Daily Roundup Feb 11, 2008
After the Read More! Iranian Special Groups captured in Iraq. Top Taliban leader captured in Pakistan. Is the US going to make the case for keeping and trying captured prisoners? Spengler at the Asia Times comments on Rowan Williams' sharia law proposal. Canned Spam: America's Weapon of Mass Destruction. Plus, al-Qaeda's Last Stand in Northern Iraq.
Bill Roggio reports on the capture. "Coalition forces seized computers and computer drives, documentation, journals, and other evidence that reinforced information obtained through the interrogations of the Qods Force officers."
With Muqtada al Sadr set to decide on the status of the Mahdi Army ceasefire on Feb. 23, US and Iraqi security forces continue to step up operations against the Iranian-backed Special Groups and Sadr's Mahdi Army. The latest raid netted a senior regional Special Groups leader and ten others. According to the Iraqi press, two senior members of the Sadrist current were detained in the raid.
The senior Special Groups leader was captured in Hillah during a raid conducted by a joint Coalition Special Forces team and elements of Iraqi police. The leader is believed to be a regional commander of Special Groups teams in Wasit, Babil and Najaf provinces, as well as a coordinator for weapon shipments, and a planner and operational leader of attacks against Iraqi Security Forces and Coalition Forces. Eleven Special Groups operatives were reported captured in the raid.
CNN says a senior Taliban figure has been captured. "Pakistani security forces on Monday shot and wounded a well-known Taliban operative in southwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, the military said. Mansoor Dadullah is the brother of slain Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, killed last May in a military operation in southern Afghanistan." Intelligence is the key to fighting this war.
AP says "The Pentagon has charged six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials said Monday they'll seek the death penalty in what would be the first trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system." A little while ago I belatedly read an invitation to a blogger round table conference on the subject of Military Commissions and the High Value Detainee Trials, which I was too late to attend. But I'm wondering whether US success at capturing enemy leaders has now made it necessary to revisit the question of what to do with all those detainees who are captured? I know that the US military is making an effort to explain the prisoner system to the wider audience; and I'd attend some of the briefings on offer if I lived closer to Washington.
But at any rate, newspaper focus on Guantanamo and mistakes in the handling of detention centers have led to calls to close detention centers. But if they were totally closed this would reset the world to the bad old days of the Clinton administration described by Michael Scheuer in his testimony before the House, when "extraordinary rendition" was used to take enemy leaders "off the streets" by sending them to other countries, where more often than not, they simply vanished into the toils of the foreign system. Whether or not that is "more humane" or whether some system of detention and trial is better is a subject that at least deserves debate.
Spengler at Asia Times says Rowan Williams is pre-emptively surrendering to prevent the first shots in a Europe preoccupied with ethnic differences from being loosed. Williams claims he's been misunderstood. If so a remarkable number of normally literate pundits have unaccountably lapsed into illiteracy. This is how Spengler understood Williams' message.
By proposing to concede a permanent role to extralegal violence in the political life of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury pushed his phlegmatic countrymen over the edge. No one is better than the British at pretending that problems really aren't there, but once their spiritual leader admits to an alien source of coercion and proposes to legitimize it, they understand that a limit has been reached.
Another crime to lay at the doorstep of America. The blight of the South Pacific is Spam. The Telegraph reports:
"Even if you go into a store in a remote village you'll find shelves of Spam and corned beef," said Dr Jan Pryor, the director of research at the Fiji School of Medicine. "In the past it was unusual for anyone to have a stroke under 50, now people are having strokes in their twenties and thirties. You see it every day."
