#1
What's really rich is that Bill Gates appears to be known as a kind man, despite his robber baron rise. I suppose history remembers cruel men like Rockefeller and Carnegie the same way. A lifetime of cruelty followed by giving away some of your money to charity is evidently the #1 method of ensuring your legacy. If Bill Gates didn't exist, personal computing would be 5-10 years ahead of where it is today.
#3
Good article. I can and have bashed Gates with the best of them, as I worked with PCs from the very begining. I bought one. Standard configuration 64K (it might have been less, cos I vaguely recall DOS does run in 64K), not enough to run DOS. A floppy disk drive was an optional extra and hard drives were years in the future.
But what the PC did was sweep away the dozens of vendors all selling their own OS variant of Unix, CPM, MPM that only ran on their proprietary hardware.
MS under Gates was ruthless, but our hostility to them was in hindsight hostility toward the winner.
And Gates should be applauded for what he is doing. He may even shake up the notoriously unaccountable NGO system.
#5
MS-DOS was a total piece of crap, other companies offered better alternatives.
IBM deserves the credit for cloned hardware and the PC explosion. I stand by my statements that Bill Gates is a cruel robber baron and that his company's technology is poor.
#7
But what the PC did was sweep away the dozens of vendors all selling their own OS variant of Unix, CPM, MPM that only ran on their proprietary hardware.
That would come as news to Gary Kildall. What Gates did was to protect the jobs of the IT priesthood for a 30 years.
#8
I too have attached Gates. And I have also used PCs from the first.
I think he should be applauded for what he is doing now. Its very commendable that he is now supporting causes like he is.
But Microsoft didn't get their market position by building a better product but by marketing - and forcing manufacturers to install their OS or face a much higher per-seat price. Even IBM which had OS/2 (also much better then Windows 3.x IMHO) was forced to install Windows and only sell OS/2 as an add-on.
Its the VHS vs Betamax all over again. What comes out on top isn't always the best.
#9
I've long held the opinion that the bad DOS format was ultimately IBM's fault.
Back in the day, IBM made its money selling you a warehouse full of mainframe computers and renting you a fleet of folks in white lab coats to run them. When the issue of personal computing started coming up, the suits at IBM decided they had to at least *look* like they were trying to put out a PC product.
So they deliberately chose the underpowered, clumsy, inadequate OS offered by the ugly geek in the glasses, with the plan being that the product would fail and fail spectacularly, and they'd plausibly be able to say to the corporate buyers and shareholders: "Look, we're IBM. The biggest computer company in the world. We tried this 'personal computing' thing, it was a miserable failure, consumers hate it, it will never fly and now we'll sell you another mainframe, a gross of giant magnetic tape spools, and a dozen men in lab coats."
You'll recall they thought so little of Gates' OS that they failed to lock up exclusive rights to the technology. And that was the crack in the dyke that Gates used to flood the world with his products. Flawed as it was, his OS was good enough for Big Blue, and every other manufacturer could suddenly compete on equal terms. IBM almost went under for their lack of foresight and understanding of what consumers wanted.
And the PC was invented by IBM - not Microsoft. Microsoft only provided the OS (which ran on propritary hardware which just happened to become a standard because of the 'IBM' name on it). And I've heard that when Gates signed the deal with IBM he didn't even own the rights to DOS (Seattle Computer did) but had to buy it (some say IBM had to buy it for him...) at some bargain-basement price.
And didn't IBM go to Microsoft only because Digital Research snubbed them on CP/M?
#12
Actually, when the pc started IBM had a much better OS for it developed by a few researcher in the company but they refused to let that software leave the company. I saw that product once. Really nice. (A friend knew the developers). Lightyears ahead of DOS and IBM could have made it free - problem was the Suites got into wars with each other on pricing it. Some still wanted it taken to the insane point IBM had in their mainframes where each operation was a separate charge (You want to multiply? That's another $1000/mo). The result of the pricing fight was a stalemate. That's how DOS got a niche.
Oh and DOS 1.0 was not written by Gates. It was another company he purchased when his father told him about the niche in IBM. He sold it before buying Seattle Software that had the actual product. DOS 2.0 was a complete rewrite with his own people.
BTW.. I saw a totally differnet attack on Gates the other day. Somebody wanted to put a Rubin's painting on the cover of their SciFi Novel. Seems that Bill has bought up huge amounts of the world's art and wants amazing fees for using it on book covers and such. To thumb their noses at his prices they hired an artist to do a satire of the piece and put the satire on the cover.
#15
I'd give him credit for being willing to evaluate his motives and adapt his focus. A Christian leadership training group got together with 100 of America's top leaders in various areas and trained them in biblical principles that when applied, result in even greater blessing for the greater good for all, kind of like the trickle-down theory of economics. One of the key Scriptures from the seminar was paraphrased by Gates at the press announcement: "To whom much is given, much is required." Proportionate responsibility accompanies great wealth and recognizing we are to use the gifts God gave us for the greater good, rather than for selfish and greedy gain, is key to transforming society. God's blessing is ultimately necessary for success in the first place, and he wasn't dishonest or criminal about obtaining his wealth. I think the difference in British, and European thought, is our educational system that encourages thinking outside-the-box rather than accept indoctrination. It's kind of humorous to have Gates buying up the olde art from the olde farts, in a classic American way the rest of the world doesn't quite understand. I'm glad to see such a good article from the other side of the pond.
