Iran's nukes
Is Iran really developing nuclear weapons, despite NIE estimates that it isn't? Teheran is still enriching uranium and they've been caught with nuclear weapons design data. Can Iran still be stopped short of war? And what's the connection between Iran's nuke program and European energy independence. I look at how these factors come together at Pajamas Media.
Iran's energy resources make friendship with it highly desirable. Absent the nuclear weapons question the EU would have invested in Iran's petrochemical sector in a heartbeat.
But with Iran so close to achieving a nuclear weapon, Teheran may soon present both Europe and Moscow with a fait accompli. Once Iran achieves nuclear weapons status, maintaining further Western sanctions against it will be pointless. Iran will then receive all the investments it needs and Russia will be faced not only with a rival for its energy markets but a nuclear-armed one at that.
The closer Iran gets to understanding how to produce nukes, the less Teheran needs to choose between nuclear armament and economic prosperity.
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posted by wretchardthecat at 3/05/2008 04:27:00 AM
40 Comments:
Who says Iran will have any intention on continuing to allow the West to prosper from its oil?
I think Iran will make a move towards Saudi Arabia and stop all oil exports from over there.
With their possession of a nuclear weapon and their desire to bring about the emergence of the 12 Imam Mahdi I think it's short-sighted to not take into account the words and religious objectives of the Islamic Republic.
embrace $5 a gallon oil asap...
the middle east oil supply is not long for the world...
war is coming..
between whom?
iran and arabia?
iran and pakistan?
iran and russia?
iran and israel?
who knows...
but we do know one thing....
we KNOW nothing except it's about to blow...
Does anyone know if Europe and/or Russia have any real expertise in oil production? I recall hearing that the three sources of that expertise and associated equipment are the USA, Canada and Japan. All three have refused to sell equipment to Iran.
This comment has been removed by the author.
War in Iran is inevitable. The only question is what form it will take. It may be a civil war between the reactionary Islamist Mahdi faction, and a coalition of Arab, Kurd, Armenian, Turkmen, along with the Persians in country who oppose the mullahs.
Or it may be a short bombing campaign that destroys Iran's nuclear, large military, and oil infrastructure, and lets Allah sort the mess out.
Readers may disagree with me...but I think that the focus on this problem has always been wrong. We need to consider our real objectives and objections as far as Iran is concerned. As I see it, the problem is not Iran having nuclear weapons, per se, the problem is nuclear weapons in the hands of this regime.
It's not unnatural for Iran -- heirs to the old Persian Empire -- to want to have nuclear weapons, if only on prestige grounds. It's almost certainly a stupid use of resources, but it's an understandable one, whatever the NNPT, the world UN talking shop, and the chattering classes might say about it.
Were Iran a plain Republic, or a moderate Islamic Republic, or a monarchy, or even a dictatorship -- or any other kind of regime less interested in stirring up problems elsewhere; that had less millenarian objectives both at home and abroad; if the regime were not revolutionary in the sense of wanting to overthrow or dramatically alter the international system -- then we would not need to care so much that it wanted nuclear weapons.
If we are objecting to a radical Iran having nuclear weapons -- an Iran that wants to alter and shake up the international system, and that does not respect the rights of other states and peoples -- that's one thing. If we're objecting to any Iranian regime having them, that's another, and a harder position to maintain. Fundamentally, no non-nuclear weapons state is going to accept the fiat of the great powers -- in particular the greatest power of all -- that Iran's sovereignty is so much less than that of the nuclear weapons states.
Does it matter if we know that the Iranians have a nuclear weapons program? Because of the NIE, we can not act upon the information. If McCain is elected President then maybe we can take action against the Iranians. More likely, we won't take action until after a major city disappears.
The Iranians know this of course. That NIE was a catastrophe.
As Iran continues to build centrifuges to enrich uranium, the centrifuge plant being built in the US is running into extreme financial difficulties.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers on Wednesday will hear about the nation's ability, or lack thereof, to provide radioactive fuel as an agreement with a major foreign supplier soon will be slashed in half.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, slated to begin at 3 p.m. EST, will focus on the country's capacity for domestic uranium enrichment. Shipments from Russia, which supplies about 40 percent of the fuel for U.S. commercial reactors, are due to be cut roughly in half by 2013.
Critics question the need for new facilities since the U.S. could lift import restrictions from other countries to meet demand.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080305/uranium_enrichment_ahead_of_the_bell.html?.v=1
My comment: Depending on OPEC to supply our oil has proved such a bad policy, I can't believe there are people stupid enough to say we should rely on possibly hostile foreign powers for our nuclear power. Presumably they want us to become a customer for Iran's plant.
the ramifications of the NIE are simply too profound for it to be explained away as being the result of anti-Bush "shadow warriors".
Slimslowslider said...
"the ramifications of the NIE are simply too profound for it to be explained away as being the result of anti-Bush "shadow warriors"."
I was listening to this interview on NPR with someone claiming to be a Director of Intelligence (presumably at the CIA). This person claimed that the NIE was a consequence of straight forward analysis based upon new information and was not political. My opinion of this claim is either the person is a liar or incredibly incompetent. Given that the interview was on NPR, I'm inclined to believe the guy was a liar.
Understand that the people who produced the NIE have to know they are going to be proved wrong when the Iranians test a device.