The Strategy Page says al-Qaeda is changing its tactics in the last area it controls. It's trying to make nice after its previous policy of brutality backfired. "The only area where the Islamic terrorists still have any strength is in northern Iraq, just below the Kurdish controlled region. There, and in western Iraq, the terrorists have begun to issue warning to civilians before a bomb goes off." Nothing in the US arsenal is so terrible as the revenge of the locals. Perhaps less efficiently lethal, but more terrible.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/11/2008 10:25:00 AM
44 Comments:
It would be interesting to see the reaction if the terrorists were found guilty by tribunal and actually executed
It would be equally interesting if someone in DC sprouted a set and caused Iran some serious grief for their constant meddling in Iraq. A disappearing gasoline refinery or two would fill the bill rather nicely.
Too easy, Zenster:
They can sabotage us, but we can't them.
Part of the long war strategy.
---
U.S. Presents Charges Against 6 in Sept. 11 Case
Six Guantánamo detainees accused in the 2001 attacks will be shown all the evidence against them, the Pentagon said. The death penalty will be sought.
The New York Times:
"...Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles F. Burlingame III was the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that was crashed into the Pentagon, said she would approve of an effort by prosecutors to seek the execution of men she blames for killing her brother. Ms. Burlingame said such a case could help refocus the public’s attention on what she called the calculated brutality of the attacks, which she said has been largely forgotten.
“My opinion is,” she said, “if the death of 3,000 people isn’t sufficient for a death penalty in this country, then why do we even have the death penalty?”
It's going to be interesting to see the Democrats and the media desperately try to evade this issue in a Presidential election year.
I don't see how they will be able to escape it. After years of screaming about Guantanamo, the media won't be able to downplay either this story or their perennial anti-death penalty line. All their usual positions, from the barbarity of the death penalty to the importance of world opinion are going to get nailed to the mug shots of these conspirators and the evidence documenting what they did.
People in Berkeley and Cambridge will think one thing, but the rest of America won't be drawing the same conclusions.
Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job
Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says
Sources confirm he has sat in on Pentagon meetings in which intelligence clearance was restricted at the Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) level.
When will the government of We the People� quit playing PC multi-culti games with our national survival?
The FBI today arrested a Pentagon official and two Chinese-born residents on espionage charges for passing defense secrets to China, the Justice Department announced.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080211/NATION/718249348/1001
In an interview months ago with a Muslim lifestyle magazine, the Archbishop of Canterbury argued the 9/11 terrorists should not be described as evil, the report said.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=55898
John McCain wants to close Gitmo and substitute a "catch and release" program for terrorists.
We're doomed.
Speaking of passing controlled secrets to China, here's a blast from the forgotten past aka '90's, courtesy of Saint Richard Clarke's own book "Enemies" -
Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.
Tony said:
"Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass. "
Kinda made me think a bit better of Algore, actually... "The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass. "
I didn't think he had the stones.
Gore had a great Computerized Airline Security Plan too.
...Before the Airlines and Arabs won the Clinton Administration over.
Profiling, dontcha know.
Sure it would have caught the 9-11 19, but think of living forevermore w/the horror of a history of profiling!
Tony, I am not sure I get the connection, but thanks for the quote. Someone should send the book to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Allen West(Rep) for U.S. Congress
...he's the Col that saved his men by threatening an Iraqi Policeman with his weapon.
...then turned himself in, took a $5,000 fine, and got out.
ROE's require greater sacrifice.
As long as it's not a Jag's or Politicians life or safety.
Over at Iraq the Model they provide some more interesting news. Libiyans have constituted a large percentage of the foreign terrorists in Iraq and one of Kaddafy's sons has been implicated in support of the terrorists.
Also, it was announced today that captured documents from Al Queda complain that too many of the foreign fighters they get in Iraq just want to go out and get killed and are not interested in fighting.
So, for Al Queda, the war in Iraq has turned into a sort of Special Olympics for the Islamically deranged.
Some ask if we can risk destablizing Mexico by refusing to accept their surplus population - maybe we should also ask if getting out of Iraq - even victoriously - would create problems in other countries for the same reason.
Americans say the darnedest things when they think the morally powerful are nowhere to be found (must think we're all in Berkeley).