#16
#1 What's really rich is that Bill Gates appears to be known as a kind man, despite his robber baron rise. I suppose history remembers cruel men like Rockefeller and Carnegie the same way. A lifetime of cruelty (creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs is cruel? )followed by giving away some of your money to charity is evidently the #1 method of ensuring your legacy. If Bill Gates didn't exist, personal computing would be 5-10 years ahead of where it is today. Posted by gromky 2006-06-22 03:14|| Front Page|| ||Comments Top
What an off-target load, technology could hardly be moving faster. Difficult enuf to keep up with now. If Gates "didn't exist" someone else would have wandered along. Gates is a rain maker! Unlike these wonks in Washington, a Job creator! Give him the credit he deserves.
#17
*shakes head* I've worked with both MS-DOS And CP/M at the programming level: Both were equivalent in capability and ease-of-use.
I agree that innovation was held back 10 to 15 years by Gates, but NOT because of his operating system, his marketing techniques, or his hard-sell tactics. He was the idiot who recommended to IBM that they use the Intel 8086 chip instead of the Motorola 68000 for the IBM PC.
The justification was based on programming philosophy: The IBM mainframes of the day used a segmented architecture in which you had to load registers to point to 4K byte segments, and your instructions would contain offsets that would specify the specific byte within that segment of memory. The Intel 8086 used the same idea, so Gates figured IBM could leverage their programming expertise with segmented memory to program it, and they bit. Hard. The result was a plethora of "memory models" that C programmers had to wrestle with for years, and which really held back the use of memory above the notorious 1 Megabyte limit (extended memory).
In contrast, All the really innovative OS'es, such as the Mac OS and the Amiga OS, were programmed using the 68000, which viewed memory as a single huge contiguous block of bytes unmediated by segment registers. This freed up registers to use for REAL work. They also had better addressing modes. This was the memory framework assumed by Unix, and the tools were far easier to write and use.
Intel eventually expanded their segment address registers and other addressing modes to 32 bits with the 80286, but botched the design up by using a register bit to maintain 8086 compatibility to satisfy Microsoft and IBM: they had an instruction to set the bit to transition to 32 bit mode, but failed to provide an instruction to transition back to 16 bit mode to leverage existing device drivers (my recollection is that they had to get the KEYBOARD to fire an interrpt to reset the CPU to 16 bit mode. Idiocy. sheer Idiocy). That got corrected in the 80386, just in time for Windows 3.0 and true 32 bit mode.
And guess how the Intel chips from the 80386 onward are programmed? they set ALL the segment registers to 0 and use the memory as a Single. Huge. contiguous. Block. of. Memory.
Some small decisions create a lot of grief later on. THIS was one of them!
#18
Yep, right on the keyboard, the infamous A20 gate.
Only, that is why for so long you had to have a keyboard hooked up or the machine wouldn't post/boot. They figured the keyboard would be around for a long time so they jacked it for compatibilty.
A lot of BIOSes wouldn't post if the keyboard wasn't there.
#3
Muslims are agitating for vetos over national and foreign policies of the states that the pollute, because idiots like the 7-7 victim give them a salient.
Get rid of foreign born ingrates, and tenure for terrorists and their supporters.
North Korea Cannot Be Allowed to Test This Missile
By Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry
North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a deadly payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested such a missile, in 1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but especially to the United States and Japan, both of which North Korea regards as archenemies. They recognized immediately that a missile of this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it is intended for delivery of a nuclear warhead.
A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, which it upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, has obtained six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks aimed at containing North Korea's weapons of mass destruction have collapsed.
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not. The Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of "preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy. Intervening before a mortal threat developed is exactly what Bush did in Iraq, and it is exactly what the Clinton administration failed to do in Korea. The authors should have resisted this clumsy attempt at CYA because, without the preceding paragraph, the article is perfectly reasonable.
Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself explosive -- the U.S. airstrike would puncture the missile and probably cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.
The U.S. military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. Second, the U.S. defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the U.S. defense. Third, the U.S. system is unproven against North Korean missiles and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile defense may have.
We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. When they learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support this ultimatum -- indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with U.S. forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing of its own country, through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand that U.S. territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open support or assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North Korea's recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea.
In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to carry nuclear weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation.
North Korea could respond to U.S. resolve by taking the drastic step of threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) and which was openly opposing the U.S. action? An invasion of South Korea would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows. Though war is unlikely, it would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by introducing U.S. air and naval forces into the region at the same time it made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean.
This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.
Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who conducted the North Korea policy review while in government, are now professors at Harvard and Stanford, respectively.
#1
Funny. I was about to post this article with the same exact comment.
If we had bipartisan support to do this, our enemies would never test us in the way that NK is now doing. Unfortunately William "the Refigerator" Perry and Ashton Carter do not have influence over Pelosi or Reid.
They have succeed in convincing me that we should take it out on the pad if NK does not follow appropriate procedures to notify airmen and mariners, etc.
#2
Our options here are very limited, but Perry and Carter are completely wrong.
First of all, we don't know for sure that the bird has been fueled. Everyone says that you have to launch a liquid-fueled missile shortly after you fuel it, etc, etc. Okay -- if it's been fueled, when's it going to fly? Everyday it sits there is another day for the missile to corrode.
So maybe our intel is wrong. Again. So maybe we shouldn't jump the gun.
A nuclear strike on N Korea, in the absence of an overt attack by them on us or Japan, would ruin us in the world. We'd be pariahs even if China and Russia didn't respond right away.
A conventional attack guarentees the destruction of Seoul. That's a city of 11 million people. How many millions would die in a conventional war? And we can't count on a decapitation scenario; I'll bet Kimmie is at least as good as Saddam ever was in not being where we can put a laser-dot him.
