The Road
Unfortunately I don't own a television set. But ABC's Path 9/11 is certain to raise the stakes in one of the biggest memetic battles of the War on Terror: who to blame for the attack on Manhattan. In a broad sense, a fairly large part of the public has already concluded it's America's fault, as put forward by Ward Churchill's Justice of Roosting Chickens. But for those unwilling to accept the "little Eichmanns" theory of guilt, there is apparently enough grist in the coming miniseries to make everyone unhappy. For example, the Frontpage advance preview describes this scene:
One astonishing sequence in "The Path to 9/11" shows the CIA and the Northern Alliance surrounding Bin Laden’s house in Afghanistan. They're on the verge of capturing Bin Laden, but they need final approval from the Clinton administration in order to go ahead. They phone Clinton, but he and his senior staff refuse to give authorization for the capture of Bin Laden, for fear of political fall-out if the mission should go wrong and civilians are harmed. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger in essence tells the team in Afghanistan that if they want to capture Bin Laden, they'll have to go ahead and do it on their own without any official authorization. That way, their necks will be on the line - and not his. The astonished CIA agent on the ground in Afghanistan repeatedly asks Berger if this is really what the administration wants. Berger refuses to answer, and then finally just hangs up on the agent. The CIA team and the Northern Alliance, just a few feet from capturing Bin Laden, have to abandon the entire mission. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda shortly thereafter bomb the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing over 225 men, women, and children, and wounding over 4000. The episode is a perfect example of Clinton-era irresponsibility and incompetence. (More follows)
The objection to such scenes of course is that it's "only TV". And the natural rebuttal is "it's on TV". Michael Barone at US News takes a magnifier to the scene described above.
One gripping scene shows Massoud's forces--and CIA agents surrounding bin Laden's encampments and then being called back when National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give a go-ahead for the operation. That scene, according to 9/11 commission Chairman Thomas Kean, an adviser to the film, is a conflation of a number of events; during the question period, commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, perhaps the most partisan member of the commission, said that it misrepresented what actually happened. But, as Kean pointed out, the Clinton administration did decline a number of opportunities to get bin Laden.
And yes, the show is a dramatized re-enactment.
The film was shot with 16-millimeter cameras and is edited in an edgy style suggesting hand-held cameras. The fascinating footage of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan was actually shot in Morocco; most of the rest of the film was shot in Toronto, with some scenes shot in Washington and New York.
But if recent events are any yardstick, pulling back just as the enemy was on the ropes has been the story of modern public life. Everyone is accused of missing the boat -- whether the voyage is described as the opportunity to 'engage' Syria, destroy Hezbollah, 'reconcile' with Iran or stop Bin Laden -- we're all left at the dock and the ship of history sails on.
posted by wretchardthecat at 9/01/2006 07:28:00 PM
147 Comments:
I would imagine one could have an interesting time travel story with a squad of assassins from the future converging on Beirut circa 1975, trying to find a naive rich young playboy named Osama bin Laden.
At the time, it would have seemed to be cold-blooded murder, but given the chaotic circumstances of the time, it would have chalked up as yet another casualty among thousands to come.
Life is full of missed opportunities and near misses with death. Was the Clinton administration irresponsible? Of course. But I think that many of Clinton's supporters wanted him to be irresponsible. And I think much of the hatred against President Bush is because he isn't irresponsible enough. Part of the voter appeal of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush was that they seemed to lack interest in foreign policy -- much the same appeal that Warren G. Harding had after the disaster of the Wilson administration.
We are dealing with the forces of ballyhoo. Those who are serious about opposing al-Qaeda are virulently opposed by people who want the hedonistic celebration of frivolity to go on forever. Senseless killing doesn't outrage them, but any thought of stopping the party does. Genocide in some far-off place doesn't interest them, but celebrity scandal does. Just like the post WWI era, we are dealing with a media culture that worships at the altar of spectacle.
One wonders if Fascism is a militaristic expression of ballyhoo, where atrocity is glorified so long as it can be dressed up as entertainment.
It tells us everything we need to know about the morals and ethics of Clinton and his administration compared to Bush and his people, to see that Clinton has attempted to coerce the head of ABC to suppress or alter the documentary dealing with his treatment of the threat, and his National Security Advisor Mr. Berger admitted in court to mis-handling, stealing, and destroying critical documents and memos about their anti-terror actions.
Moral lepers, every one.
You might be a blogger...
Listen in on HTML Conversations!
Hear INTERNET FACTS!
Find Out if YOU are Pajamas Media Material!
Take the test!
something silly at apsnyblog.blogspot.com
laught a little.
"laugh a little"
C-4 makes an interesting argument.
Five years after 911, there are two icons that tell us where we are. The missing OBL and the missing Twin Towers. They are important symbols demonstrating the America of the new millenia.
The America of today is a country and a society mired in legal procedure and process. The process has become more important than the need for survival or the ability to set an agenda for the future. America is being destroyed, and I use the term carefully, destroyed, by two repugnant repressive philosophies, Islam and Legalism. And it is not Islamic anything else. It is the very nature and soul of the beast. It is a hideous cult riddled through it's very DNA with everything that Western Civilisation has worked to eliminate from human society. Yet it achieves moral equivalency, protection and sanction from the bane of American Society, lawyers.
lawyers have infected and destroyed the can-do America. The city that built the Empire State Building in one year and forty five days cannot start to rebuild two buildings in five years. Why, not because of Islam or the man that called for them to be felled, no it is because of the cult of legal imams that rule all aspects of American society. American lawyers in a generation and a half could not have changed a society more had they declared a fatwa and made their own jihaad against America. We cannot conduct and fight a war or the fundamental problem with Islam because of them.