However, there are those people who are so blinded by their anger at the President that they are willing to suspend belief in Iran's research program, so go figure?
It's not JUST Iran. It's Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, etc. Who are pursuing nuclear weapons.
We can't stop them all. We can't stop most of them. Nuclear proliferation is a fact. And deterrence is not working, since using terrorist proxies are deniable.
We need a policy that clearly states total destruction of any hostile regime if ANY nuclear attack by some terrorist group happens to ANY American or Allied city. A policy that simply kills most of the people of the targeted nations, and is automatic. No orders need be given (negating the decapitation strategy).
With the proviso that the US can and will launch a pre-emptive attack if needed. That the only way to exit the list is to give up via inspection on demand nuclear weapons.
This is where we are drifting to.
Wow.. you're going to threaten to kill the very same Muslims who just committed an act of war against you.... in other words you're guarantee'ing them that they will die a martyer and spend eternity in Islamic paradise.
What a policy!
The NIE is just a symptom of a well-hidden, all-pervasive problem with the US ruling elite. What about the strategic alliance with the jihadists in Bosnia/Kosovo against the Serbs? Who made this decision? How? Why? Why is it still being followed? Is it all just stupidity, or a denial? How can the fact be explained that Iranian weapons and jihadist "fighters" of Al-Zawahiri were flown to Bosnia in the 1990s and the US was in the thick of it?
http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm
How can Bush/Condie's position be explained of forcing the creation of terrorist Abbas-run state in Palestine, dropping all the pretenses for "peace"? "Clearing-out" Iraq for the Iranian mullahs to take over?
The NIE was a deliberate lie to support a dirty policy u-turn. It couldn't have come without Bush greenlighting it. By the famous Bush principle of "those who provide support to terrorists are terrorists themselves" which fits Mr Bush's policies perfectly, Mr Bush must be delt with promptly, by Mr Bush. Together with James Baker III maybe.
The real question is, who's running the country?
Vince I do not think so. Individual low-level jihadis might love death, but those who fund, organize, and train them don't. Khomeni did not volunteer for martyrdom, neither did Ahmadinejad, Osama, or Zawahari.
More to the point, 9/11 could not have been conducted without the assistance of both Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Intelligence Service in facilitating planning meetings in Kuala Lumpur, not stamping passports of Muscle Hijackers, and Iran doing the same for those who transited Iran.
By introducing fear (and way out of bad consequences) you force the rules into a choice -- total destruction of their wealth, as a believable threat (not idle words but a demonstrable one), along with their power (if they survive they're merely stateless, poor refugees, better to die). Or supporting cheap/easy jihad.
To change the equation we need to make support for Jihad far too hazardous to ruler's wealth and power. Make their appalling states work for us rather than against us.
"By introducing fear (and way out of bad consequences) you force the rules into a choice -- total destruction of their wealth, as a believable threat (not idle words but a demonstrable one), along with their power (if they survive they're merely stateless, poor refugees, better to die). Or supporting cheap/easy jihad.
To change the equation we need to make support for Jihad far too hazardous to ruler's wealth and power. Make their appalling states work for us rather than against us."
Do you really think that our government is capable of maintaining a credible attitude of unrestrained retribution toward our enemies? With teh State Department we have? With the Democrats that we have? With the Saudi Arabian-paid political whores in our government? With our traitorous media and treacherous education system?
No .. I'm sorry. I think we all need to think about the fact that our enemies are not deterred. They continue on with their efforts to aquire the means to accomplish their ultimate goal and our government does not have anyone with the intelligence , courage and leadership ability to actually prevent it.
I could care less about responding to a nuclear attack. When people think that just because we can annihilate any country that happens to nuke is something to brag about i just have to shake my head at the stupidity of that statement.
What the hell do I care if we kill millions of people... my world will ahve already been destroyed.
The time to act was YEARS AGO.
It sure sounds more and more as if Russia is indeed a key ally of the Mullahocracy in Tehran. They seem to be sparing no effort to insure that the Iranian regime is able to proceed at all possible speed to getting nuclear weapons.
The West has to find a spine to stand up to Moscow and Tehran. Millions of lives hang in the balance.
Dear Vincep1974,
(1) You said, "The time to act was YEARS AGO." That sounds as though you're saying there's nothing the West can do now that will make any difference. No form of resistance is vouchsafed to us to their atrocities, because the only effective response would make us indistinguishable in your mind from the Islamic butchers?
(2) As much as I detest the idea of killing folks --- especially children --- the ethics of the situation appear to be that the only option we have for preventing much greater suffering and death which will surely result if the Jihadis are not firmly opposed is to firmly oppose them.
(3) Unfortunately, at this late date, THEY have chosen the rules of engagement, namely everyone who opposes them is for the chop, and they will be attacked wherever they can be reached by any faithful Muslim. "Firm Opposition" must be at least as vigorous as their own attacks, for the simple brutal reason that they've shown for fourteen centuries that they don't respect the rights of anyone but other Jihadi fanatics, and they'll kill each other in a heartbeat for some imagined doctrinal difference.
(4) The comment stream for Belmont for the last few weeks has seen a distinct hardening of attitudes--- maybe better described as a crystallization of awareness that Islamic Jihad is never going to be contained, constrained, or defeated by anything less than the sort of extremities that the Japanese and German fanatics forced the West to use. Some of us came to this conclusion earlier, some later.