Blowing up the missile pad, as Carter and Perry advocate, leads directly to war. We'd win it at the cost of millions of civilian casualties. No.
As Mr. Warren notes in the other article, this isn't a missile test, this is a provocation. Negotiations won't work (we all know that), because Kimmie is a sociopath -- he'll lie, pocket our concessions and provoke us again.
So the only realistic option is containment. That means staying calm and not responding to provocation. Perry and Carter are wrong to advocate shooting it down if they really mean that, but they're smart if what they are really going after is good containment -- we show the NKors that they don't particularly rattle us, because we have the technology to settle their hash.
For this particular situation -- as long as the Taepodong doesn't hit American or Japanese soil, we stay calm. Don't shoot it down; track it, use it as a dry-run exercise for the anti-missile systems, and sit back. Make a few taunts -- is that all ya got, little man? But containment, always, until North Korea implodes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2006 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Track it into the boost phase, and splash it as soon as it hits international airspace. Justify it by claiming that the trajectory threatened Tokyo, or Klamath Falls, or someplace, and there was no NOTAM issued in advance so we couldn't be sure it wasn't a warshot.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2006 15:42 Comments ||
Top||
#4
What Steve White sed.
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil?
Hummmmm....
I understand Steve's point. Kicking the can down the road has been our NK strategy since the Clinton admin at least. It may well work as NK's system is utterly unsustainable.
Still Carter/Perry do address his arguments. It is not clear that destroying the device on the pad will definitely lead to the shelling of Seoul. And, even if it did, the fact that they now have an ICBM means that our interests have officially diverged from those of SK. The fact that NK might attack an uninvolved 3rd party should not automatically stop us from defending ourselves if we perceive an imminent threat.
Similarly, Japan also has to consider its own security when deciding what to do about the missile and considerations about SK must be of secondary concern. They're closer, and therefore I think they are more likely to conclude it must be taken out.
I assume we are sharing intel with Japan and SK. Hopefully we can verify that it's not a warshot and follow Steve's approach.
However, if we (the US and/or Japan) cannot make this determination, we need to err on the side of caution when considering how to protect our homelands from an ICBM brandished by a nuclear armed rogue state. Maybe the ingrates in Seoul should have thought this through a few moves before taking their odd nationalistic yet selfish soft line stance vs. the Norks instead of fomenting the collapse of the regime.
My only concern is for our military people stationed in SK and I believe the fact that they are at risk (one SK legislator referred to them as 'hostages' a couple years ago) is the real reason we will not likely take out the missiles on the pad.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2006 16:05 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Call the bastards out and be done with it, we've been phueching with them since 1950. Sixtysix years should be long enuf. The gig is up! End it quickly, the shi*storm will be over in a couple of weeks.
A nuclear missile "test" is something announced well in advance. The country planning the test gives precise information about the time and location of the launch, and the intended trajectory. Every caution is exercised, to assure no one can mistake it for a surprise attack. Foreign military professionals may even be invited to watch the exercise from the ground. They will anyway have their satellite channels tuned.
What North Korea seems about to launch is thus not a test. It has been set up in defiance of a moratorium on long-range testing the North Koreans themselves signed -- although their foreign minister disowned it in a phone conversation with Japan's foreign minister yesterday (that left the latter deeply rattled).
That moratorium has now served its purpose, from the North Korean view. It was used to cover the development of the very missile that is now on the launching pad. As after every previous exercise of diplomacy with Pyongyang, we learn they were negotiating in bad faith. Proposals for redoubled diplomatic efforts are thus utterly irrational.
By any standard of international law, the launch will be an act of war. The Americans, or anyone else with anti-missile capabilities, would thus be entirely within their rights to shoot it down. Nor would it be provocative to do so. The provocation consists in sending up the missile in the first place. (Though alas, a mind addled by "liberalism" will refuse such a logical distinction.)
The question whether it would be prudent to shoot it down -- or even obliterate the launch facility before the launch can happen -- is another matter. It is a question without a reasonable answer, because the Western intelligence agencies upon which we depend for accurate information about North Korean capabilities are utterly incompetent, and morally confused about whose interests they serve. (Look at what the CIA has been revealing about itself, recently, for confirmation of this dire view.)
Preparations for the launch of the latest, multi-stage, intercontinental, Taep'o-dong-2, from the rocket complex in Musudan-ri, were only detected in early May -- apparently not by allied intelligence, but by a commercial ground station in Japan, using imagery from an American commercial satellite.
Since then, the review of takes from satellites and spy-planes (in the absence of any plausible ground sources) has shown the North Koreans to be following their usual procedures. The missile emerged from underground facilities of unknown extent, in an advanced state of readiness. Some weeks were spent testing the electronics and fall-away systems, before loading propellant. The fuelling began last week.
On Sunday, North Korean media announced that citizens should tune in their radios and televisions for a patriotic announcement later in the day. This was assumed to be the launch signal. But nothing remarkable was announced, at the posted time of 0500 GMT. Almost certainly, this means the planned launch was scrubbed. Analysts in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea are trying to guess from the pictures what technical problems the North Koreans are having.
It is a new system, which the North Koreans have been developing in cooperation with Iran -- where an important test of a related No-dong missile was carried out in January. There are always teething problems. They are eventually resolved.
Barring a large accident, that missile will go skyward at any moment in the next few weeks. Then it can be tracked; but because we have no reliable sources within the mad world of North Korea's government, we cannot meanwhile guess where it will fall. In 1998, they sent a long-range missile right over Japan. There was no warning of that, either. The thing could have come down on Tokyo, either on purpose or by mistake.
