.
To me to compare PRESENT predilections of Mohammedan ruled populations wrt violence and desire for domination to "Christian" nations around the world is absurd.
...and you did not address my point about them trying/succeeding in getting others to submit WHILE they are still in the MINORITY.
Can't think of too many Christians worldwide that are doing that by means of violence or threats of violence.
Boston,
Perhaps be more sensitive in your utterances as they air their next Beheading Snuff Video.
(and their "street" cheers)
'K?
A Danish ham says a lot more about the progress of humanity than Muqtedar Khan ever will.
Oh well, I tried.
People are won over by (1) taking the boot off their necks, and by (2) contributing so far as possible to the creation of free markets and institutions that promote the dignity of the individual. Lecturing Muslims on Islamic jurisprudence would not be my first strategy.
at which time you make me into something I'm not before the lesser lights at Belmont Club
Would that something be a horse's ass?
Opotho,
re: the denial of a dialogical element in Islam.
As you have pointed out, it was not always so, this Islamic monological insistence, and I do not think I have ever said it was. It is enlightening, for our purposes, to juxtapose the periods of Islamic success with the periods of Islamic intellectual curiosity.
It is the case, however, that Islam is currently intellectually hermetic, subsisting entirely on revealed truth, except at the margins. Islam is as Islam does, after all, and right now it is not looking so good for Islam.
But I think we are arguing two sides of the same coin. I say Islam in its present iteration must evolve or go extinct. You say it is salvageable. We both assert the same thing, I've just characterized 'why'.
Jihad has many meanings, of course, all of them 'true' in the sense they are directly supported by authority and history.
I'm not sure what non-Muslims can do in this interpretive battle except eliminate those who advocate jihad as war.
I'm not sure either. In a way our problem is made more difficult by Islam's decentralized nature.
There is not just one leader we can convince, we must convince individuals. Convincing individuals is much more complex, because everybody is his or her own unique receiver. A particular strategy may work on, say, 15 year old girls from Afghanistan that live near the cities, but not on 15 year old boys in Pakistan who live in the mountains. Etc. Etc.
It's a shame, because if nothing changes, it is going to be those types of Muslims that suffer, i.e. the innocents.
We are also battling public opinion on our side. The pacifists are not really a concern, because if we are attacked their voices will be marginalized. But the hawks will demand blood if we get hit again, and their mantra will be "better them dead than us."
There is no defeating that logic, and whole cities will be pulverized. I'm afraid this is what we are sleep walking towards.
Opotho,
Your basic approach is the same as that of Ash. What you both fail to understand is that it's not up to us to convince these people that this cannot continue, it is for them to convince themselves. And they are never going to get there by the approach you're subscribing.
Mika,
" it is for them to convince themselves. "
And if they don't? so what? This kind of highlights the military solution vs. the political solution. How can we employ military force to "convince them" of the rightness or our position? We can't. Like a rebellious teenager if you bring the hammer down you are likely to lose the battle. Similarily applying the boot to the neck is unlikely to convince them of the error of their theistic ways.
So, we can't convince them with our guns. Why bother trying? To date, the few real military clashes we've had amount to a few skirmishs in historical context. The worst was done on 911 and the 'them' that hit us is a quite intangible thing. Not a nation state by any means. Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan has been quite the fight, but we invaded 'them'. Our aggressive actions have yielded little result while a passive but defensive posture (look to Israels latest approach) has a better chance of 1. protecting our nation and 2. allow our superior ideas to prevail. Invading occupying and 'taking the battle to them' to very little toward advancing our larger goals (i.e. advancing democracy and perpetuating the american ideal) unless you view securing oil supplies as a paramount goal.
I think both us and the Muslims are sleep walking towards disaster.
I understand what you are saying Opotho. I agree that it would solve the problem. I also think teaching Constitutional Law to the masses would solve a lot of the Supreme Court problems we have.
The problems are the same. On the one hand you have to have an interested audience, and on the other hand you have to have an intelligible and penetrating message. Having the answer is only part of the solution. Communicating it to a receptive audience is much more difficult.