(5) The Muslim extremists have the more moderate of their faith in their thrall. They have been butchering their own co-religionists since the life of Mohammed with even greater ferocity than they apply to the infidel, because the wages of apostasy, straying from the faith, and disobedience to the will of Allah are death. The infidel at least has the option of paying the "jizya" tax.
(6) To visit a site with information click on debate.org.uk/topics/history. I encourage people if they doubt my assertions or scholarship to do their own damn research and see for themselves whether I'm making this up.)
(7) I've been studying Islam intermittently now for twenty years. As more I read the translated verses of the alleged literal words of Allah whispered into the ears of the "Prophet" Mohammed, and the Ahadith --- the anecdotal histories of the choices, instructions, and examples of the man as reported by his life companions --- so more I realize that Islam profoundly contradicts and violates the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
(8) You don't have to accept Christ as the divine incarnation of God sent to live among men to grasp that his teachings and life provide a matchless example of transcendant selfless love; of patience, forgiveness, tolerance, and compassion.
(9) Islam by stark contrast is a faith rooted ineradicably in violence and intolerance for dissent. These derive not from later interpretations but from the actions and words of its founder. Mohammed during his life captained military assaults on caravans and communities that opposed his claim of being the Prophet of Allah. He personally ordered the execution of disarmed captives, and the distribution of their widows and daughters to serve as sexual slaves to his companions. When criticized and mocked, he called for the assassination of his critics, then rewarded and elevated those who carried out his wishes.
(10) After Mohammed's death, the leadership of Islam changed hands several times by assassination and butchery in just a few decades. Consider fourteen subsequent centuries of Islamic expansion by ruthless military assault. Again, if you think I'm making this up, please feel free to do a little research about Islam yourself.
(11) How many times in just the last two years have we seen seemingly placid Muslim citizens or resident aliens in all the Western countries suddenly turn on their neighbors and start smashing pedestrians to pudding with their vehicles or sending lead slugs ripping through the guts of pregnant women in some office, to glorify the name of Allah the Merciful? This refers to the sort of spontaneous decision to murder people who only the previous day were treated as fellows, not the cold calculation of "occupational" terrorists who have been preparing their atrocities by months or years of systematic planning and training.
(12) All forms of Islamic violence and bullying find stimulus and encouragement from what to their perception can only be cowardice and gutlessness of the infidel. Each unanswered atrocity encourages the Jihadis to escalate, to probe, to test, to push, to harry. It is simply the way humans work: there is no reason to stop or modify behavior that is working and has no cost.
(13) The idiocy of the present leadership of the West is to persist in believing that Islamic fanatics can be depended upon to negotiate in good faith and on a rational basis according to Western values. This is insane, even criminally negligent. As Twain said, we might as well try to bully the comets out of their courses.
(14) Or do you really think there is some common ground for conversation with people who wrap a retarded woman with an exploding vest, send her into a crowded market, then remotely trigger her explosive charge to shred a hundred children with their parents?
>1) You said, "The time to act was YEARS AGO." That sounds as though you're saying there's nothing the West can do now that will make any difference. No form of resistance is vouchsafed to us to their atrocities, because the only effective response would make us indistinguishable in your mind from the Islamic butchers?
I'm speaking from a pragmatic POV not a moral one. I dont see the West doing anything about Iran. I dont see the leadership, the courage, the wisdom. instead i see cowardace and wishful thinking.
I was not establishing a moral equivilency. You said "That sounds as though you're saying there's nothing the West can do".
I didn't say that. I didn't say the West *can't* stop Iran. I'm saying the West *won't* stop Iran.
As for the rest of your comments, you're preaching to the choir.
You're misreading my diagnosis of the current situation . You must think I"m actually suggesting that our current posture is acceptable?
Hardly.
What I'm saying is, because there is no backbone or clear thinking in our leadership, it will be inevitible that nuclear bombs go off in our country. At that point (our society destroyed) it's really a little too late if we kill everyone from Morroco to Indonesia... the damage will have been done.
That's why I say we should have acted years ago.. when things were less unmanagable. every day of delay is another day that things get more complex and beyond the possibilty of there being a solution.
You can check out my website if you want to see where I'm coming from.
RWE said...
Does anyone know if Europe and/or Russia have any real expertise in oil production?
Schlumberger, the world's best oil production equipment and services company, is French.
American oil services firms are second fiddle to the Frenchies, though they hire good Americans - since they have a huge presence in N America.
Excellent "in-house" oil exploration and production capacity is with Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, Italian-French Total FINA. The Swiss make excellent equipment for certain aspects of the oil biz that no one else does. Lukoil and Gazprom - while maybe not up to the European quality - still produce more oil and gas than anyone else. The Chinese are pretty good, aggressive, and have trained so many high-IQ cadres in oil and gas biz that they proposed sending surplus workers to the USA to make up for the shortage in brains and skilled techs that our cyclical energy biz caused. The Arab investment of sending their best and brightest to Europe and USA has paid off with a cadre of Arabs more than capable of doing 70-80% of the technical needs of the Gulf oil and gas business.