The Taep'o-dong-2 could conceivably come down on Vancouver, Seattle, or even Los Angeles. It is designed to carry a small nuclear payload -- just a few Hiroshimas -- to such a range. Once the ayatollahs have it, they will have all Europe in range.
In addition to their work on missiles and nuclear bombs, the two regimes have another thing in common. They are both psychopathic. Their rulers routinely utter the sort of threats, that would get men not in power put under medical sedation. President Ahmadinejad likes to fantasize about the nuclear incineration of six million Jews in Israel. And Chairman Kim Il-jong has fantasies about frying the United States.
For a definitive statement on what the U.S. will actually do, after a launch, we go to the White House press secretary, Tony Snow. "We will have to respond properly and appropriately at the time," he told CNN. Asked if he could explain what that meant, he said, "No."
I will tell you what that means. It means, when a missile again flies over Japan, the U.S. State Department will deliver a protest, that will say in no uncertain terms, "We wish you hadn't done that!" And the Japanese will do no less.
#1
I believe that you overstate the State Department's response.
Posted by: kelly ||
06/22/2006 15:41 Comments ||
Top||
#2
And if the Norks are successful, they will have perfect telemetry of their NoDong Prong. This will give them the ability to launch on 3 weeks warning and having a 20% chance of threating the US West coast unless the Fort Greeley thing works, or the SM-3 works, or the airborne laser works.
#1
Building a new era. The US supported Turkey's entrance into the EU, and we've coddled them regarding their feelings about Iraq and the Kurds. And we got denied the right to send troops into Iraq from the North and hostility ever since. Then they sent Murat to hassle us online.
I would say it is indeed time for a new Era in US-Turkey relations because they've been spitting on us for years now.
#3
I see that the initial agenda to begin a "process" does not include addressing the problem that created PKK in the first place. Therefore, any "process" will fail and, as Ralph Peters recently said, North Kurdistan should be considered occupied territory. That is, in fact, what it has been for a long time.
In the meantime, we can expect to see more commentary of this type, and pro-Turkish propaganda like that of Eric Edelmen, because it looks like Turkey is in its best position ever to lose its big American lobby.
Turkish media reported on Tuesday that Turkey was doing a big favor for Sikorsky/Boeing in extending a deadline for a helicopter tender, implying that the problem was coming from the US side.
Yesterday, facts emerged from a Boeing spokesman on the details of the tender's requirements--including full access by Turkey to the software codes and a guarantee by bidder's governments that there would be no political difficulties attached as strings to the bid. Sikorsky/Boeing is unable to comply with these requirements. More at the Houston Chronicle, which can be compared to a Turkish Daily News report on the same subject.
Therefore it is my speculation that Turkey extended the bid deadline to give them time to finesse Boeing, so that they can save their powerful Washington lobby. No doubt they will use negotiation time (in July) with the State Department on the CSV draft to help push this issue as well.
Posted by: Azad ||
06/22/2006 13:02 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I miss Murat. Didn't agree with him, but he was a fairly relatively spittle-free window into what the other side was thinking. Concur on the Armenian-American ambassador next time.
#6
spittle free? Bah! He got a woody when american troops died. I'm glad he's gone. I wish him ill
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2006 15:32 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Glutch Graitch6859||
There's an olde RB name.
Murat alpha wasn't so bad until the war started and the bombs went off in Turkey. Then he morphed, still I'd like to hope that he could be cured with a great whack of a Kimmalist Thought Club.
Requiers suscription, so posted here in full. Hat tip Balagan.
Yves Roucaute's website (french) here, and some material here.
By YVES ROUCAUTE, The Wall Street Journal, 21 June 2006, p.13.
The old Continent is wilting in the global war against terror, just as it did when faced off against fascism and then communism. When at today's summit with U.S. President George W. Bush the European Union will once again take its ally to task over Guantanamo, it will expose its own, not America's, most serious moral crisis of the post-Cold War era. A philosopher - a French one no less - can try to set the facts straight and offer some Cartesian good sense.
Faced with dark forces that want to destroy our civilization, we might recall that the U.S. is not only Europe's ally but the flagship of all free nations. If America can sometimes make errors, the sort of anti-Americanism that drives the hysteria over Guantanamo is always in the wrong. Guantanamo, though, is not an error. It is a necessity.
Demagogues, and European parliamentarians are among the shrillest, claim that it's inconceivable to keep prisoners locked up without trying them in courts of law. With this simple statement they annul - or, better, ignore - customary law and legal tradition as well as basic human-survival instincts.
Whether they are legal or illegal fighters, those men in Guantanamo had weapons; they used them; and they will likely use them again if released before the end of the conflict. This is the meaning of their imprisonment: to prevent enemy combatants from returning to the battlefield, the only humane alternative to the summary execution of enemy prisoners practiced by less enlightened armies.
Which French general would have released German prisoners in 1914, before the end of that great war, at the risk of seeing these soldiers mobilized again? Which American general would have organized the trial of 10 million German soldiers, captured during World War II, before Berlin's unconditional surrender?
The release "without charges" of, so far, a third of Guantanamo prisoners doesn't mean that those still imprisoned are innocent, as some claim. Similarly, the release of Waffen SS members "without charges" was no admission that they should have never been imprisoned in the first place - or that their comrades who were still locked up were victims of undue process. Only those Nazis who committed crimes against humanity or war crimes, and whose crimes could be proven in a court of law, were tried at Nuremberg.