Pro-Rendition, Pro-Torture, Pro-Profile, huh? If you were one of my students, you'd doubtless get a demerit for seeking to undermine the constitution, in letter and spirit. And if you were one of my colleagues, well, you wouldn't be. That the violation of human rights is now celebrated and treated as cool among Americans is a most worrisome development. And its not just liberals (us darn lovers of dignity and human rights) who are saddened. I've held hands and wept with people from all colors, creeds and political backgrounds, all of us bereft with grief over how callous and terrifying our fellows have become. In the morning, when each of us are sipping organic darjeeling and reading news, there's rarely a dry eye in the office. Its a miracle we can pull it together in time for class to start - that's how very bad things have gotten.
And of course Al Gore celebrated torture and violating human rights when he was beholden to the Oil Men when he was in office. Once he left the government, he did a brave about-face and became a staunch advocate for those who the government wished we did not know existed. Do you honestly think the NOBEL committee would have nominated Gore for the Peace Prize if he honestly believed in torturing people, in rendering them to societies where reproductive rights are as abysmal as their prisoner rights? Gore is no hero for your cause of violating human rights. Gore's projects are now post-human; they consider the bettermint of the solar system and are galactic in ambition.
That those who wish to make holidays for the law are desperate enough to appropriate Gore to buttress their arguments speaks volumes to how isolated Americans are.
There is still time to change. Hopefully Americans will not squander this election and can be welcomed into the fold of nations other than Saudi Arabia and their ilk.
And now that we caught 4 chinese human beings, how shall their rights be violated?
Will America seek to control its powerpoint slides so that no powerpoint file ever leaves its shores? That way Chinese scholars can't teach their home country about American technology. Perish the thought the Chinese should ever learn about our culture.
What Americans don't realize is when no institutions, rules, morals and what not exist that protect Chinese Human Beings from being accused falsely of espionage by a vindictive and petty government, that nothing will protect them once they fall afoul of the PNAC, and Norman Podhoretz knocks in the middle of the night.
Sometimes, I worry that not even Obama can stop the forces set in motion by a fast food nation, nickel and diming itself into bad credit, both financial and moral, until no logo is more American than the celebrated and universally loved country we all knew under William Jefferson...
Do you honestly think the NOBEL committee would have nominated Gore for the Peace Prize if he honestly believed in torturing people, in rendering them to societies where reproductive rights are as abysmal as their prisoner rights?
The Nobel Committee not only nominated Yasser Araft but awarded the Peace Prize to him in 1994. Unfortunately, all tokens of the Prize were looted from Arafat's home by Palestinians running rampage through Gaza. They may turn up on eBay.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charles Gitout perfectly exemplifies the Post-American. He hates his country but admires brutality in others. An academic he enforces group-think and dogma ruthlessly, with PC-enforcement codes to echo the Inquisition, only with firing or F's instead of the brand. But it's a kinder, gentler inquisition all the same.
And he's just like Williams in Britain. Who is a post-British post-Christian leader. Both wish to avoid violence and war so much they'll have rivers of blood flowing.
It will be worse in England where so many MORE post-Nationalists like Gitout exist. There the State exists as a fiction. Muslims rule the streets with Sharia ALREADY. More than 12,000 women a year are subjected to Sharia violence. Thousands locked up by Muslim doctors in mental hospitals because their husbands tire of them. And Muslims claim an absolute right to kill non-Muslims any time, any place, any where in the UK.
Williams and Gitout see this, and cheer for the destruction of the old Western order, because it is impure and imperfect, and because to be frank they love destruction for it's own means. Like those who aided Khomeni they indulge in fantasies of "Red Jockey Green Horse." They desperately wish to avoid acknowledging that PC and Multiculturalism = honor killings, forced marriages, child rape, female genital mutiliation, and rampant asault and murder of anyone non Muslim in Muslim areas.