*******************
Mad Fiddler - How many times in just the last two years have we seen seemingly placid Muslim citizens or resident aliens in all the Western countries suddenly turn on their neighbors and start smashing pedestrians to pudding with their vehicles or sending lead slugs ripping through the guts of pregnant women in some office, to glorify the name of Allah the Merciful?
1. In Europe and America, Muslims have a far lower per capita incidence of killing people or running cars into people than blacks.
2. In America, more people were killed by a S Korean immigrant than all the Muslims together in the last two years. (Though I am the 1st to say I walked and rode all over S Korea in the late 80s with absolutely no fear for my or my friends safety. Another Asian nation where respect for law and societal norms is deep..)
3. In Europe and America, in the last two years, the leading cause of people being smashed to jelly by cars is "Sudden Elder Acceleration Syndrome" where white elderly confuse the brake and accelerator pedals.
While not poo-pooing the Islamic menace - as some wish to threaten our culture and way of life in a demographic sense...And with weapons and elaborate attacks black thugs are too dumb to create - the fact is that in the 6 1/2 years since 9/11, more whites in the West have been killed by blacks than by non-black Muslims, with a higher per capita lethal rate. Ditto with rapes, ditto with armed robberies. Yes, Islam badly needs reform and change or at least the intimidation of fear of consequences. But the same is true of black thugs.
And black "liberation" has cleansed more whites out of countries and major Western Cities than anything the Muslims have done over the last 50 years.
Of course to argue blacks are a greater threat on average to law abiding Westerners, than Muslims, is to be "racist". But then again, it is only in the sense that people arguing Muslims are the main threat are "bigoted".
Thanks for your response Vincep1974, and your comment Cedarford.
Here in the Belmont we sometimes "raise our voices" in frustration or venting, not so much because we're aggravated fundamentally at what someone's statement actually means, but what it MIGHT mean. I should be more careful about my phrasing especially when I'm writing in the bleakness of a late night bathed in the pitiless light of the monitor, 'cause in most cases my purpose is not to thrash someone for proposing a thought, but to try to follow something to its results, or add some references.
Cedarford, you did a service to point out the things you did. You are so Right --- Jihadist fanatics are only ONE problem. (Still, the Islamic extremists contribute to some of the other problems. They're very effectively recruiting black prison inmates, emphasizing racist interpretations of the inmates' problems, and re-directing their predispositions to rage and short-cut solutions to all frustrations to fit in the framework of distorted Islamic teachings. Boy, does that speak volumes about the violence and intolerance at the core of Mohammed's teachings...)
In addition to the items you mention (and it seems like Cho, the Korean who murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech, did this as a result of mental disease not as fulfillment of an organized religion...) there is the matter of road crashes killing some 50 to 60 thousand US citizens every year, without seeming to make ANYONE reconsider the wisdom of letting people have autocars.
I wonder what are the statistics worldwide.
And then there's AIDS.
How are we supposed to make sense of the radicalized homosexual population in which it is commonly believed that the U.S. government deliberately developed and introduced AIDS to kill off homosexuals, but the trend of the last few years among many homosexuals is to seek out intentionally un-protected sex with a partner known to be HIV-positive, called "bare-backing." It had already been reported from studies in San Francisco that many homosexuals there have long since reverted to unprotected sex.
Truly brain-exploding pretzel logic.
Mentioning this at all probably gets me put on a list of "homophobics" somewhere, which of course I am NOT. Promiscuity and irresponsible hedonism are a menace regardless of whether they are homosexual or heterosexual.
Interesting how everything connects. The West, even without the threat of Nuclear-equipped Islamic Jihad, has been in a frenzy of self-mutilation for a long time. That impulse manifests itself repeatedly in logic based on blaming ANYONE but yourself for the injuries you suffer in doing what you feel you have a perfect right to do, and then expecting the government to assuage its collective guilt by bailing you out and paying your bills.
Why can't I just give in and get with the program?
By the way, I've lost heterosexual friends to AIDS as a result of contaminated blood transfusions. The transfusions were for hemophiliacs who needed monthly injections of clotting factor refined from hundreds of pints of blood. Seemed miraculous before it was realized that the blood needed to be screened for HIV virus.
I've also lost friends who were homosexuals. I lament their deaths just as much as the deaths of heterosexual from AIDS, however it was contracted. The arguments for governing ourselves in our sexual behavior are true even if AIDS were to disappear this instant.
Hmmmm. How many deaths from the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs? Then, how many deaths from syphilis, AIDS, Chlamydia, et cetera each year?
VinceP1974: it's short-sighted to not take into account the words and religious objectives of the Islamic Republic.
That's what you say, yet when Whiskey_199 observes how:
We need a policy that clearly states total destruction of any hostile regime if ANY nuclear attack by some terrorist group happens to ANY American or Allied city. A policy that simply kills most of the people of the targeted nations, and is automatic. No orders need be given (negating the decapitation strategy).
With the proviso that the US can and will launch a pre-emptive attack if needed. That the only way to exit the list is to give up via inspection on demand nuclear weapons.
You say:
I could care less about responding to a nuclear attack. When people think that just because we can annihilate any country that happens to nuke is something to brag about i just have to shake my head at the stupidity of that statement.
And yet can only offer up this:
The time to act was YEARS AGO.
... as a solution. What's more you protest with this feeble observation:
in other words you're guarantee'ing them that they will die a martyer and spend eternity in Islamic paradise.