The demagogues further complain about Guantanamo's isolation and the secrecy around it. Isolation? When Hitler attacked Britain, was Winston Churchill wrong in sending captured German soldiers to isolated camps in Canada from which they would be released only five years later, after the end of the war? He forbade the exchange of information between the prisoners to make it impossible for them to direct networks of Nazi sympathizers and spies inside and outside the prison. This was a rather sensible measure and one that is also necessary to combat Islamist terrorists, who plan their attacks in loosely connected networks and have demonstrated their capacities to expand these networks in French and British prisons.
Secrecy? This is a common practice in warfare, designed to obtain information without letting the enemy know who has been caught or when. It lets us try to infiltrate and confuse terrorist groups. It saves thousands of lives without harming the prisoners.
As for the wild accusations of torture, the European Commission and Parliament would be well advised to investigate with caution. Terrorists have been trained to claim, in case of capture, that they're being tortured to win sympathy from free societies. Abuses happen. Republics make mistakes. But they forever differentiate themselves from tyrannies in that violations of the rights of man tend to be punished. In abusing prisoners, a Western soldier breaks the law and undermines the moral foundations of his country. American military courts made no such mistake when meting out stiff penalties to the disgraced soldiers of Abu Ghraib.
But where is the evidence of torture in Guantanamo? The famous incriminating report of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, whose members include communist China, Castro's Cuba and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia among others, was based purely on the testimony of released Islamists. Not one member of the commission even visited the camp, under the pretext that they couldn't question prisoners in private.
What about the docu-fiction "The Road to Guantanamo," winner of the Silver Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, which told the story of the three "innocents" kept "for no reason" in Guantanamo? Consider the tale told in this film.
Leaving the U.K., supposedly for a wedding in Karachi, three British lads of Pakistani descent somehow ended up 1,200 kilometers away in Kandahar, an al Qaeda command center in Afghanistan, allegedly in order to hand out "humanitarian aid." Our unlucky strollers then arrived with Taliban reinforcements in Kabul before going for a walk with them to the Pakistani border, where they were arrested "by accident." We are asked to believe, on top of this unbelievable story, their accusations of torture that mysteriously left no marks.
The three Guantanamo suicides earlier this month were treated as the much sought-after evidence that will bring about the closure of the camp. Did we have to release Nazi leaders after the suicide of Göring? Did we have to close German prisons after the suicides of Rudolf Hess or the Baader-Meinhof group? Should French prisons be closed because 115 prisoners took their lives in 2004 alone? Well, some of them actually should. Many French prisons and detention centers for asylum seekers are truly horrific. But they are of little concern to the anti-American demagogues.
Instead of joining Kant's "Alliance of Republics," which is the key to victory against Islamic terrorism, these politicians lead the EU into the traps set by the terrorists. While soldiers from free republics are fighting together as brothers for the freedom of Afghanistan, in Brussels and Strasbourg demagogues sow division and battle the "American enemy." From Swiss parliamentarian Dick Marty, who reported on the "CIA flights" for the Council of Europe, to Martin Schulz, the president of the Socialist group at the European Parliament, the alliance among free countries is rejected and relations with the CIA described as "complicities." Even though the accusers confess they have "no evidence at all," they insist the "secret prisons" where terrorists are kept without trial are real. They embellish the story with more than 1,000 flights - "torture charter flights" - supposedly arranged by the CIA.
The real strength of republics must be measured by the courage to fight for them. On this side of the Atlantic, this strength, once again, is lacking.
Mr. Roucaute, a professor of political science and philosophy at Nanterre University, is author of "Neoconservatism is Humanism" [Le néo-conservatisme est un humanisme : http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2130550169] Published by PUF.
#4
Not sure if you caught the joint news conference with Wolfgang Schüssel, but he shot down a LLL m0onb@+ Euro trash reporter. He claimed that X% of Euros think that the U.S. is more dangerous than Iran and North Korea. First Bush called the entire comment absurd and then Wolfgang Schüssel explained how after WWII the U.S. and ONLY the U.S. rebuilt Europe (ally or enemy) and that the U.S. has always been a POSITIVE influence on the world. The reporter was last seen trying to hide under the carpet.
The TimesLedger prides itself on being a champion of tolerance and religious diversity. Nevertheless, we are shocked by the report that a member of a defunct radical Muslim group operating in Jackson Heights was allegedly helping to send weapons to al Qaeda terrorists operating in Afghanistan.
The operation was allegedly run by a Flushing resident named Syed Hashmi, 26, who is being held in England awaiting extradition to the United States. Too many sons and daughters of Queens are risking their lives on a daily basis in the war against al Qaeda extremists. Some have already paid the ultimate price.
To make matters worse, it was revealed this weekend that the al Qaeda terrorists were reportedly planning to use cyanide gas to poison the city's subways. There can be no tolerance for those who would provide comfort and support to our country's enemies. Neither can such people hide behind the skirts of religious freedom.
A friend of Hashimi, Mohammed Junaid Babar, pleaded guilty in 2004 to providing support to terrorist groups between August 2003 and March 2004. Hashmi is a native of Pakistan who came to America with his family when he was a young boy. He enjoyed the blessings of this nation, studying at SUNY Stony Brook and graduating from Brooklyn College. And then he hooked up with people who live to destroy the nation that has given so much to him and his family.
The recent reports show how profoundly foolish it was to cut federal anti-terror funding to New York City. It also demonstrates the need for the borough's Islamic community to separate itself from all people and organizations that would support the enemies of this country. There can be no middle ground.