The result? Thoughtful people now see a power vacuum. A government cannot long survive without providing the basics of public security, without fragmenting ala the Philippines into corrupt fiefdoms, complete with militias, or inviting a Napoleon, Cromwell, or Mussolini.
If the government cannot stop Muslim violence from running rampant, eventually they cannot stop a military coup either. A Pinochet plus so to speak, promising order, lawfulness, and expelling by force the alien and threatening presence of Muslims in Britain.
Every ordinary Briton knows Sharia will not STOP with just honor killing Muslim women. It will close their pub. Outlaw their bacon. Make them pay non-Muslim taxes. And so on. Muslims have become their enemy, even though Williams pretends surrender pre-emptively will have no cost. Some Pinochet will step up to save their pubs, their language, their very way of life.
There will be rivers of blood. Made all the worse because of men like Williams and Gitout who ally themselves with the destroyer of Western Civilization out of spite and pettiness (it is imperfect), love of destruction, and fantasies of power for themselves.
If America wants to export a global zone of percolating violence to petro-rich areas, do not the petro-rich areas have an obligation to percolate violence over here as well?
I've held hands and wept with people from all colors, creeds and political backgrounds, all of us bereft with grief over how callous and terrifying our fellows have become. In the morning, when each of us are sipping organic darjeeling and reading news, there's rarely a dry eye in the office.
Wow. Mr. Gitout is either a genius of pitch-perfect satire, or he truly thinks angels scoop whipcream out of his butt and that he has the Gaia-given right to kill all who offend him.
I'm thinking it's the former. It's the "organic" darjeeling. That was just the tinniest step too far, methinks, and gives the game away.
I mean... nobody could be that much of a pathetic Lefty cartoon. Could they?
What binds a nation together in this day and age? Roads? The internet? Mobile phones? Connectivity enables mobility and mobility's first consequences are just as likely to be fragmentation as a mighty neo-Cromwell. People will rally around what they like, what's cool, what's imperative. All one can say is that there will be many movements, many conflicts, and hopefully the conflagrations remain sub-national in scope. Better to have gang wars than WW1 may be the thinking. Easier to mobilize against gang wars locally than to bind the tangles of squabbling post-national identities together - or is it?
That's not to say any of the above may be preferable to present arrangements, but that's where history is heading.
Whiskey 199 and Gitout are part of the same trends playing out. Before all is said and done, they'll have friended and unfriended eachother several times, and their allegiances will be fungible and priced according to a social/cultural metric not unsilmiar to ebay's feedback rating.
As for Me, I'm just riding high on the Sino-hog - i mean rat...need a rat metaphor...anyone?
Do you have a Bug-Out-Bag you're dying to play with, Whiskey? Your view of the world is as cartoonish as it is borrowed from survivalist fan fiction.
Radical movements can be absorbed into the mainstream, as the Black panthers gave way to Fifty Cent and Tupac Shakur. Rowan Williams' goal is almost like the Neocon one you no doubt love, only it does not require your BFF Chalabi and Bandar (and large expenditure of money and lives): it requires only that a new mainstream is invented that incorporates diverging forms of britishness.
Brits will not be riled up into American levels of ultraviolence over mere cultural differences and a minority of radicals. In as much as Pakistan remains indefinitely stable, what makes Britain so weak right now? Its british muslim women who are the actor to watch, not the paranoid illiterates on both sides of your "Clash of civilization" fan fiction.
Its the british muslim women who are subjected to the 12000 honor kills per annum that will be compelled to act, as it is their lives under threat. You're merely offended culturally and feel that entitles you to violate human rights because of natural law or something else very important.
Next time I'm supping with the Bildebergers, I'll be sure to float your storyline for a made-for-tv movie to one of the liberal media elites who will be in attendance. It may provide enough add revenue to more than make up for the liquidation of public assets Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% caused...