C-4 in his post says something we all know to be true: ..."Anyone who is someone in the Trial Lawyer community, Law Schools, Publishing industry, Talent Agents, ACLU - would trample over their own mother, give their left nut to be a Formal Contract Representative furthering the goals of Team Bin Laden. Millions could be made. Reputations elevated by being in a deal 100X bigger than OJ. "...
The jihaad is being fought by an army of one times a billion and a half. The American repsonse is being hampered and directed by an army that terrorises and distorts all aspects of American life. The twin jihaad against American continues until we say, Enough.
C-4 would re-write that script to say, "first kill all of the JOOOs".
Yep, Osama, a cat with at least 9 lives.
From 17 Apr 02
The Tora Bora story. When General Franks said "No" to "getting" Osama.
Not enough proof, verification or perhaps will to send in a Bn of Rangers or Marines, or to really bomb the area from the air.
habu,
it don't mean nothin'
Bravecrotch
Trangbang,
Habu is enjoying a "vacation" at Dr Iron's Farm in Northern CA.
Dr Irons has begun writing prescriptions in the form of poetry.
I think it's good stuff.
The advantage to fighting Nanny Wars is that you need only a small footprint.
The disadvantage is that you must rely on allies who may or may not be reliable.
Since it's not likely that the USA is going on a conquering spree anytime soon the only script in play is the Nanny War. You can bitch and moan about it but that's the way it is and likely to remain for many years to come.
Can't find whit's comment about the need to "Iraqify" in one of these threads, but in this Army Times piece, it says Sept 2 is the day.
That would be now.
We'll see.
---
Sober Report from Iraq
...However, terrorists have not derailed the central government or its political process, according to the report, and the “center is holding.”
Iraqi security forces are assuming the lead in operations and taking over for more American and other coalition forces, Rodman said, adding that the Iraqi Ground Forces Command is expected to stand up Sept. 2.
LINK
Also:
Liberating Anah Check out the video from an AV-8B Harrier jet as a suicide bomber attacks Apache Company, 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, in Anah, Iraq.
Secrets of their success
I love these sentences"
"Those who are serious about opposing al-Qaeda are virulently opposed by people who want the hedonistic celebration of frivolity to go on forever. Senseless killing doesn't outrage them, but any thought of stopping the party does. Genocide in some far-off place doesn't interest them, but celebrity scandal does."
They are so true.
As to ObL, if we catch and/or kill him, we will not be allowed to continue killing his cohorts and minions.
In the Simple Mind (captured by the quote above), capture of ObL means it's time to stop the fight and party harder; an extension of the mind that does not reflect on what the nature of the documents could have been that would cause a man of the (presumed) background and stature of Sandy Berger to go waddling out of the National Archives with a host of original government documents loading up his drawers.
3case,
Mr Bergler has paid his debt to society.
Isn't that enough?
---
---
PBS Has a great piece on O'neill somewhere, I'll try to find it.
Hope the ABC Piece also shows Barbara Bodine kicking O'neill out of Yemen while he was investigating Cole.
What a sad, tragic, catastrophic story of a great terror-fighter being destroyed by a giant unthinking, unfeeling, disfunctional, corrupt, beauracracy/Govt.
Trangbang,
I had the same problem, kept poking around on it, waiting, and eventually it came up.
(click screen, play button, reload, etc)
T=Tereshita Rose'
Maybe should try Video link from Army Times Homepage?
I'm very relieved you stopped at "B", trangbang.
Top-drawer post, hdgreene. Cleans up a little fuzzy spot about the target-value of the enemy's charismatics.
The ideology we fight is older than Islam.
Clinton has attempted to coerce the head of ABC to suppress or alter the documentary ...
To me, the issue is WHICH Clinton?
Bill trying to retroactively give himself a not-incompetent better name, or Hillary trying to set herself up for a future where she would once again be in a position to make world-class mistakes.
habu, permit me, your confusion stems from the "double negative": if something doesn't mean nothing, then it does mean something.
However (and this is why language have rul zinem) in this case you should mentally "correct" the error introduced by the vernacular useage, and interpret the meaning as "forget it, it didn't mean anything."
Buddy,
that is an old Viet Nam GI expression, "Don't mean nothing", which roughly translated to "just forget it", or "no big deal"
TigerHawk understands the phenomenonemum:
There also was, IHTFP, which had two meanings.
Polite form of "don't mean s...?"
Well, ok, habu, but I would ask you to remember how complicated these things can get.
It started life as a black expression, usually went, "sh..........t man, (slight pause) don't mean nuffin, (slightly longer pause) f****k. turns head and laughs.
occam's whiskers; 08:38:05 AM
You misunderstand dear C4. The focus of his brief is not OBL or 911. No, these provide only the backdrops for his genuine interest: blaming the Joos. Were C4 an astrophysicist, he would find an argument to use in blaming Jews for black holes and anti-matter.
Additionally, as an emotionalist, C4 is unconstrained by evidence; instead, he presumes a feeling a thought and an opinion a fact. Thus, as you may have seen over several past threads, I have unsuccessfully attempted to elicit from C4 an answer to a very simple question.
On your address to teresita, consider this:
Massacre on Wake Island
http://www.ussyorktown.com/
yorktown/massacre.html
Wake Island was but an infinitesimal example of Japanese barbarity. From the point of view of their victims, the atomic bombs were only a small repayment.
Doug,
Last I checked "paying one's debt to society" is a long way fromsociety guaranteeing the miscreant it will get amnesia as to the miscreant's deeds.
Note: I did not couch my response in terms of society pardoning the miscreant Bergler as I fully expect their will be, one day, another Dem Presidency and Mr. Bergler will be pardon sometime there within.
And...whatever bit of nefarity he was about, Mr. Bergler more than deserves to be remembered for engaging in a bit of physical comedy worthy of Oliver Hardy, Lou Costello or the Stooge Curly in his waddle with State secrets...and he did it complete with National Archives security providing a Keystone Kops reprise in support.
Nothing is real.