#2
Saw Chuck Schumer crying in outrage over the "cuts" in Homeland Security money going to NY. I'd tell Chuckie to allow NYers to carry personal firearms if he wants to help stop terrorists and crime. Think big brother would allow that?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2006 22:16 Comments ||
Top||
I'm a bit ticked off today. Yeah, I know; that seems to be the normal state of affairs for a columnist/commentator/curmudgeon. But I believe that my ticked-ness is more than justified.
Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston Texas, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras Oregon, were kidnapped by Al Qaeda operatives the other day. Not captured in battle and taken to a prisoner of war camp. The driver in their convoy was killed, and they were taken at gunpoint to an unknown location.
They were definitely tortured.
They may have been disemboweled.
They were almost certainly beheaded.
Their bodies were dumped and the area surrounding them was booby-trapped, in the hope of killing more US/Coalition troops.
Now, let me ask you a very simple question: Where is the outrage on the part of the media? Why haven't we seen photo after photo of their corpses on the news? Why haven't the editors over at the vaunted New York Times started publishing a steady stream of cover stories--complete with graphic images at a wide variety of angles--to be continued every single day over the next two months? Where are the demands for inspections of Al Qaeda detention facilities? Why haven't there been calls for investigations of the practices of these terrorists? Why hasn't Jack Murtha (D-JackA**Ville) demanded that the heads of Al Qaeda (with or without their bodies attached) be brought before a congressional committee?
Because Al Qaeda, to the lib/dem/soc/commies, the peace-activists (see also: morons), the mainstream media, and the political portsiders have already decided who the bad guy is.
Bush.
Yup, that's right. The MSM and their cohorts could waste NO time trying to figure out ways to blame Dubya for the death of these two servicemen. I guess constantly (and gleefully) yelling "2,500 Dead! 2,500 Dead!" wasn't getting them enough attention. They've even shopped around and found an uncle of one of these soldiers so they could get their "Let's All Blame Bush" sound-byte. From Mother Sheehan to Father Pearl to (now) Uncle Mario. I wonder if he'll camp out in a Crawford ditch or hug South American dictators to keep up his facetime in the various news outlets.
The mainstream media won't be overly bothered with the facts. God knows, they haven't let the truth get in the way of a good story (in their eyes, anyway) for quite some time. So, they'll use these two heroes to advance their point.
Yes. Heroes. Like every single soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardsman, and merchant marine out there today. The Mainstream Media will USE them to put forward THEIR agenda: we're bad, terrorists are good, and the soldiers wouldn't have been put in danger in the first place were it not for Dubya.
Note to the Mainstream Media, lib/dem/soc/commies and turncoat politicians: You bastards!
I am sick to the back teeth of you, your lies, your half-truths, your mis-directions, your obfuscations, your spin, your (im)moral relativism, your arrogance. I'm sick of you USING our troops--especially the dead ones--in order for YOU to claw back power, and at the same time to empower and embolden our enemies.
There was a discussion on the ChronWatch Forum recently, asking whether journalists have to abide by any kind of a code of ethics. My view on that was similar to my view on the extended lists of oxymorons--House Ethics, Senate Ethics, effing Lawyer Ethics, etc. They claim to have ethical guidelines, they say the words, but words alone are not evidence of ethics. Following those words, living those words, ARE evidence of ethics--or, at least, ethical behavior. One of our more well-informed posters, who goes by the moniker of "CodeMoose" (he's obviously a programmer with antlers--I wonder if his boss is a flying squirrel) actually provided a list, from a group called the "Society of Professional Journalists." You can read it here. The point is, if you go through that list, and think of the recent history of the mainstream media, I don't think you'll find ONE ethical standard that they've followed. But it's Bush and the rep/con/tairs who are evil and corrupt, and the MSM isn't biased, oh no no no no no....
Let me give you a couple of points to work with here. The people responsible for the death of those soldiers, and the other soldiers and innocents, who have died before them, ARE THE TERRORISTS! Not the other soldiers, not their field commanders, and not their commander in chief. We are WINNING the war against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, while you in the MSM are doing everything possible to make us LOSE the war against terrorism in the headlines and the broadcasts. The number of dead terrorists (which you never seem to tout) is FAR higher than the number of dead soldiers. This is one of the lowest per-capita and raw-number casualty wars for U.S. forces in history, but you're bent on making it seem like the highest. Here's a news flash, MSM: more U.S. soldiers died in a TRAINING EXERCISE for D-Day--in a single day--than have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You talk about being unbiased. You lie. You are extremely biased. Yet you lie to us and yourselves about this obvious--and documented--truth. You constantly try to make Iraq another Vietnam. Why? Because YOU guys won the Vietnam War. America lost, but YOU won. So what if over 3 million innocents were slaughtered because we were forced out of South East Asia by the media, huh? WE--America--were the bad guys, after all. How many more will need to be sacrificed at the alter of lib/dem/soc/commie beliefs and Blame America First doctrines? And will it bother you if/when an American city is nuked, gassed or otherwise WMD'd by your terrorist compatriots?
Naw, you'll just blame Bush.
We are in the midst of a war. A war not of our choosing. A war brought to our shores by men who have corrupted an entire religion in order to develop their thirst for power, blood, and attention. Instead of focusing on how the United States should treat terrorists like soldiers and give them full Genève Convention status, perhaps you should focus on how closely the terrorists are following those doctrines of war (see also: not at all). Instead of posting photos of near-naked terrorists with panties on their heads, perhaps you should post the photos of the slaughtered remains of those two soldiers after they had been tortured--REALLY tortured. Instead of publishing the photos of the head of Al Zarqawi and wondering if he had been beaten, or if we possibly harmed any innocents when we dropped two 500-pound bombs on his not-so-safe house, perhaps you should publish the photos of Daniel Pearl's head. His severed head. As well as the video of Zarqawi SAWING his head off.