I don't understand why people think they can always fall back on some pre-national group after they voted for laws that empower governments with torture, extra-warrantless surveillance on the 43 millions of americans without health insurance or legal counsel.
There won't be a Cromwell after you created a Putin.
Gitout -- I object to Muslims flying planes into my countries buildings and killing my compatriots. I guess you hate your country so much you are fine with it.
I suggest you leave for Saudi Arabia where you'd find a society more to your liking.
Radical movements ARE NEVER absorbed into the mainstream. The Panthers morphed into the Crips and Bloods and became misery-inducing gangsters. Rap music the dysfunctional poverty perpetrator. No doubt you find the violence and slapping around of women exciting. Red Brigades and Baader Meinhof STILL try to kill people.
Algerians struggling against GSPC and the GIA might disagree with you, those that aren't dead by them at least. So too AQ's victims in Iraq. So much for cooption. Something so monumentally stupid only an academic could believe it.
Who will protect the 17,000 (it is not 12,000 I was wrong in that figure) British Muslim women from Sharia Violence? No one since the State has abdicated any responsibility already. Who will protect girls as young as 11 (here Leftists who consistently approve of sexual exploitation of children must be happy) being sent out to Pakistan to be "married?" Certainly not the British state which has abdicated.
Yes of course rivers of blood will flow. It is all the more tragic because ENFORCING THE LAW and throwing out PC, Multiculturalism, and Leftist group-identity garbage could have prevented it easily.
You can't be a little bit pregnant. You can't be a little bit Sharia. It's all or nothing, because Sharia EXTENDS TO NON-MUSLIMS. It demands death for blasphemy. It demands death for leaving Islam. It demands no booze, pork, or naked women around.
That IS a clash of civilizations. That is the curse of Islam -- it can't modernize, yet Muslims want the things that come from modernization. Hence the need to kill the infidel AND women who stray from Sharia.
Note all: Gitout is perfectly fine with all those women suffering violence and death. HE does not care to extend the RULE OF LAW to civilians if they are Muslim women. Only to jihadists who help to destroy Western Civilization.
I have nothing but contempt for such a parasite. And the needless bloodshed he'll help unleash.
[The more thoughtful can already predict the proximate cause -- Muslims attempting under Sharia to close British pubs, and the push-back by mob violence spreading. A Pinochet, Putin, or Cromwell arises and promises "order."]
Say what you will about me, I only wish to prevent Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz from having their ways with my loved ones. One can send all the polite letters in the world trying to convince world leaders to stay away from your wife and daughters. And you can remain complacent in the face of the staid and formal replies thanking you for warning them. But the moment you catch their black helicopters flying around your house at night and their black SUVs circling your block, waiting for you to goto sleep before William Kristol and Max Boot jimmy the lock and slip in like two grifters in suits...the moment you understand this, it's too late and you can only hope to keep them away by engaging in the democratic process and legislating protection for you and your family.
One thing about Githout is it certainly makes reading Belmont Club faster, since you can scroll through all of his interminable blather at warp speed, being absolutely certain that you're not missing anything of note or importance.
I wonder how he found Belmont and plopped down here, when obviously he'd be much more comfortable dallying with the rest of the deranged Kos Kids.
Wretchard wrote: "The Strategy Page says al-Qaeda is changing its tactics in the last area it controls. It's trying to make nice after its previous policy of brutality backfired. ... the terrorists have begun to issue warning to civilians before a bomb goes off."
If that doesn't win over the locals, wouldn't the next step be providing social service programs, a la Hamas? What would be on the menu at an al-Qaeda soup kitchen? ;-)
nahncee
Exactly right about charles "please!" gitout.
Just interesting to see that we now have virtual street people, replete with their contorted (il)logic, on what was supposed to be the information superhighway. Instead, we're back on Haight Street or Telegraph Avenue. Sheesh!
One of the moral inconsistencies with CG taking the side of the terrorists is that if so-called "freedom fighters" are justified in killing American civilians, other people would be equally justified in killing CG.