It seems a safe bet to say that few of us imperfect humans, limited of vision and facts, will be able single-handed to faultlessly describe the world’s problems and then come up with working solutions.
So the point of this forum (and others like it, if such there be...) is that the conversation will in time direct our attention to situations from a number of points of view that will help us “get ‘round the thing and so make better sense on it.”
As an animator, I’ve heard a lot of variations on the theme that every job requires the animator to first do four hundred BAD drawings before you start getting the character to look like the official model sheet. Mind, that’s for professionals!
When our home spigots were supplied by copper pipes soldered with poisonous lead, a lot of folks subscribed to the notion that you should let the water run a spell before you filled your drinking glass, to get past the water that had sat in the pipes and got lead leached into it.
That same principle might properly govern our comments here, both the writing and the reading of’em.
As good as some of the writing and thinking here may be, we none of us get it exactly right all the time.
Hell, I don’t even agree with own comments some of the time.
• I would like to compliment Habu_3 for his unquenchable efforts at improving both us and himself, in front of God and everybody.
• I would like to compliment Cedarford for his post time-stamped 9/02/2006 12:00:24 AM. This most recent of his posts reverberates with unusual clarity.
Sometimes we’re called upon to choose up sides and declare allegiances. There’s enough of that goin’ around just now. I’d like to think that in this place, we can tolerate each other’s venting, and be patient. Just wait for a stretch and the “gentling” effect of our shared wisdom and goodwill should work its magic on the most obstreporous of us.
#2 behind the Jooos is "tax cuts for the wealthy", even though the empirical evidence is indisputable--that is, cannot be disputed with the reality as expressed by the "numbers"--that the tax cuts have increased, not decreased, the IRS inflows.
This is of course due to "growth" in taxable economic activity--which has additional sanguinary effects on "people's lives", besides just the one thing, the federal tax recpts.
C4 holds that a third of a pie must always be smaller than two-thirds of a pie.
Any mention that this is true only so long as the two pies are forever stuck static at the same size, interferes with the "success is evil" subtext, and brings up the associated "Bush Bot" theme.
as to the mad fiddler of 9/02/2006 10:53:32 AM:
I've been trolling political and sports bbs since 1990-91, this place distinguishes itself for it's focus and erudition and almost complete absence of flaming. That is a compliment to ALL of you...even pt.
I was busy earlier this week and didn't keep up on my reading. What'd you do to Teresita? Executive summary, please.
Uh, "salutary", not 'sanguinary'. That's a bad juxtapose, Freud would giggle madly.
Not being locked into the perfectionism plaguing much of DC and the EU, the Israelis kill bad guys on the simple premise that it is unwise to sacrifice the good on the alter of the perfect, quite apart from the justice of the sanction.
I dare say that a St. Bartholomew's Day purge of Islamic international leadership would make a difference for good in the world. Would there be consequences and unintended consequences? Well yes, but that is true of breathing, as well.
Thanks, Allen, for the link to the article on the Wake Island Massacre.
Alexis, you said "the idiology we fight is older than Islam." [my emphasis]
A further explanation would be appreciated.
Do you mean that the barbarism of the Islamic Jihad is the enduring legacy of the desert arab nomadic tribal culture? Will it take the sort of overwhelming military subjugation that was needed to "civilize" Samurai-Bushido Japan, and National Socialist Germany?
Or do you see it as a "hoof & mouth disease sort of problem?"
Anyone here read "Mote in God's Eye" by Niven & Pournelle?
ooops.
"ideology"
buddy larsen; 11:16:28 AM
"Sanguinary", in the sense of lively, healthy, and robust, looked OK to me.
"Sanguinary", as in bloody consequences when applied to OBL and company, is also OK.
You win either way, buddy.
Sanguinary, indeed. We need more of that in every respect.
Buddy, (off topic) in my short time here, I do not recall you telling BC of your race. Have you? Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention because it was unimportant. Obviously, however, race has become important to some posters. Hmm?
The arab / islamic peoples do tend to be cult of personality oriented. C4 glibbly points out that killing one by israel leads to another.. Not entirely wrong, however he misses the point. To kill millions of cannon fodder is useless, (look iran/iraq war) this is the way of the islamic / arab world for centuries, even nasser commented that to loose 10 million in a battle with israel is nothing, they can make more... (iran said a similar thing not to long ago about nuking israel)
The correct way to dethrone the islamic / arab peoples is to destroy thier leaders BUT ALSO THIER HOLY SITES.
This is the unUSED ammo still in the belt..
when we take out hezbollah, hamas, or the iranians leaders we need to also take out thier centers of influence. Bomb their HOLY sites. Every islamic center, every community center, the Kaaba, the temple mosque. every local mosque.
yes i sound radical, however remember the otherside is calling for our DEATH.. so what's a few buildings to get your panties in a knot. AND it's not like the moslems have not DESTROYED every other religion's holy sites when given the chance.
yep, look for the attack on thier leaders and SYMBOLS...
cartoon contests, bottom of shoes, pork rinds for allah jokes, bury the dead terrorists in pig skins...
its war ya know....
or walk quietly to the gas chambers AGAIN
what is "occupation"
re: "Bomb...the temple mosque"
G-d forbid!!!!!!!!!
Instead, turn out the Muslims and turn the site into an ecumenical religious zone, open to ALL peaceful worshippers.
Bud is descended from the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.
One of the best ways to deal with a Silastic Armourfiend was to lock him in a room by himself, since he would beat himself up sooner or later.
"In an attempt to deal with the problems their violent nature created, the Silastic Armourfiends passed a law that anybody who had to carry a weapon as part of their normal work (including policemen, security guards and primary school teachers) must spend a minimum of 45 minutes each day punching a sack of potatoes.
It was hoped that this would allow them to work off their surplus aggression.
This plan worked only until the Silastic Armourfiends began just shooting the potatoes instead."
Hurry! Get this off to Dr. Rice, instantly!