Mika,
That is largely correct. One is not interested in teaching metaphysics when the student has a gun to one's head.
Just a comment for Aristedes. You contrast the monological nature of revealed knowledged with the dialogical nature of enlightenment reason. But there can be no reasoning in abstracto; one can only reason out, or on top of, a pre-existing revelation, whether a false or true revelation into the nature of reality.
The Enlightenment gave us many false or Gnostic revelations and reasoning, see e.g. the Nazi mind. Whether or not there is hope for Islam to make something of its founding revelation, something that is suited to the modern world will not depend on their rejecting revelation for reason, but better grasping the relationship between the two. (If you don't like the reasoning you're mired in, get a new revelation.) The reason of the west, e.g., has evolved from the truth of Judeo-Christian revelation.
Opotho: mika - I can't imagine why you'd stand on any point that might expedite this war for us.
LOL! Sorry, but I fail to see how nuking fifty of their cities will expedite a war on us. What it will do however is help mahmud expedite reevaluation of his universe his jihadi belief system and survival strategy. As I said earlier, it is not for me or you convince anyone of anything, it is for them to convince themselves.
Maybe i misunderstand Aristedes, Opotho, for which apologies. Still, it is possible to mix revelation with dialectics. THat's the story of the west.
Ash, I already told you. I'm not interested in your rain dance.
TP,
Agreed, and perhaps I was unclear. In referring to Islam as monological, I had a particular meaning in mind (I've been reading Mikhail Bakhtin's The Dialogical Imagination). (Also, as a side note, Bakhtin goes to great effort to separate the concept 'dialogical' from 'dialectical').
A dialogical utterance is simply one "link in the chain of speech communication". It's defining characteristic is responsiveness or "addressivity", which is its relation to other utterances.
What's lost in monological utterances is its response to, and anticipation of, other utterances. Islam in this sense is monological, almost unmatched in its "one sided seriousness". Islam is not simply one link in a non-linear chain. It is meant to be the alpha and omega, the capital letter and the puncuation.
In other words, Islam speaks to reality, rather than with reality.
Opotho: sorry mika, I always forget that you're today's answer to Curtis LeMay.
Wiki: "LeMay commanded B-29 operations against Japan, including the massive incendiary attacks on sixty four Japanese cities. This included the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 - March 10, 1945. For this first attack LeMay removed the armaments on 325 B-29s, loaded each plane with firebomb clusters and ordered the bombers out at 5 - 9,000 feet over Tokyo. The first planes arrived over Tokyo just after midnight on March 10. In a three hour period they dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs killing more than 100,000 civilians and incinerating 16 square miles of the city.
On December 7, 1964 the Japanese government conferred on him the First Order of Merit with the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun."
Why do you suppose they did that?
In other words, Islam speaks to reality, rather than with reality.
-yes, I have even been led to think that Islam thinks it is reality, that any suggestion that there is some difference between the world of true Koranic signs and the world as it is is scandalous. BUt i'm sure i'm not making any sense...
Boston,
If it sounds like a horses ass, and smells like a horses ass...
"As you're well aware, my current mention of Christian sectarian violence has to do with the idea that such things are in Christendom's past, which is factually untrue.
That goes to the aggrandizing of our own essence claims. If it's unfounded then people should knock it off."
---
You may think I'm toying/goading, but I'm not, it's simply that I have no idea where you get off comparing the worldwide problem Mohammedan Governments have getting along with ANYBODY, as compared to Christianity, which may have problems, but except in your rather exceptional example, do not seek violent solutions and promise death to those who offend them.
Upshot being, I sincerely have no idea wtf you are talking about.
(but then I am one of the great unwashed dimbulbs out here unable to recognize true brilliance, sorry.)
While it may be "factually untrue,"
and this ain't horseshoes, it is close enough as compared with the RoP to qualify as enlightened in my book.
"Islam is antithetical to Western Civilization. To argue otherwise is foolishness or ignorance." says Whit.
Then Opotho says Whit is bigoted, and quotes Wretchard AS IF Wretchard had said he trusts Islam, when in fact Wretchard said, "As a practical matter there are certain Muslims I know who I could trust implicitly."
