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| Terror Networks |
| Mark Steyn: No other word for it but slaughter |
| 2004-09-05 |
| EFL. No snarky interspersed comments for obvious reasons. PHOTOGRAPHED from above, the body bags look empty. They seem to lie flat on the ground, and it's only when you peer closer that you realise that that's because the bodies in them are too small to fill the length of the bags. They're children. Row upon row of dead children, more than a hundred of them, 150, more, many of them shot in the back as they tried to flee. Flee from whom? Let's take three representative responses: "Guerillas", said The New York Times. "Chechen separatists", ventured the BBC, eventually settling for "hostage-takers". "Insurgents", said The Guardian's Isabel Hilton, hyper-rational to a fault.... So the particular character of this "insurgency" does not derive from the requirements of "asymmetrical warfare" but from . . . well, let's see, what was the word missing from those three analyses of the Beslan massacre? Here's a clue: half the dead "Chechen separatists" were not Chechens at all, but Arabs. And yet, tastefully tiptoeing round the subject, The New York Times couldn't bring itself to use the words Muslim or Islamist, for fear presumably of offending multicultural sensibilities. In the 1990s, while the world's leaders slept — or in Bill Clinton's case slept around — thousands of volunteers from across the globe passed through terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and were then dispatched to Indonesia, Kosovo, Sudan . . . and Chechnya. Wealthy Saudis — including members of the royal family — invested millions in setting up mosques and madrassas in what were traditionally spheres of a more accommodationist Islam, from the Balkans to South Asia, and successfully radicalised a generation of young Muslim men. It's the jihadist component — not the asymmetrical one, not the secessionist one — that accounts for the mound of undersized corpses, for the scale of the depravity... What happened in one Russian schoolhouse is an abomination that has to be defeated, not merely regretted. But the only guys with any kind of plan are the Bush administration. Last Thursday, the President committed himself yet again to wholesale reform of the Muslim world. This is a dysfunctional region that exports its toxins, to Beslan, Bali and beyond, and is wealthy enough to be able to continue doing so. You can't turn Saudi Arabia and Yemen into New Hampshire or Sweden (according to taste), but if you could transform them into Singapore or Papua New Guinea or Belize or just about anything else you'd be making an immense improvement. It's a long shot, but, unlike Putin's plan to bomb them Islamists into submission or Chirac's reflexive inclination to buy them off, Bush is at least tackling the "root cause". If you've got a better idea, let's hear it. Right now, his is the only plan on the table. The ideology and rationale that drove the child-killers in Beslan is the same as that motivating cells in Rome and Manchester and Seattle and Sydney. In this war, you can't hold the line against the next depravity. Unusually somber for Steyn. Read it all at the link. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut |
| #14 Yeah OS, I hear you. Okay fine. It needs to be a part of me now. Damn, but your right. I came to this conclusion really a few days ago. I'll be cool! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-09-07 2:18:25 AM |
| #13 #2 Has our press become so detached from reality behind their NewSpeech that they have lost all sight of any morality in the issue at all? They are so concerned about being PC they fail to name the Evil what it is. Its disgusting. How can those people live with themselves slanting things like that? OldSpook, I wish that I had an answer for you, but I don't. I, too, am astounded by such willing misrepresentations being made by the mainstream media. It is not just dishonest, but basically suicidal. The vein-opening desire to be politically correct, "sensitive," or "culturally aware" goes beyond open-mindedness and into the realm of plain insanity. My television has been off for over three years now and I do not miss this sort of misrepresentation in the least. Your second post makes me seriously consider switching from a 4" folding hunter to a snub-nose S&W. I am sick of American media's prediliction with being so sensitive to those who would murder us in our sleep. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-09-06 12:31:00 AM |
| #12 True. For targets, look which states are anti-carry, anti-firearms, do not have a lot of police (rules out NY and a lot of large dense metro areas- imagine having the entire NYPD coming down on you). Look for fairly large concentration of population, a decent sized target mall. Is Minnesota carry/gun friendly? If not, I'd be putting state police and rotating swat teams in the Mall of America, right this moment. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-09-05 11:58:07 PM |
| #11 I got your back, O.S. I need to start carrying a reload, too; thanks for the reminder. Though I imagine if/when they do try that crap here, they won't try it in Texas or Virginia (except Northern Va., which is a sort of Yankee-land lite) or Alaska or any of the Midwestern farm states. Or they'll be in for a huge surprise. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-05 11:11:05 PM |
| #10 Whoa SPOD! - take it easy, we don't want to lose you here! I've given up on the BBC, but don't let them and arseholes like them drive you into doing something you may regret. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-09-05 10:23:43 PM |