Turkey: We’ll withdraw soldiers from Lebanon if asked to disarm Hizbullah
http://www.ynetnews.com/
articles/1,7340,L-3298688,
00.html
“Turkish soldiers could end up clashing with their fellow Muslims once deployed in Lebanon.”
Who woulda thunk it? Who could have imagined such an event? Who could have seen this coming?
doug;
re: Bud is descended from the Silastic Armourfiends of Striterax.
Well!!!...That explains everything. It's that blasted Z Cro-magnosome.
"I can see clearly now, the brain is gone."
How could ANY of this be happening after the end of History, and the continued existence of Arabists and Eggheads at State to make it all better?
Silastic Armorfiends are dedicated to the eradication of Doofus Pineapplensis.
whit; 12:26:03 PM
If simple, untrained observers like us can see the problem, one must question the motives of the sophisticated, highly trained professional diplomats at State.
How did the foreign policy of the United States find itself held hostage to the abomination known as the Franco-American UNSC Resolution 1701?
As to the Turks, in fairness, they are incomparably preferable to the French, the Turks retaining a vestigial sense of honor.
Oh, it is the same outfit of experts at State who also refused to take the shot on OBL. The US has some serious problems to address.
"Sanguinary", Allen, has that 'bloody' meaning, which didn't fit with the notion I wuz trying to advance. "Salutary" is non-portmanteu-ish so I dishonestly subbed it, claiming Frodoian slip. And ya caught me. Racially, I came down from the Herring People, who have been in some trouble, intellectually, since they got entrapped by the last Ice Age, which they never saw coming until too late to head south for the winter.
Once again you are in error, M Larsonne:
Hawaii is neither a continent nor a large continental subregion:
---
"Race "connotes geographic ancestry, by continent or large continental subregion" and "is used to denote continental or subcontinental clades". In "Cladistic taxonomy ... the basic taxon [is] the genealogical unit, ancestors-plus-line-(or tree)-of-descent, what according to the present analysis races are."
---
Besides, we have not yet descended from de Palm Tree.
Allen,
You left out the upcoming warm welcome and rapt attention to a visiting Terrormaster/Dignitary.
Having been beaned by many a coconut, how well i know that.
buddy larsen; 12:41:50 PM
re: Doofus Pineapplensis
That is just about enough! If your genocidal racialist rhetroic continues to target doof...I mean doug, I will get in a snit. Indeed, I may even invoke the two post rule, stamp my furry little feet, and blame the Joos.
Have I made myself clear?!
That's enough, please, I'll belay my harsh rhetoric--on top of Jamie's threat to "very harshly criticize", I done seen de light!!
We could ride-share a snit and exit left.
What is occupation,
Leave the mosques, or at least most. Destroy the first few to influence the ummah to SHUN and dis-invite particular preachers.
Publically name and continue terminating the imams until they collectively produce Koran 2.0.
We can always flatten their symbols, which won't change the teachings, but may instead ignite a hundred million emotionally unstable adherents.
We must pierce the protective shield (PC) of religion, targeting true radical Islam, one mullah, imam, teacher at a time. And, the moderate moslems won't object nearly as much, if there are any.
POTUS says so; we just need to summon up the will.
Require periodic Sensitivity Classes for Mosque attendees.
buddy,
re: Herring people
Thank goodness, now I needn't guestion stereotyping you as just any old "white" guy. No, sir, you are the "white" guy of "white" guys.
You were saying what, "white" guy? Your opinion could not immediately penetrate my egocentristic perceptions.
VIDEO: al-Zawahri, 'American al-Qaeda' urge non-Muslims to convert to Islam...
---
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda called on non-Muslims especially in the United States to convert to Islam and abandon their 'misguided' ways or else suffer, according to a video tape posted on a Web site on Saturday.
The speaker was identified as Azzam the American, also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn -- an Islamic convert from California wanted for questioning by the FBI and who U.S. authorities believe to be involved in an information campaign for al Qaeda.
"To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent (your) misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or keep your poison to yourself and suffer the consequences in this world and the next," Gadahn said in English.
Henceforth, please refer to me as:
"Ahab the A-rab"
a) Sandy Berger is a Jew.
b) Sandy Berger is a self-serving, bootlicking, idolatrous sycophant.
Which would explain his behavior at the National Archives?
C4, your vote will not be presumed?
The Great Panjandrum was also a Brit D-Day "funny weapon", which consisted of two big wheels with a ton of TNT in the axle. Rockets were fixed along the outer rim to get the speed up to where the tnt could bust a seawall when the Great Panjandrum hit it. Would've been launched off an LST had it been used. The inventor was last seen gardening along the retaining walls of a British Looney Bin (which is itself a difficult concept).
Der Fuerher himself had been Cedarfords protector from his youth up;
and Cedarford considered him so majestic a personage that he would have felt a hearty contempt for himself if he had even for one moment allowed himself to pose as the great man's equal, or to think of him--in his fear and reverence-as anything less than an Olympic God
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky
Allen, yes, we are the white people in the center of white peoplehood, and were on our way to the Big Time with our 10th century cutting-edge Long Boats, except for we couldn't figure how to make a written language, so we sorta pooped out.
Habu,
'Rat might just be out at his Mountain retreat, sans utilities:
He used to do that regularly on the weekends.
One of my ancestors, Mickey Runey, did develop the "rune", a sort of very short alphabet.