I dread the time if or when suicide bombing becomes an institution that is no longer the prerogative of Hindus and Muslims, but a form of barbarism to fight wars within western civilization. It fails to dawn on many leftists that if our college campuses go on fire, they will be the losers just as much as anybody else.
For the record, the commenters at the Belmont Club are not a monolithic group. I am on record as opposing torture, including when that torture gets positive results that would save the lives of other Americans. That's because I would rather see CG die than use interrogation methods he condemns in order to protect him.
Still, I feel utterly betrayed by much of the Left when it took the side of the terrorists against the American proletariat in September 2001. I had honestly thought that leftists had disagreed with America on economic policy, but I was wrong; the Left genuinely hates America, especially the American working class.
Perhaps CG would feel safer kept as a dog on a Saudi leash, but some of us prefer to be free. America may not be perfect, but it isn't Riyadh or Dubai. But then, Soros has never been a friend of the working class. I have little doubt that were the American labor movement to help the Gulf's working classs, Soros would oppose such an endeavor with all of his means, for any proletarian solidarity against feudal monarchies would interfere with the ruinous speculation of George Soros and other "utopian capitalists".
Gitout is a master of sarcasm. There is no way a human could be that stereotypical, but he captures the stereotype so well...
If by some chance you are serious, seek mental help. This is delusional
Dear Mr. Gitout,
You are having one of those "dreams" you told me about, and I finally worked out that the most certain method for communicating a message to you is to "post" a "comment" in the dream blog you described. So, here goes:
Look Charles, I know things are not going so well for you at home --- your mom wants you to clean your room, and actually go and collect the money from the people whose yards you clean (remember to put the dog poop in the correct bins, okay?)
And the spot cream doesn't always do its job, so... well, there you have yet another disappointment with Western pharmaceutical manufacturers. What do they care that a zit appears on the tip of your nose just when you'd almost worked up the courage to ask Millicent for a date?
But the delusion is really interfering with your life. You need to quit retreating into this dream.
So what I want you to do is this:
Pour yourself a drink from the pitcher on the nightstand, drink it all down, and DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP. You'll begin to feel better very soon (I've increased the dose of the Thorazine.)
Oh, and be sure it's the PITCHER this time, not the URINAL.
You don't want to go through THAT again.
If you behave yourself, we might go visit the sheep later.
In Islamic countries, the term "sheik" is an honorific title. A lot of Western dictionary definitions blandly describe it as a title for a village leader, or a wise elder of a tribe. What I've found is that it specifically is a title given to a man who has committed to memory all the verses of the Qur'an.
That sorta encapsulates the central problem of Islam. Purely apart from the violent, vicious misogyny; apart from the bullying absolutist machismo and xenophobic intolerance, here is a system of beliefs that places primary importance on simple rote memorization of a disorganized mass of frequently incoherent or contradictory orders governing every aspect of behavior.
Clearly, all of the features I list there are not manifested in the behavior of every practicing Muslim. But they are undeniably a central aspect of the FOUNDATIONS of Islam. There simply is no other major faith whose founder records in his own personal actions such systematic violence, brutality, ruthlessness, relentless intolerance of dissent and opposition, such utter disregard for the customs, laws and traditions of his contemporaries, such complete contempt for the rights or dignity or sanctity of women, or such unquenchable and vicious hate for any other faith.
Much of Arab Islamic culture and tradition seems to derive directly from the harsh conditions of the Saudi Peninsula of the centuries preceding the birth of Mohammed. They were violent people, so the reasoning goes, because the desert was a very unforgiving environment. Just as some other cultures imposed extreme penalties on insubordination and rebellion --- or simply "crossing" the big man --- the brutal domination by Islamic rulers of their subjects and by Muslim patriarchs of their families might have been ordained by the lethal conditions of the arid Empty Quarter, and the trackless wastes that had to be crossed between oases.