Opotho, GROK the difference between Islam (the religion, the ideology, the meme, the influencing culture) and Muslims (the humans, individuals and people MORE or LESS affected BY) Islam!
Seeing the distinction is a sign of rational intelligence.
Good question, Opotho.
But it rests on your first independently investigating, in a rational manner, the events that DID happen immediately prior to and since May 23, 1844.
You've done a simple Google search, no doubt, or soon will, in order to ascertain 'whatever b.s.' actually came to pass on the day the telegraph was publicly introduced and our modern Day of electronic communication and vast enlightenment began.
THEN you can ASK informed questions of me OR make informed comments about the only World Community and how it got to be what it is...
Until then, you run the risk of appearing... uhm... a bit prejudicial.
The road to Al Qaeda isn't through Tehran. They're one enemy, but they're not that enemy, though they might work together.
So far as 1980, yes it was in the midst of Khomeini, but in 1980, Khomeini was not yet the sole ruler in Iran. The country was in the midst of civil disturbances and infighting even heavier than that today, the revolution had just happened and the Islamic fundies were trying to ditch their former leftist allies. It was after the invasion that the Islamic fundamentalists were able to wield authoritative control and focus all Iranian energy against the hated invaders.
As for being on the verge of Tehran...no. The Iraqis focused on the Southwestern portions of Iran, never attempted to capture Tehran, they were just looking for a limited landgrab while their opponent was in disorder, moving towards Tehran would have ruined that.
This is not to say that Iranian nuclear weapons aren't a big problem, but going after them isn't going to touch Al Qaeda, only make them happy by removing their ideological enemy, and making our task in Southern Iraq more difficult.
The thing that worries me is that there really isn't an Plan B if the US proves unable to entice Islam to purge its own demons, we can't manage 1.2 billion people and killing them is only a last ditch option that might kills us morally as well.
A possible plan B - if another big attack creates Trish's extraordinary circumstances - seize the Saudi oil fields in the East, telling the world to shove it in the process (and stay away from Mecca and Medina in the West). If the Russians, Chinese, and Europeans think a war with us is worth it, better now then later. Unlikely, anyway, if we make a show of putting it under international management. We'll get plenty of bad press, but we can't buy good press anyway nowadays, and they aren't giving us anything anyway.
The only reason the world puts up with those Arabian hicks is their oil, I couldn't care less about the actual oil itself. Let them try and spread their hate around the world on their camel rearing revenues. Pakistan's still a problem, but that'd go a long way to cutting off the spigots to radical Islam. Anti-Americanism will flourish, but that's a lesser problem, the European hate us, but don't blow themselves up getting to us.
Just some thoughts...
"Our aggressive actions have yielded little result while a passive but defensive posture (look to Israels latest approach) has a better chance of 1. protecting our nation and 2. allow our superior ideas to prevail. Invading occupying and 'taking the battle to them' to very little toward advancing our larger goals (i.e. advancing democracy and perpetuating the american ideal) unless you view securing oil supplies as a paramount goal."
The Israeli approach is complete enforced seperation, for the record. No student visas, no immigration, just one big wall.
cutler
I think that is why the Army is still in Iraq, to be honest.
If all else fails, drive south.
Split the proceeds with the effected group, the Global Free Market continues apace.
The spice, it's got to flow.
No Desert_Rat, the spice does not have to flow. The Arabs, the Muslims are the oil addicts.
It works both way. Actually I'm being polite, it works OUR way. The US can cut energy consumption by at least 25% if we were asked to try. At least IF WE WERE ASKED TO TRY. If we really do not want to try we can cut use by five percent.
Pan-Islam cannot make a muffler, a memory chip, grow an orange, build a toaster, without the West.
"The US can cut energy consumption by at least 25% if we were asked to try"
---
Agreed
Easy
W/NO loss of GNP "Conservative" Dogma to the contrary.
But 'Rat knows,
Where there's not a will,
there's not a way.
Those faded wraiths put me in mind of Tennyson's Lotos-eaters, who sing:
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence—ripen, fall, and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
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