Again, Whiskey_199 is on the money with the following observation:
Individual low-level jihadis might love death, but those who fund, organize, and train them don't. Khomeni did not volunteer for martyrdom, neither did Ahmadinejad, Osama, or Zawahari.
...
By introducing fear (and way out of bad consequences) you force the rules into a choice -- total destruction of their wealth, as a believable threat (not idle words but a demonstrable one), along with their power (if they survive they're merely stateless, poor refugees, better to die). Or supporting cheap/easy jihad.
To change the equation we need to make support for Jihad far too hazardous to ruler's wealth and power. Make their appalling states work for us rather than against us.
This represents the minimum required level of fundamental change in how the MME (Muslim Middle East) operates. They must no longer have the luxury of plausible deniability or any ability to dispose of their oil wealth in such an irresponsible manner. Stark realities and harsh penalties must be laid before them or there will be death on such a massive scale as to make World War II look like a picnic.
Left unfettered, Islam will precipitate this slaughter. It literally cannot help itself. Such vicious and mindless killing is bred into too many Muslims at an almost genetic level.
Mad Fiddler: The comment stream for Belmont for the last few weeks has seen a distinct hardening of attitudes--- maybe better described as a crystallization of awareness that Islamic Jihad is never going to be contained, constrained, or defeated by anything less than the sort of extremities that the Japanese and German fanatics forced the West to use. Some of us came to this conclusion earlier, some later.
A succinct synopsis, if ever there was one.
You don't have to accept Christ as the divine incarnation of God sent to live among men to grasp that his teachings and life provide a matchless example of transcendent selfless love; of patience, forgiveness, tolerance, and compassion.
Speaking as a devout agnostic: Agreed!
The idiocy of the present leadership of the West is to persist in believing that Islamic fanatics can be depended upon to negotiate in good faith and on a rational basis according to Western values. This is insane, even criminally negligent.
[Emphasis Added]
Bravo. This remains the bottom line and one that I have tried to convey repeatedly here at Belmont Club.
TAQIYYA IRREVERSIBLY DAMNS ISLAM
There is no form of negotiation, dialogue or "peace process" that can be obtained from Islam.
Absent this, there is only Total War. The West must give Islam a taste of this at the earliest opportunity. Muslims must be made to understand the fatal precipice of supposedly glorious martyrdom that their extremist clergy are herding them towards, one and all.
Even worse is how the West’s political leadership absolutely refuses to accept that traditional diplomatic methods simply WILL NOT WORK with Islam. One need only examine the entire Palestinian track record to see the exact same patter of behavior we will be treated to from Islam in general. Moreover, as Srdja Trifkovic notes:
The elite class has every intention of continuing to “fight” the war on terrorism without naming the enemy, without revealing his beliefs, without unmasking his intentions, without offending his accomplices, without expelling his fifth columnists, and without ever daring to win. Their crime can and must be stopped. The founders of the United States overthrew the colonial government for offenses far lighter than those of which the traitor class is guilty.
This is why—futile as it may seem—it is incumbent upon thinking minds to begin dispersing the meme of Islam’s eternal perfidy and that taqiyya makes impossible any peaceful or negotiated solution. As I always say:
ISLAM WILL NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY
One heartening thing is how NOBODY here is still blathering on about the need to reform Islam. I think it is safe to say that most informed people understand that Islamic reformation—save that towards even more extremist views—simply will not happen.
VinceP1974: What I'm saying is, because there is no backbone or clear thinking in our leadership, it will be inevitible that nuclear bombs go off in our country. At that point (our society destroyed) it's really a little too late if we kill everyone from Morroco to Indonesia... the damage will have been done.
What you are not saying—here, at least—is what can be done. You seem quite inclined to continue your hand wringing without delivering anything more than condemnation of those who are attempting to outline some sort of active measures.
I don’t think it is necessary to repeat all of my own views right now. Whiskey_199’s and my own seem to be largely interchangeable, at least for current purposes of discussion. As Mad Fiddler noted, there has indeed been some sort of crystallization regarding overall views with respect to Islam. I believe this is a good thing, as it will facilitate a push towards evolving some sort of overall meme regarding what must be done to combat jihadist Islam and Islam in general.
It’s long past tea to get this meme out into the larger public’s mind. I do it every single day. Whenever I’m able to steer any conversation towards Islam, I immediately mention the need to begin assassinating the top echelons of Islam’s terrorist elite. This is one of the only functional deterrents that has any hope of averting the looming need for several convincing displays of massively disproportionate retaliation. Even some Muslims I’ve talked to agree with me on this. Finally, thank you Wretchard for providing all of us with a forum whereby some sort of intelligently discussed consensus can be reached.
What you are not saying—here, at least—is what can be done. You seem quite inclined to continue your hand wringing without delivering anything more than condemnation of those who are attempting to outline some sort of active measures.
What *can* be done? Well gee, I can come up with 20 fantasy scenerios about what can be done.
What good does that masturbation do us? You think any of it would actually be done?
Instead of focusing on fantasy I instead ask.. What realistically *will* be done. And I come to the answer I came to.
Nothing is going to be done.
If you think otherwise please let us know.. what do you see the government actually doing?