Just a side bit on the topic of the question: would getting OBL have stopped 9/11? As Cedarford has pointed out the act, itself, might have been stopped, but the movement towards a group like al Qaeda had been in the works for years. I went over the basics here and summarize that the internetworking and cooperation between terrorist organizations had been happening since the 1970's and that internetworking was growing stronger. State-backed and directed activities, however, tended to add knowledge and capability into the entire network via associational transfer. The fact that OBL at the head of an organization that was looking to do this independent of State backing is no surprise since that is the basic roots of modern terror organizations. With the Iranian regime attacking the US and non-Shia States via Hezbollah and expanding its operations it is quite natural that the Wahhabist vision would need to compete with that or be drowned out by an assertive Iranian vision of Islam. That field was ripe before OBL and would have yielded something similar in configuration: non-State based, adhering to Wahhabism which was sending out money for Madrassas widely, and looking to leverage their smaller size via acts that would be 'more terrifying' than a suicide bomber here or there.
This is like looking at Relativity and asking if the death of Einstein would have prevented it from developing? The answer is: no, there were many scientists working in that area and coming very close to this same conception. Einstein used the photoelectric effect as a basis for his work, and others were looking into that, too, but not as stringently. The death of Einstein a few years before that might have *delayed* relativity by as much as two years or as little as a month or two, depending upon who you talk to in *that* debate.
The Transnational Terrorist field was already ripe for an al Qaeda and an OBL. By the time you got al Qaeda, the organizational structure had been set up along with its outlooks and no matter *who* was the head of it, the attacks would have gone forward. Destroy al Qaeda and the mass of internetworked terrorist organizations would spin up something *else*.
geoffgo said...
Leave the mosques, or at least most. Destroy the first few to influence the ummah to SHUN and dis-invite particular preachers.
fine, but you gots to blow up the black rock....
geoffgo said... Publically name and continue terminating the imams until they collectively produce Koran 2.0.
fine
geoffgo said...We can always flatten their symbols, which won't change the teachings, but may instead ignite a hundred million emotionally unstable adherents.
ah but that is where you are wrong... making the symbol of the black rock into dust CHANGES the Pillars of Islam, just as the jews lost the temple and had to change from a temple cult to a mitzvah cult (prayer replacing temple offerings, (happened in bavel)) Islam MUST loose the "hajj" or pligrimage which is one of islam's major pillars, the trip to the rock.. the hajj....
geoffgo said -...We must pierce the protective shield (PC) of religion, targeting true radical Islam, one mullah, imam, teacher at a time. And, the moderate moslems won't object nearly as much, if there are any.
there is ONLY one radical group of moslems in the world and they live in the good ole usa... and preach co-existance.
Normal Islam as practiced and preached from islamic government sponsors pulpits (s arabia, jordan, palestine, egypt, maylaysia, indonesia, lebanon etc) preach NORMAL Jihadic rasict points of view, calling jews monkeys, apes, worthy of death, and christians and pagan not much better...
Time to post rewards for the heads of fatwa issuing mullahs that call for death for just insulting islam or being an infidel.
Time to kill the killers....
from those old JEWISH books..
for every season there is reason..
Book of Ecclesiastes, 3:1-8
hating evil murderous bastards is good
Book of Schmaltz, 13: 2-4
thou shall not suffer blood thirsty animals that take the form of humans, they drink human blood, they are an abomination.
Book of Shlomo, 5:1-3
Habu,
Instead, he and Gorelick were Gatekeepers on the 9-11 Commission.
Nothing is real.
But I repeat myself.
For those who think I make light of the very real issue of racism or fail to see it, altogether, you are mistaken. There are in the world racists, Robert Mugabe comes instantly to mind.
For those who think I might have gone easy on Sandy Berger in my earlier post, let me say: Berger is also a conceited, presumptuous, vandal; in short, Berger is a barbaric idiot.
For his unforgivable rape of history, he should have been sentenced to scrubbing by hand the floors of the National Archives for the remainder of his miserable life.
Habu, the Riady family was the bagman.
'Legacy of Honor' taking place at Pearl Harbor
Re 'racism', I'm sure everyone has by now, and if not, why not, read Ralph Peters' earthquake essay?
Jacksonian is right--this jihadism was inevitable, in a way. The ancient, perpetual haves vs have-nots, compressed, pressurized, heated to plasma, by globalizing wealth, travel, info ditribution, and a new and politically-opportuned (and so, contempt-breeding) semi (and so, distorted) familiarity with all that has always before been a mystery.
Doug said...
"Require periodic Sensitivity Classes for Mosque attendees."
Dammit man you almost drowned me. I was swallowing a beer. Nothing is real.
Web Hubbel, wow. Took one for da boss, didn't he--
Besides the normal imperative of bureaucrats to protect their own patch, the United States Department of State has a long history of being oriented toward a “one-world” POV, lately termed transnational progressivism. Americans persist in disbelieving the vast effort Soviet Russia invested in de-stabilizing and undermining other governments and cultures.
Alger Hiss, Harvard-educated lawyer and darling of the left from his days in FDR’s New Deal, was a spy for the Soviets while he worked his way from a minor post in the Department of Agriculture to serving with FDR at Yalta, where he helped Stalin draw the map of post-war Europe. He was by no means alone. Whittaker Chambers’ autobiography “Witness” helped me finally understand of the path of many people drawn to commit themselves to Communism.
The idealists of his generation felt Marxism promised an ethical path to a utopian alternative to what they felt was the Darwinian harshness of Capitalism. That chicane was still being successfully pawned off to college students last week.
American culture today is still reverberating like a great gong from the rain of blows by the Soviet Union. They infiltrated ogovernments and institutions (particularly teachers and university faculty) in targeted nations all around the world. Their efforts have been confirmed by the archives of the Soviet Union, available to western researchers since the collapse of the early 1990’s. From the 1920’s there were clandestine and undisguised organizations funded and directed by the Soviets, whose entire purpose was to infiltrate and influence western culture.
Read the histories of communism published by sources you trust; the history is available for anyone who takes the trouble to look. The people most inclined to discount Soviet/Comintern subversion are the liberals who invested so much in defending communism. They still believe the only people in the world evil enough to destroy other cultures are American Conservatives. These days they’re in profound denial about the documents released from Soviet archives, which confirm that the United States government was telling us the truth about communism all along.