| #9 SPOD - don't draw in anger. Remember - Don't carry unless you intend to draw when needed. Don't draw unless you intend to shoot. Don't shoot unless you intend to kill. You fight like you train - dont do it in anger. If you carry you have to train yourself. You must only kill out of cold rational decision making and with precision and dispassion. I didnt carry for a while, but this stuff in Russia reminded me - the best defense against such things is an armed citizenry. Were those teachers armed, they could have at least held off the terrorists and allowed many others to escape. Imagine yourself at the local shopping mall. Imagine that bunch taking over. What will you do, die? Not me, at least not without getting a few of them first. Fire and movement. Kill them and keep them off balance to allow others to escape, while I work my way toward an exit. 10+10 (I carry a relaod these days) .40S&W hollowpoint will stop them, hard - no military FMJ here - I'm making big holes. Unless they are wearing body armor they are not going to be able to take more than a single hit. One things for sure - they better take the sporting goods store first - otherwise, there will be a company's worth of citizen militia after them with shotgus, pistols and hunting rifles. No 7 day waiting period - just bust open the case. Now if there are 30 others like me in the mall, the Terrorists will all be dead, and far fewer of our fellow citizens will die. We need to be sure there are plenty of us goats in amongst the sheep. We should have local governments *requesting* that citizens volunteer to qualify and carry concealed weapons - and then training them and certifying them. A true militia. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-09-05 10:13:56 PM |
| #8 I am so damm critical right now I am carrying a 45, just incase I run into a muslim males or MSM member. I don't have to accept this crap or their apoligists. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-09-05 8:46:07 PM |
#7 #5 Remote Man:We have been socialized to be accepting/non-critical of other cultures and religions.I haven't. And neither have most of my friends. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2004-09-05 8:26:45 PM |
| #6 Note the term chosen by the MSM to describe the incident: a siege. Y'know, like the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Or maybe Waco. As if the jihadist child-killers we're defending their own turf from the fascist Spetsnaz. Then look at the sequence of events, as per the BBC. No mention that the Spetsnaz began shooting only in response to, first, the bombs set off by the terrorists, and second, the semi-automatic turkey shoot of fleeing children by the terrorists. And now we have the six phases of this "seige" as per the Beeb: Standoff | Plight | Flashpoint | Assault | Escape | End No mention of slaughter, killing, terror. Instead we have the hostages' (or maybe the hostage-takers'?) "plight." No blame, no worries. That shit happens. Detonation of bombs, suicide bombings by two female terrorists, spray-shooting of children with autmatic weapons? That's a "flashpoint." And finally, the effort by civilized people to prevent children from being gunned down by savage killers? That's an "assault." Four years of unspeakable atrocities, after so much sacrifice, sweat, blood tears, and these f***ing retards don't get it. Screw those morons. If the EU idiotarians cannot grasp that this is war and that the adversary seeks a fight to the finish, then we must and will find allies beyond Europe who do get it. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-05 6:33:13 PM |
| #5 It will be far too long until the enemy is called by its real name. We have been socialized to be accepting/non-critical of other cultures and religions. It will take many American and European dead before that changes. War and its horrors are the only thing that will harden us and awaken our whole society to the evil that confronts us. We are better people when we are accepting, but the circumstances demand that we change and do so quickly. I am thankful that Pres. Bush is in charge (and has a double digit lead in the polls). |
| Posted by: Remote Man 2004-09-05 6:21:27 PM |
| #4 The MSM wouldn't want to offend anyone with the non-PC truth. Liberal politicians like Kerry and Kennedy will have to speak the unspeakable adjectives like "Islamic" before they will be PC. That won't happen until a few hundred American children die. Maybe not even then. The only thing that keeps me from sagging into depression is that (1) Bush gets it and keeps chipping away at the Islamic terrorists, regardless of what the NYT and WaPo have to say and (2) Bush will be unencumbered by the campaign in two months. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-09-05 6:02:08 PM |
| #3 OldSpook----I am continually baffeled by that. The only thing that I can think of is their obsession with being PC is taking on the symptoms of being an illness. Nobody can stand back and look at the big picture. It is like they insert standard phrases into the story, like an idiot's cookbook. The good news that other alternative means of communication are getting the story out. The MSM is losing its credibility, slowly, steadily. It is just not fast enough for events and the situation the world is facing with Islamofascists. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-09-05 5:43:05 PM |
| #2 Why will the press not call a spade a spade? These were Terrorists. Period. If you want to add the proper adjective, they were Islamist Terrorists. Has our press become so detached from reality behind their NewSpeech that they have lost all sight of any morality in the issue at all? They are so concerned about being PC they fail to name the Evil what it is. Its disgusting. How can those people live with themselves slanting things like that? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-09-05 5:26:04 PM |
| #1 somber and angry - understandable |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-09-05 3:33:47 PM |