VinceP1974: What realistically *will* be done. And I come to the answer I came to.
Nothing is going to be done.
If you think otherwise please let us know.. what do you see the government actually doing?
Please stop with the hand wringing. It is not only annoying but a waste of bandwidth.
What "*realistically*" will be done is the public's will once the electorate gets off of its well-larded ass.
"Nothing is going to be done" if people continue wringing their hands instead of actively participating in the recalibration of perception needed to begin shifting public opinion. None of which you are doing. Playing Chicken Little does not count.
What are your own suggestions regarding how to shift the American public's intertia? What measues do you see as being effective in terms of foreign policy?
If you can't provide cogent responses to these two simple questions, maybe you need to consider spending a bit of time away from the keyboard reading up on history until some answers begin to percolate through your miasma of hopelessness.
People here are working hard to create new and powerful memes by which the perception of Islam, in particular, and political reality in general is gauged. Insulting those who are constructively working towards that end while simultaneously coming up empty-handed in the answers department isn't winning you any prizes.
Excuse me Zenster.. how about answering my question. You're pretty good at deconstructing what I've said and then offering some contentless pep talk but you're short on details.
What do you think is realistically going to be done?
(1) We are paralyzed, many of us, by the concept of mass death. France and Britain lost tens of millions of their finest young men in just a few years of trench warfare in the Great War. Some individual battles saw tens of thousands of soldiers dead in the evening who were alive that morning. Commanders watched whole regiments, battalions, and divisions climb up out of the trenches and begin to march resolutely across the mud, splintered posts, rolls of barbed wire draped with human bowels, and water-filled shell craters which could swallow entire tanks, only to watch those troops falter, fall, and melt into the mud. The massed machine guns frequently cut down the troops to a man before a single one had progressed to the enemy's nearest emplacements.
(2) No wonder the French and British governments were so reluctant to force the issue when faced with resurgent German militarism. A huge difference between them and the NAZIs, sadly, was that France and Britain as the victors had imposed harsh reparations penalties on the Germans. Those pitiless conditions, however justified, helped stimulate and spur a new vicious form of German nationalism.
(3) John Toland and other chroniclers tell of inflation run amok as the Weimar government printed money in trainloads, to be able to pay the reparations in increasingly worthless Marks. A shopper would go to the market with a wicker laundry basket full of paper money to buy food, place the basket on the ground to select a few turnips, and find on turning around that someone had dumped the paper money onto the ground and run off with the basket. In decadent Berlin, the idle rich from all over the continent gathered to watch live sex performances in the nightclubs, while on the streets mother-daughter prostitute teams turned tricks, and communists fought pitched battles with Nazis among the rubble.
(4) Imagine hundreds of thousands of German mothers with children of dead husbands, trying to raise their kids in such chaos in the 20's. The appeal of the Nazis was the hope of order. In his biography of Hitler, Toland quotes a letter sent home from a teenager describing one of his patrols as a member of one of the early proto-NAZI groups battling for control of the ruined cities. They'd issued a proclamation that anyone other than their own found after dark with any gun would be summarily executed. They stopped a couple of young Red Cross nurses making their way home after their shift at a hospital. They carried a pistol for protection. The writer said, "...they cried and they begged, but we shot them anyway!"
That horrifying passage better than any other factoid I've ever seen, clarifies the moral chaos of Germany that made the rise of a monster like Hitler almost inevitable.
(5) Americans lost some 500 thousand service personnel killed in action in WWII, and several million wounded, in all theaters.
RUSSIA LOST OVER SIXTY MILLION. One analyst of WWII casualty statistics pointed out that Russia lost more FIRST LIEUTENANTS than France and England lost of ALL RANKS combined. They still emerged victorious. Stalin had already slaughtered several tens of millions of Soviet citizens in the 20's and 30's in the process of terrorizing the population into accepting collectivization.
(6) My point is that there are people in the world who have recognized that a nation can absorb titanic losses and still triumph over its adversaries. This is a calculus around which most US citizens cannot wrap their brains.
This inability to contemplate death and suffering on a cosmic a scale so far beyond our experience seems to be central to some folks' present reluctance to any action.
(1) Get out of the United Nations, expel the perverts, thugs, and syphilitic madmen from the sacred ground they have fouled. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever again give those fuckards another penny. Not a glass of water. Tell them to find another place to use the toilet.
The United Nations was, let's remember, originally comprised of the countries that had allied against Germany, Italy, and Japan during WWII. The dismantling of former empires and the epidemic of nationalist fever that subdivided scores of nations in the 1950's and 60's ended up elevating dozens and dozens of vicious thugs as new-minted "heads of state." Their henchmen were sent to the U.N. General Assembly on the margins of what was once Turtle Bay Farm, later a neighborhood of Manhattan.
By the mid-1960's the Assembly was populated by a number of nations created by mass murdering psychopaths, Stalinist puppets, and third-world dictators who proceeded to bully the alleged "non-aligned" nations. The organization decades back ceased to be a force for peace and safety for the oppressed, and has instead actually contributed to the suffering of refugees and tyrannized populations.
(2) Make it clear that any future aid to other countries coming from the United States of America will be clearly marked as such. No more sending wheat and rice produced on the fields of North Dakota, Idaho, California, or Louisiana to be labeled as a gift of the United Nations, whose administrators are thieves, perverts, and rascals, and whose expenses we more than any other country, have been paying since day one.