Igor Gouzenko, a turned KGB agent said it best. "The only thing a communist understands is a cocked gun to his head".
Fiddler, USSR-to-west like Iran-to-Iraq, the "closing" system can't exist alongside the "opening" system.
the mad fiddler; 02:24:08 PM
re: That chicane was still being successfully pawned off to college students last week.
And that's the truth!
Communism - How long is the half-life of this bad idea?
As habu and I have both posited, it will take the death of the Baby Boom generation to hearld the dawn of a new rationality.
Fiddler,
The Commies were active in organizing and establishing Hawaii as a Union State which has voted Democrat for 50 years.
Boomers dying off..That is the good news. The bad part is a few more of us have to take one for the team to see it happen.
We had it comin.
"Communism - How long is the half-life of this bad idea?"
We could help the downtrend by paying a little more attention to Hugo Chavez's flight plans.
And now the state of Hawaii is going through turmoil from the tiny number of surviving native Hawaiians who have enlisted a host of anti-US activists to restore its independence.
I don't much care for the idea that the BISHOP family descendants of some of the original Western missionaries, hold VAST portions of the islands in perpetuity.
Sort of gives the lie to the "missionary" hypothesis, but that's the same sort of shitty behavior by missionaries that created so much hostility to proper Christianity in lots of places.
On the other hand, the temptation musta been sumthin fierce. I would love to have a private beach on Kauai.
Everything always ends up at Hitler. We had USSR fairly well pegged after the Hitler/Stalin Pact. The two of 'em cooperatively ate Poland and were working out Eastern Europe.
So Stalin was a murdering tyrant, it was very clear.
But then Herr Schicklgruber hadda go invade Russia.
Voila, Communism was our 'funny' foreign friend, long enough to open doors all over American intelligentsia.
I guess history offered no model of fighting both combatants already engaged in a separate war with each other.
Patton--as genius is wont to do--saw the problem very clearly as a mere matter of sequence. But what about "Uncle Joe", a conditioned America would have demanded to know.
2164, re Chavez, didja catch the news today, that he has announced, in regards to the December elections, that he "desires to amend the Venezuelan Constitution, in order that he may finish the work of the socialist reform"?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Well then Buddy the question is; who is the present enemy of our enemy friend? We did it in Afghansitan against the Soviets and created AQ. We strengthened the jihadiis in our war against the Christian Serbs. Could it be the Shiites, our side of choice in Iraq?
Re Chavez: I am baffeled with our lack of attention to him
You're right, 2164--it's a replay. Lipstick for the far enemy. Thank/blame the Atlantic and the Pacific, for that.
Belmonteers are just too doctrinaire. We need to be more sensitive to our little Muslim friends. They only desire respect, don’t you know?
For instance, Dr. Rice’s brand new pals in Lebanon cannot understand why a couple Muslim boys should be extradited to Germany. After all, if the infidel crusaders had not insulted the prophet there would have been no reason to place those bombs aboard German trains.
Dr. Rice understands the Muslim mind, and that’s a fact. Like her, we would do well to seek the counsel of CAIR. We at BC need to get on board.
“Mohammed cartoons 'sparked bomb plot'”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20343178-23109,00.html
habu, ya gotta remember to freeze it first, before you use the can-opener.
:-(
That's the ass-end of globalization, alright. A State Dept with interests everywhere interlocked and against each other half the time. A MacDonalds and a Citibank on every streetcorner in every gin joint in all the world.
There's about 4 days to the deadline to certify the Mexico election results. The Mexican election commission is internationally respected, held in the highest regard as a model of how best to run honest elections. But the Reds don't give a sh*t.
Well we end the week a kinder and gentler BC. Habu is giving peace a chance. I have also taken the oath to no longer attack unless repeatedly and sorely attacked. I may slip, but I always have been a counter-puncher. I will try harder.
That's what the Limbaugh Doctrine is! The Limbaugh Doctrine clearly states: Peace follows victory. Peace does not result from settlements, ceasefires, negotiations, doctors, nurses, clean water, all of that sort of happy-go-lucky good stuff.
Today marks the 60th anniversary of Imperial Japan's unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, in which 2,500 Americans were killed. There are lessons to be learned from our victory in that war.
In his April 16, 1945 address before a Joint Session of Congress, President Harry Truman stated: "So there can be no possible misunderstanding, both Germany and Japan can be certain, beyond any shadow of doubt, that America will continue the fight for freedom until no vestige of resistance remains. We are deeply conscious of the fact that much hard fighting is still ahead of us. Having to pay such a heavy price to make complete victory certain, America will never become a party to any plan for partial victory. To settle for merely another temporary respite would surely jeopardize the future security of the world. Our demand has been, and it remains, unconditional surrender."
On August 6, 1945, just 16-hours after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, Truman issued a statement which said, in part: "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. … We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake: we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war."
I too will no longer call names. If a prick like 2164 can be nice, so can I.
;-D hastily add
The problem with Hugo Chavez, as Habu_Hints, is that he will be energetically using his time to create conditions in his patch to spread his favored form of anti-democratic statism. You can bet the schools have already been re-designed to serve as rigidly doctrinaire factories for loyal Yanqui-hating Chavistas. What the HELL was he doing in Syria, if not comparing notes on how to screw things up for your democratic neighbors.
Syria, if you remembers, sent a planeload of chemical warfare specialists to Khartoum a couple of years ago, to assist the Islamic Sudanese leadership in reducing the pesky population of black African Animists, Pagans, and Christians.
Presumably, those Syrians were using their newly-acquired WMDs shipped out of Iraq in the months the United States was patiently pleading with the United Nations Security Council to actually enforce the scores of toplofty resolutions it had passed insisting that Saddam Hussein quit violating all the earlier UNSC demands, the armistice from Gulf War I, human rights of his subjects, and the rules of etiquette.