And then, you can come back and tell America who the real enemy is.
Besides yourselves, that is.
About the Writer: Doc Farmer is a writer and humorist who is also a moderator on ChronWatch's Forum. He formerly lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but now resides in the Midwest. Doc receives e-mail at docfarmer9999@yahoo.co.uk.
#1
You constantly try to make Iraq another Vietnam. Why? Because YOU guys won the Vietnam War. America lost, but YOU won. So what if over 3 million innocents were slaughtered because we were forced out of South East Asia by the media, huh?
Kinda sums it all up, doesn't it?
In addition to achieving the goal of losing the war for the evil capitalist West, this agenda driven "journalism" also created a climate of awards and money for those like Cronkite who declared the war lost after Tet, which was, by any objective standards, an epic military victory. In the absence of things like talk radio, the internet, and FOX, ther was simply no way for people to get the real story. So Cronkite and the rest with their agenda were believed, and they went on to greater wealth, a round of gladhanding by fellow media whores and academia, and continued hegemony over the information industry.
A new generation of "news" people were raised with a journalism "education" which spoke of this "golden age" in hushed, reverential tones, and were told to go forth and do the same thing because great rewards awaited them if they did.
It's all come crashing down on them now, though, due to the 'net and talk radio and FOX. The MSM tries harder and harder, but in an environment of noncontiguous information streams, it weakens their position over time instead of strengthening it.
This is why the Dems can never be returned to majorities in the House and Senate in their current guise. The very first thing they'll do, even before impeaching W, is to regulate the internet and radio stations to inhibit/prevent places like Rantburg and people like Rush and Hugh Hewitt. They know that if given all the facts people will be less likely than not to choose their way. So they will attempt to limit the information stream to tilt things their way.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
06/22/2006 6:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
when are we going to fight the journalists? They are fighting against us and winning.
Its only by the existance of the web and sites like Rantburg, LGF, Dhimmi/Jihad watch, and Hot air what the truth shines through.
Sorry media - but you no longer have a monopoly lock on information anymore. Just ask Dan Rather. Your wet dreams of another Vietnam is just a dream anymore.
(The only disagreement is that the terrorists never 'corrupted an entire religion' - Islam has *always* promoted terrorism, murder, rape, and slavery to expand.)
#4
2b, I'm with ya.
The elephant in the room is that GWBush, the same guy we had to tell not to nominate Harriet Miers, the same guy we had to tell not to allow DPW to run the ports, the same guy who wants to appease V. Fox at the border, could and should make an example out of the corrupt media. He could hold their balls in his hand, but Bush is such a nice guy and all, let's just let America collapse instead.
#1
Salim Mansur, a Muslim professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, wrote in the Toronto Sun on Saturday: "We [Canadian Muslims] preach tolerance yet we are intolerant. We demand inclusion, yet we practise exclusion of ... those with whom we disagree." In what he called a "brutally honest" response to this month's events, Mansur argued that "We have made hypocrisy an art, and have spun for ourselves a web of lies that blinds us to the real world around us." Religious freedom becomes a very pale idea when used to assert a belief in one true way and contempt for other beliefs.
The Asian Times puts out interesting material. In fact, there is some good background in the article mentioned below, when you disregard the latent anti-Semitism, vast-right-wing-conspiracy and mafia redux rubbish. That will be hard to do.
Asian Times
Jun 23, 2006
US: Danger, danger everywhere
By Tom Barry
On three occasions since the end of World War II - in 1950, 1976 and 2004 - elite citizen committees have organized to warn the United States of what they viewed as looming threats to national security.
These three Committees on the Present Danger (CPD) aimed to ratchet up the level of fear among the US public and policy community. In each case, the committees leveraged fear in attempts to increase military budgets, to mobilize the country for war, and to beat back isolationist, anti-interventionist and realist forces in US politics.
In the early 1950s and in the late 1970s, the Committees on the Present Danger succeeded in shifting the US to a war footing - first to launch the Cold War, and two decades later to end the move in the policy community toward detente and arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union.
The success of the first danger committees has inspired the country's hawks and neo-conservatives to imitate the CPD model. Both the Center for Security Policy, founded by Frank Gaffney in 1988, and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), founded in 1997 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, cite the CPD model...
#1
In the early 1950s and in the late 1970s, the Committees on the Present Danger succeeded in shifting the US to a war footing - first to launch the Cold War,...
Yeah, the installation of Moscow approved governments in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade, North Koreas invasion of the South, the revelation of Soviet espionage in the Manhattan Project, etc. had nothing to do with it.
Before Haditha, there was Sadr City. Before the recent allegations that marines rampaged from house to house last November, killing women and children, there was the 2004 courts-martial of soldiers charged with killing seven men in a garbage truck in Sadr City - including one man who, according to a soldier, waved a white flag.
This week, fresh developments have stirred further scrutiny of American troops' behavior. On Monday, the military announced that it has charged three soldiers with the murder of Iraqi detainees. Wednesday, reports at press time suggested that charges would also be filed in another investigation into a civilian death in Hamandiya.