I remember a "Donald Duck" comic from the 1950's --- one of those classics by Carl Barks, featuring an adventure in which Uncle Scrooge was forced to leave off swimming in the oceans of legal tender sloshing about in his vast treasury in Duckburg, to find out what was going on with certain precious hardwood tree farms he owned in some Asian country. I mind a panel in which Scrooge is peering through binoculars at the Beagle Boys who are busy plundering his estate.
"They're cutting down my trees," he cried out, "to build a bridge so they can steal my ELEPHANTS," he sobs, "...So they can STEAL MY TREES!"
Sounds like the best description I've ever seen of the way the U.N. works.
(3) Lead NATO.
I had first written "take control."
! No !
America needs to be a goddam LEADER, instead of taking polls to find out what tentative, sort-of, maybe-if-we, can-we, should-we, will-you-be-upset-if-we, this or that pathetically useless try-to-please-everyone action we should form a committee to study the merits of thinking about maybe possibly...doing. Someday.
If nobody objects.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
In this context, I note that I never heard a single liberal say a word against William Jefferson Clinton for sending U.S. and Coalition naval and air forces into harm's way in Iraq SIX DIFFERENT TIMES during his administration, to punish Saddam and/or counter his violations of the CEASE-FIRE he'd accepted to end the hostilities of Gulf War I that would have otherwise destroyed him. Not a peep from Democrats or liberals objecting to his dispatching U.S. naval ships with U.S. troops on board toward Haiti WITHOUT CONSULTING THE UNITED NATIONS, in order to intimidate the new government that had ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide. There had been some UN resolutions, interestingly, but Clinton did not go begging for a specific permission to send the troops.
I never heard Democrats or Liberals raise objections when William Jefferson Clinton ordered US forces into Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to defend Muslims, without getting the explicit permission of the UN.
I am sick to death of the double standard of hypocrites and gutless pukes.
(4) Extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
(5) Institute some form of UNIVERSAL service to be required of each and every resident between the age of 18 and 25 or so; not necessarily service in the armed forces, since a lot of folks are for various reasons unsuited to such. It is a disgraceful and glaring omission that we let most of our youth grow up with a sense that they are OWED, rather than an understanding that they have an obligation to the nation that gave them life.
(6) ENERGY INDEPENDENCE. I would rather pay 10 dollars per gallon for gasoline made from Alaskan oil or fuel made from US grown sugarcane stalks, than 30 cents per gallon for more oil from Arab Islamic Terrorists who want to kill me using the profits from the oil I buy from them.
I'm talkin' real big here, from the safety of my bitty computer.
I think I'll drink some more whiskey now.
mad fiddler: Great comments.
Nearly every day I'm in a state of almost constant anger at our government.
Now today with the attack at the school in Israel and our bitch of a Sec of State is still blathering about a Peace Process.. I swear I'm going to have a stroke.
Then you hear the idiots who are running Israel that the Peace Process is still on.
My God.. the spiritual blindness of our societies is so profound I fear NOTHING NOTHING is going to penetrate it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dear Vincep1974,
Thanks for sayin' --- if my writing makes any sense, it's mainly because I've been practicing these harangues a lot. Sooner or later, the phrases sorter organize themselves.
(I keep thinking that would be pronounced "Vin-Sep"...
...or is it "Vince-Pee?")
Since even before the attacks of September 11, 2001, people have been making the comparison to the brief period before WWII, when Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, Hitler marched without consequence into the Sudetenland, when Czechoslovakia was cravenly traded to Hitler for empty promises...
I have more or less accepted that only further devastating attacks on United States soil, killing enormous numbers of Americans, will stir the country out of its enfeebled state.
That said, I don't intend to stop trying to alert folks to the things I've learned in just reading about Islam. The thing that pains me most is knowing that there are wonderful people who are Muslim, and I wish them well. But the tempest approaches, the winds are rising, and and the hurricane will soon overtake us all. The only people who can do anything to prevent this are Muslims themselves.
When the storm has passed, you can be sure the landscape will have been scoured and unrecognizable.
I don't believe the so-called moderate Muslims have it in'em to make the change.
Of course, there are other problems and challenges for our culture, and earning a living and paying bills and all the other mundane minutiae must be continued...
I say these things without a sense of despair.
There's a cost to just living in the world; "none of us gets out alive." Just because the world as we know it is swiftly approaching its end doesn't mean we can't have a good time.
C-fudd,
Let's hear about the "heart and courage" of the attackers at the seminary in Jerusalem today. C'mon, man, own up. That's what you really think, right? You've said it here before. Or don't you have the balls to say it again? Don't reply, and prove me right that you're a weasel.
VinceP1974: You're pretty good at deconstructing what I've said and then offering some contentless pep talk but you're short on details.
What do you think is realistically going to be done?
My one sure prediction is pretty much along the lines of your own position.
According to their current behavior patterns, Western political leaders will continue to dither about until one or several Western cities are immolated in nuclear fire.
At that point there will most likely begin a Muslim holocaust of horrific proportions. Quite probably, I will have absolutely no need for Kleenex.
None of that alters the fact that, as conscientious people, all of us are obligated to try and avert this monstrous outcome. I do my best by educating those around me while soliciting informed discussion from those who field ideas and are willing to engage in constructive debate.