Please don't take my word for this. I ask you to investigate for yourself, the translated texts of the Qur'an ("Koran"), and the ahadith, which are informal stories and anecdotes attributed to the companions of the Prophet, supposed to illuminate and aid in the interpretation and understanding of the Prophet's words, which make up the verses of the Qur'an.
You may recall that the Ayutollah Ruholla Khomeini recorded hundreds of audio cassettes during his French exile for distribution to his followers in Iran. One Western journalist reported with mild astonishment that the tapes gave detailed instructions on proper behavior for Muslims even to the intimate details of bathroom hygiene. Well, what that Western journalist actually reveals is his ignorance of the Qur'an, since such intimate instructions were dictated into the ear of the Prophet Mohammed himself, and preserved in classical Arabic for the benefit of us benighted peasants.
As more I personally investigate Islam --- it's history, the actual (translated) verses of the Qur'an, the life of the Prophet and of his followers --- so more I have to conclude that the fundamental teachings of Mohammed are the DIRECT OPPOSITE of those of Christianity, and the Life of Mohammed is in stark contrast to every example of tolerance, patience, generosity, perseverance in adversity, and "agape" love for one's fellows taught and demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth. To the extent that I have investigated Buddhism and Baha'ullah, their teachings are also negated by those of Islam.
Maybe in the fullness of time, Islam might soften its aspect, and learn to live in peace with its neighbors. But the sudden wealth that comes from oil has placed the Arab countries in a position to impose themselves on the world as they never were able since the ninth century zenith of their new Caliphates. When that oil was discovered, the discovery was by technologies that the Arab world was unable to develop, and the subsequent industrial development was beyond their skills.
It seems the ultimate irony is that they can't handle the wealth that has been flowing into their coffers from the oil they couldn't have found or drilled or pumped without the knowledge, technical skills, manufacturing, and transportation capabilities of people they did not even know existed until just a few generations earlier. (I specifically except Iran, which has had empires and civilizations for thousands of years, and is not, in any case, an Arab country.)
We MUST OPPOSE the spread of Islamic Supremacist fanatacism, especially the Wahabbist sort of raging Islamic fascism.
This leads to conclusions that only a few years ago would have been unthinkable, and are still too radical for me to even set to writing here.
But I fully expect that radical Muslims will find a way to make it easier for us to see things clearly. Sadly, that is most likely to be as a result of Jihadi nuclear devices, or dirty bombs, or a sabotaged LGN ship in harbor, or anthrax released simultaneously at a dozen college football games, or some such mass atrocity.
It doesn't take much of a Prophet to predict what will happen then... the most likely thing is that many on the Left will finally realize that the Jihadis have always meant them for the chop just as much as all the other infidels, and they will reverse their attitudes instantly and become among the most strident anti-muslim shouters.
Wretchard's three conjectures mostly address the dreary fate of Muslims outside the U.S. What sickens me more than that is the horrific backlash that I would expect against naturalized U.S. Muslims, people who have been living peacefully in this country for generations, if the Jihadists accomplish their deviltry.
If you are a leftist, a Democrat, or some other doubter of the War on Terror, please consider what happens to Muslims in the West if the fanatics are allowed to impose their iron grip here.
Somewhere I don't know where, I feel like I've met this gitout fella before, it's all like a dream, or something. I try to awake, I try to recall...
Am I missing something about Iran?
Isn’t the Quds attack a direct act of war against the military personnel of the United States?
Shouldn’t the Iranian Quds take a military thumping for this act of aggression? Say a Quds training site destroyed at night, a Qud barracks destroyed undercover or a few speed boats sunk.
If not, will not the Quds continue attacks on the military of the USA? Will not the Quds be eventually released to go back to Iran to start the raids again?
I cannot imagine Iran halting military offensive raids on US troops until they feel the tip of the spear.