It takes a lot of humility, when you think of it, for Hugo to humbly submit to other folks for training, but he's decided to learn from the masters. I note that he has not applied for advanced counter-insurgency training at Fort Benning.
good one buddy. competing with doug are u?
"Doofus Pineapplensis"
---
And I came here for refined discussion.
ouch!
de Coconut don't fal far from de tree.
National Geographic had an article earlier this year about Venezuela under Chavez. Evidently the guy commandeers up to six hours of television broadcast time at a single sitting to just rant, tell stories of his heroic childhood, denounce his enemies, and generally spew.
Hard to imagine, eh? What if he were posting in the BC comment stream...
What will Jimmy Carter say, when Hugo suspends the Constitution? I'm certain it will be "Bushe's fault" or "Amurica's fault", but -- how will he pretzel it?
Gee. I almost feel like I haven't really arrived here until I've been viciously adhominemly attacked till I quiver.
I'd hominy grittily wittily...
Damn, what was in that gin?
Till then, just sign me "Mealy-mouthed Fiddler"
" how will he pretzel it? "
Certify it as part of the "Process"
On the Road to Peas.
McKinney will just be hitting her stride.
"nery a ad hominem to a BC'er will I utter, but to those guys over at the Daily Kos I'll yell Nutter!"
"I'd like a few orders of grits"
"Hominy, sir?"
The Ever Harmonic Habu bestowed Peaceful Hominy upon the Belmont Clubees.
Ate too much grits of the hominy
And caught a bad pain abdominy
Went to the doctor
(an ologist proctor)
who said "with the grits, it's how many!"
history being made
Wasn't that a famous Jackie Gleason quotation from "The Honeymooners?"
"Hominy Hominy Hominy...
Or am I thinking of Duckman...
"Homina Homina Homina..."
?
Habu,
Direct your Harmonic Attention to: 02:15:40 PM
Promotional Duck:
"Ad Homina Ad Homina Ad Homina..."
Mark in Mexico, just keep scrolling--
"With hotel occupancy rates at 10%, most folks figured this out long before the State Department went public with a warning"
Clear and Presidente Danger
Research and Destroy.
In the Nam of our Fathers.
Buddy,
I was reading something last nite about a bunch of Sunnis evacuating to Kurdistan.
One former Saddam loyalist and his family were renting a room for $30/nite.
Iraqi Arabs See Unlikely Haven With Old Foes -
Mr. Abdul Rahman are settling in the secure provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan Iraq, said Mr. Abdul Rahman, himself a Sunni Arab, as children scampered
Anybody seen habu and
This Guy
together?
(Hugotherine's missive, but into google Spanish, then back into (google)English)
Angry Fiddler, I am Chavez in the friction because Condi still wishes me and must keep a low profile. After Bashar fitted to me recently with new crystals, I can read that mess of the word of Turing to allow again that my great wisdom appears in your long fibers of blog. Any thing is no support BCers doubt that I must say due to again engaged his transcommentalism of the d of the tolerance and esprit. I can as soon as I say that his Hugo would be suitable the vindication of Clinton of the garden-variety yet, as Cedarford, and would foment the note that you and the others is forgetting here of how President Clinton named enemy vigorous who tried to down bring the E.E.U.U in years 90. Your head of the democrat and his equipment of the national security of cracker-jack knew later not to be dealed with 'attack 93 against the WTC excessively, (by a Islamist that uncle finished upon being the main architect of 9-11), because that incident era simply “a criminal” act. But when the crazies anti-government white Americans bombed the building of Murrah (and when a third” mean-Eastern terrorist leads quashed referring “and to routes that Nichols undertook to the Phillipines in that then and workers of Qaeda of the a the one of the place was meeting), Clinton it gracefully identified and it invaded solved enemies of America: speak-right radio of “hatred” and morons of the meanie that tempers pulg. Mr. Hillary even reacted with clarity and the conviction on the allegations of the terrorist of the infidelity of his husband. With the soul of a patriotic one, she denunci the conspiracy of the extensive American right the morning TV to a sweater-had Couric pink that can never now use a small so sweet number in order never we take it seriously again, as if… (When Katie comes to Caracas, I will also know that she wishes me.) In any case, Belmontistas, you need to make that your friends are the Carterites, the Clarkites and the Clintonites of this being contracted, world that socializes, and that your Numero One Enemy is really you. Republicans. Centrists and conservatives. Specially white men. But also including black of the defector, Asians, Hispanic, Jewish, gays, women of treasonous of the .feminism and consorts of the criador. Christians and Zionists. For-to benefit the corporations. Necrófagos spirits of the industry of the defense. Cabritos bound of the university of the profession and the business of Apathetic. Reductions of taxes of SUVs and Dubya. When the democrats of the E.E.U.U are behind in office, I will be happy for both our regimes, and also for Cuba, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, Korea of the north, socialist Spain and all repressive Africa. We more far must travel under that way, friends of my.
Wretchard, can it be that you do not own a TV set? Join we few, we happy few, upon St. Swithin's Day! These forty years, we have eschewed this stupefying assault on sense and sensibility. That moving dot may seem pictorial, but it is not; and meantime, all higher functions recede to slumber.
An underground of Ninja Turtles, by no means teenaged, rules in secret by renouncing tube-ification. As the kid said early on, he'd take radio over television "because the pictures were better." Right!
I Agree!
Beware the Military Necrófagos
Spirits Complex.
Fred,
Rush loved the part he saw.
(Could only watch it in his plane as DVD Player in NY did not work)
Also said Michael Barrone saw the whole thing and liked it.
Barone: Our Covert Enemies
At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours -- who's to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization.
Barone, Fred, speak of Cabritos bound of the university of the profession and the business of Apathetic.