Towards that end, I have routinely attempted to engage people in finding some sort of functional deterrent to terrorism. This is an ongoing project I have been working on for several years. If you are a member of CVF's 910 Group, please feel free to look up my post regarding "A Functional Deterrent to Terrorism" in the Counterterrorism forum.
I have posted the bulk of it here already and do not want to consume too much of Wretchard's bandwidth by doing so again. If you honestly have not seen it and feel it is important to review it again, I'll repost it.
I just realized you're on GoV.
I am a member of .the 910 group, i'll have to check out your article.
I have been trying to get my Congressman to wake up from his stupor.. but I am dealing with a Chicago Democrat.. so they're not known for their brain capacity.
One of my best letters to Congress is here. I wrote this last year on the night of the first time the House passed a bill to surrender Iraq.
Mad Fiddler: The thing that pains me most is knowing that there are wonderful people who are Muslim, and I wish them well. But the tempest approaches, the winds are rising, and and the hurricane will soon overtake us all. The only people who can do anything to prevent this are Muslims themselves.
[Emphasis Added]
At day's end, this remains the bottom line. If Islam refuses to clean its own house, it most certainly canot expect the West to do it for them. Any effort by non-Muslim nations will most likely be quite indelicate at best.
Nowhere is it written that we must fastidiously winnow through some one billion Muslims in order to cull out from amongst them the violent psychopaths that they themselves refuse to oust.
Either the more conciliatory factions of Islam begin this onerous task post haste or they must expect to see the moderate Muslim baby thrown out with the jihadist bathwater.
It's long past tea to put the ball squarely in Islam's court. Our reactive posture not only invites more terrorist atrocities but encourages Muslims to ratchet up their demands for even greater entitlements and further insinuation of shari'a law into our governmental frameworks. This must not continue as it will lead to only one of two things: Either the West succumbs to Islam or it shall eventually experience a myoclonic convulsion that will see much of this earth's Muslim population disappear in nuclear plasma.
It is too easy and convenient to blame the dithering inaction of our own politicians for precipitating this crisis. In reality, it is Islam and Islam alone that bears sole responsibility for this being an all-or-nothing situation. Without its vicious predation upon all other cultures, there would be no need to seek—on what will likely be a global level—the suppression of further Islamic hostilities. All of this is happening because:
ISLAM WILL NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY
We in the West are not to blame for this and must not voluntarily shoulder any guilt over the fact that Islam's upper echelons absolutely refuse to consider any form of coexistence. If one billion Muslims perish because of this, it will be a direct result of Islam's intransigence and in no way be due to the West's own obligation to survive.
I don't believe the so-called moderate Muslims have it in'em to make the change.
That is because the "moderate Muslim" really does not exist. Those who do not rigidly adhere to all of Islam's innumerable dictates are blasphemers or apostates. This is for one simple reason. While there may seem to be “moderate Muslims”, these is no moderate Islam. Muslim clerics around the world have repeated this dictum countless times and the West has yet to take them seriously.
VinceP1974: I just realized you're on GoV.
I am a member of .the 910 group, i'll have to check out your article.
Fair enough. I would appreciate it if you would check out both “A Functional Deterrent to Terrorism” in the Counterterrorism Forum and my other major submission, “High & Low Context Cultures: Why Islam is So Alien” in the Intangibles: Philosophy, Beliefs, Religion Forum. In the meantime, I’ll return the favor by reading your “Random collection regarding the Islamo-American War”. Let’s see where this leads us. Most likely, into raucous, violent agreement, no doubt.
Dear Zenster & VinceP1974
Please provide link or e-xplanation of references to "910" and "GoV"
Oh, I found it.
for those who might be interested, do a search with key words "910 group"
Mad Fiddler, please let me know if you are interested in joining the 910 Group. It needs new blood and I'll be happy to sponsor your application.
Send an email to: rockandrollstu@aol.com
VinceP1974, I notice that at your website you link to John David Lewis' superb monograph: "No Substitute for Victory". This one article totally convinced me that—absent Pakistani nukes falling into radical hands or what such—Iran is the starting point for dismantling political Islam.
It also makes me suspect that we are, indeed, in violent agreement.
For those of you who have not read this lengthy but outstanding article, I cannot recommend it highly enough. After reading it, you will walk away shaking your head.
Thank you Z.
I've copied your information if you want to remove your post.
I just happened to notice this:
“No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism”
Who: John David Lewis, senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University
What: A talk followed by Q&A
Where: Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA in Smith Auditorium, Room 105
When: March 13, 2008 at 8 :00 PM
Admission is free.
Description: Over six years after Manhattan was viciously attacked by Islamic holy warriors, the world is still held hostage to their rants and their bombs. Iraq is in turmoil, Syria is emboldened, and Iran, in pursuit of nuclear weapons, intends to wipe Israel off the map and destroy the Great Satan. America. What went wrong? This lecture will show how our failure to identify the ideology of our enemies. Islamic Totalitarianism has made it impossible to confront them. Drawing on the lessons of America's victory over Japan, this lecture will challenge us to reject our assumptions about the nature of a "just war," and to demand the removal, by force, of Islamic Totalitarianism State Islam from the face of the earth.
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