...Qais, along with his brother Laith Qazali, and several other members of the Qazali Network were captured in early 2007. Azjar al Dulaimi, also a member of the Qazali network, was the tactical commander behind The attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center, which resulted in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of five US soldiers.
See: Iraqi, US forces capture senior Special Groups operative in Hillah
On January 20th, a team of twelve men disguised as U.S. soldiers entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, where U.S. soldiers conducted a meeting with local officials, and attacked and killed five soldiers, and wounded another three. The initial reports indicated the five were killed in the Karbala JCC, however the U.S. military has reported that four of those killed were actually removed from the center, handcuffed, and murdered.
See: The Karbala attack and the IRGC
It has been quite a while since I've plumbed the depths of the Daily Kos. Gitout flashed my memory on that insanity. There's a Nobel Prize for the neurobiology researcher who can explain the phenomenon I call Neuron cascade.
Something triggers the Lefitst brain into a cascade of neuron firings across every region of memory and perception. Past and present, imagination, emotion, and fantasy centers all start to fire simultaneously.
This kaleidescope of activity gets processed into incoherent gibberish that mixes grand theory and inane detail, past, present and future into the same sentence. I'm fascinated by the whole thing. I just don't want these people anywhere near children or the Pentagon.
I vote to ban Gitout. His words are pretty but his thinking is insane. He actually thinks that the US is the cause of Mideast violence. How can anyone be so stubbornly blind and stupid?
Gitout's words are comparable to a snowflake or a drop of water: one is OK or even exquisite. String a bunch of them together, however, and 20 paragraphs later you're drowning in a tsunami or an avalanche.
Rick said:
"I vote to ban Gitout."
Just skip over his nonsense like everyone else. Moonbats like him eventually grow tired of the constant smack-downs and eventually crawl back to Daily Kos. Of course the problem with posting at Daily Kos is he's just one more shrieking moonbat adding to the cacaphony (can never rise above the background noise)
mmmm.... bettermint!
Hmmm...sad realization here, when you mention Spam. It never really hit me before.
You see, I live in the state that is the birthplace of Spam. It also happens to be the origin of Prince, Bob Dylan, Al Franken, Garrison Keillor and other assorted moonbats and whackos.
The only half-normal ones would be (some of) the characters in the Mary Tyler Moore show, and they're fictional.
And yet, I feel absolutely no urge to move. Disturbing.
"That the violation of human rights is now celebrated and treated as cool among Americans is a most worrisome development."
Would those be the same "human rights" that are being protected by such luminaries as China, Sudan, Libya and so forth on the UN human rights commission?
Who defines what is a "human right"?
I hereby declare that it is my human right to have every attractive woman I meet for the rest of my life proposition me for sex the first time they see me. It's also my human right to drive a Ferarri, have a private jet, and be accepted as the new drummer for Korn. Further, it is my human right to kill whoever I want, whenever I want to.
And don't you DARE violate my human rights.
Charles Gitout: If America wants to export a global zone of percolating violence to petro-rich areas, do not the petro-rich areas have an obligation to percolate violence over here as well?
Ummmm ... try the other way around. Arab lands have been exporting "percolating violence" for over ONE THOUSAND YEARS. Only lately have we bothered (once again) to bring it to their doorstep.
Brits will not be riled up into American levels of ultraviolence over mere cultural differences
"[M]ere cultural differences". PRICELESS!
Dan,
Here's one of my favorite "multicultural" twists on an American staple--Spam sushi.
Cut Spam into strips, sear in a pan, roll in rice and seaweed as you would any other sushi roll. Serve with soy sauce and/or ketchup--yeah, ketchup. Strangely satisfying it is.
When I hear the word "ultraviolence" I think of A Clockwork Orange, which was of course written by an Englishman. Now it is arguable as to whether or not Mr. Burgess coined the term, but it will forever be associated with Brits, rather than Americans, in my mind.
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