(I'm trying to figure a way to get my son to remember to record it for me, since The Cable Guy does not stop by)
Fred
I think you'd better get a tv, doug. Elections are coming up--you need to have eyes on the visual propaganda. You made your point, we all honor your elevated intellectual disdain for us crud-encrusted bug-eyed pigs of the mass-culture hoi-polloi. Now go get a tv.
Pyrthroes has me thinking:
Did you see his final solution?
And he also crows "TV No Mas!
Bud re Instapundit:
Yeah:
They even have ME promoting it and I don't have a TV!
Cramer is a bona-fide genius, seeing patterns that the rest of us live right in the middle of and never note.
H_3 said "Is the apology accepted or not accepted?"
Apologies are either made or they are not made. Their completeness is dependent only upon the honesty and throroughness of their making. The question of acceptance or rejection is whole 'nother thing and not the province of the apologizer.
Instapundit flacks, but usually announces it when he does. So, when he offers a tidbit sans disclaimer, sometimes it's just that the tidbit is good. Guy's centrist manner is extremely valuable, as it makes credible his concentration on exposing baloney of all flavors.
"Poopie Doo" will do.
Habu:
See my Army Times Nogales links in the next thread.
Leni Riefenstahl, the gorgeous corpse-flower.
tell it....
"What will Jimmy Carter say, when Hugo suspends the Constitution? I'm certain it will be "Bushe's fault" or "Amurica's fault", but -- how will he pretzel it?"
He's not allowed to crash helos in the desert anymore, ya'know.
Buddy Larsen's Ode to Grits brings to mind:
"BC...your one-stop source for political discussion and poetry n' whatever it is possumtater generates."
h_3,
"I've come to a certain Zen now however that requires no confirmation of anything by anyone on any topic."
I missed that in the post that prompted mine...hence, my post. I enjoy(ed) the donut hole.
I'd go with the 8" chained mace, personally.
After the last Jew leaves Russia, what will the Rooskies blame their misfortunes on?
I'm so glad I'm a Jew. Kneel before me, World!
Feel my infinite power!
Jamie Irons
Mad Fiddler:
(re my comment that the ideology we fight is older than Islam)
A further explanation would be appreciated.
Do you mean that the barbarism of the Islamic Jihad is the enduring legacy of the desert arab nomadic tribal culture? Will it take the sort of overwhelming military subjugation that was needed to "civilize" Samurai-Bushido Japan, and National Socialist Germany?
Short form:
Claiming that Islam is the enemy is like liberals claiming that guns are involved in most murders. To paraphrase Archie Bunker on guns, “Would you rather have them thrown out of windows?” So, my question is about Islam is, “Would you rather the Islamists try to slit our throats espousing a different ideology?”
Long form:
(Please excuse the lack of brevity in my response, for I didn't have enough time to compose a shorter summary.)
No, I'm not really talking about a nomadic culture of desert tribalism. It's rather that religious fanaticism, especially of the totalitarian Pharaonic variety, has a very long lineage in Middle Eastern society.
The Christian monks who murdered the neo-Platonist pagan Hypatia of Alexandria had a violent burning fanaticism to them that would be very recognizable for Islamists. The Zealots of Jewish antiquity were not much different from the Islamic tradition of the Fedayeen.
We are up against a culture of oriental despotism, where emperors gain their legitimacy from the supposed divine right bestowed by the state's patron deity. Sometimes (as in the case of Queen Hatshepsut and Alexander the Great), the ruler would claim to be divine. During most of antiquity, wars between rival states were perceived to be wars between rival deities, until some Jewish prophets essentially said, "Oh no, your so-called god didn't defeat my god. Your god doesn't exist and you just pray to an idol. Our god punished the Jewish people because some of us were bad boys and girls who sacrificed to idols just like you do, but your time will come and our god will punish you too!"
In Greek and Arab antiquity, a polis would have a patron deity. Although there may be a pantheon of deities, a family, tribe, city, or royal house would typically have one principal deity. The effect was that the fortunes of a deity would correspond with the fortunes of his followers' armies on the battlefield. Any ruler who changed the state's principal deity was dangerous -- one need only look at Akhenaton in Egypt and Nabonidus in Babylon to see how disastrous that could be!
In any case, one must differentiate between a monotheistic understanding of monotheism and a polytheistic understanding of monotheism. A true monotheist believes in one god, and that liberates him. A "polytheistic" monotheist claims there is only one god, but it is intended as wishful thinking. Just as the janjaweed rapist will say, "We have killed your god," the "polytheistic" monotheist seeks to kill all rival deities to him own deity.
Since, within classic polytheism, a deity is also a social archetype or personality template, killing the rival deity also means killing all personalities other than the mentality of the one deity one idolizes. Idolatry is not merely praying to a piece of stone, but modelling one's behavior into the narrow psychological confines of one's deity.
In effect, this means that Osama bin Laden not merely seeks to destroy all religions other than his own very narrow perception of Islam, but to destroy all personalities other than his own.
Back to my point, the ideology we fight is older than Islam -- one can call it oriental despotism, divine right, theological tyranny, or a cult of personality. Cult of personality -- in a free society, one has at least some liberty to be who one wants to be. In a place where there is a cult of personality, everybody acts like the personality of a certain culture hero or deity. If you could imagine a society where every man tries to act like Krishna or every woman tries to act like Ishtar, you might see some of the problems in transposing our institutions of liberal democracy to a society that assumes that all men must act the same and all women must act the same because to do otherwise would be "polytheism".
We are against a culture of militant patriarchy, religious fanaticism, and idolatry. They existed for a long time before Mohammed was ever born. We are against a culture of child sacrifice, an institution that continues in the guise of suicide bombing, and existed long before there was a Caliphate. We are against a hierarchical mindset that assumes that one self-selected elite must rule over all others.
Pharaonic imperialism has a long pedigree. We fight on the side of liberty, while the Islamists fight on behalf of the ideology of Pharaoh.
Who's Gonna appolgize for Nagin on Crack?
<< Home