Yet in some respects, the charges are nothing new in Iraq. Since the war began, at least 11 US servicemen and eight British soldiers have faced murder charges. Though these past cases have largely escaped public notice, they shed light on the path ahead for current proceedings, pointing to the difficulty of defining and prosecuting a homicide in a war characterized by chaos.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/22/2006 12:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
How many other armies have gone this far in reviewing troop behavior on the battlefield?
Tell the next self appointed international type to go stuff if he/she thinks we're going to let them get their hands on our soldiers. Who do we think we are? Who do we have to be? Cause when you demand perfection of Americans, you then damn well give us power over those who are of less standing.
It has occurred to me that both parties increasingly dislike their bases, but for different reasons and to different degrees. By both parties I mean the leaders and representatives of the Democrats and Republicans in Washington. I believe I correctly observe that they feel an increasing intellectual estrangement from and impatience with the activists who people their base of support. . . .
On the Democratic side, it is not just as bad but worse. They don't only think they're more sophisticated than their base, more informed and aware of the complexities. I believe they think their base is mad. You can see their problem in their inability to get a slogan. Which, believe me, is how they think of it: a slogan. "Together for a Better Future." "A Future With Better Togetherness." Today for a better tomorrow, tomorrow for a better today. A party has a hard time saying what it stands for only when it doesn't know what it stands for. It has trouble getting a compelling slogan only when it has no idea what compels its base. Or when it fears what compels it.
I got a sense of the distance between Democratic leaders and the base a few years ago when I met up with a Democrat who was weighing a run for the party's 2004 nomination. He hadn't announced but was starting to test the waters, campaigning out of state. I mentioned to him that the press gives a great deal of attention to the problems of Republican leaders and their putative supporters on the ground in America, but I was interested in the particular problems a D.C. Democrat has with his party's base.
His eyebrows went up in the way people's eyebrows go up when they're interested in what they're about to say. He said--I write from memory; it was not an interview but a conversation--that he was getting an education in that area. He said when he spoke before local Democratic groups they were wildly against the war in Iraq and sometimes booed him when he spoke of it. It left him startled. He had supported the president for serious reasons: He thought Saddam a bad actor who likely had weapons of mass destruction. He wanted to talk about it, but they didn't want to hear him. They were immovable.
But there was something else. He didn't say it, but something in his manner suggested he thought they were . . . just a little crazy.
We don't call 'em "barking moonbats" for nothing, you know.
I thought of him the other day when I saw Howard Dean say something intemperate on TV. I actually can't remember what it was, one intemperate Dean statement blending into another as they do. I was standing near a small screen with recent acquaintances, all of them relatively nonpolitical, and as I watched Mr. Dean speak I blurted, "Why does he say things like that?" A middle-aged woman--intelligent, professional--answered, "Because he thinks they're stupid."
He thinks who's stupid? I asked. The press? "His party," she said. We both laughed because it sounded true.
But today I'm thinking that's not quite it. Howard Dean is actually the most in touch with his base of all D.C. Democrats because he speaks to them the secret language of Madman Boogabooga. Republicans are racist/ignorant/evil. This is actually not ineffective. It's a language that quells the base and would scare the center if they followed it more closely, but they can't because it's not heavily reported because "Dean Says Something Crazy" is no longer news.
I watched the Senate debate on Iraq yesterday. I happen to respect the Democrats' attempts to debate the war, argue it out, bring it again to the floor of Congress. I am impressed that the majority of them seem to oppose calling for a date-certain pullout. There was a lot of administration-bashing, some strange rhetorical sallies. But bottom line they seemed to be saying that while new management for the war is desirable, declaring "it's over, we're tired, we're gone" is not.
This struck me as essentially sane, and as I watched I wondered if these Democrats would take major hits from the base because of it. Or if John Kerry, who is pushing for a declared date certain for withdrawal, would greatly benefit.
Here is my read on a lot of Democratic senators: They think they know more than their base and they think they're more--how to put it?--stable in their view of the world than their base. If, by "base," you mean "typical denizen of DU or DailyKos or MyDD," then they probably are smarter than their base, on average. Of course, my son's Cub Scout pack probably has more common sense, on average, than any random sample of the posters at DU or DailyKos or MyDD, so that's not saying much.
In their hearts, in fact, they don't really like their base. (They like--they love--the old base: old union guys who drink Schlitz and voted for FDR and JFK. But today those old union guys are mostly dead, dying or Republican.) (. . . and Schlitz is out of business.)
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2006 10:37 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Dems created their own 'Red Guard'. They just haven't figured out like Mao, that in the end you have to turn on them or lose control and everything.
#2
It was their choice, the went for the anti-Bush, anti-Everything American vote and now that's what they have. Pity it isn't enough to get you elected.
#3
"In the past, Republican leaders in Washington bowed either symbolically or practically to the presumed moral leadership and cleanness of vision of the people back home. They understood the base wanted tax cuts and spending cuts, and for serious reasons. The base had deep qualms about abortion. The base intuitively recoiled from big government: They knew the best arrangement was maximum possible power to the individual and limited, policed, heavily checked power to the state. Or, as some back home might have put it, Don't put your faith in governments, which are made by men; put your faith in individuals, who are made by God.
Republican leaders in the capital bowed to this wisdom--if not in their actions, at least quite often in their hearts.
Now they seem to bow less. They know the higher wisdom on such issues as immigration. They feel less fealty to the insights of the base. They know more than the base, are more experienced than the base, have a more nuanced sense of reality. And as for conservative social issues groups, the politicians resent those nagging, whining pushers-for-the-impossible who are always threatening to stay home or go elsewhere. (Where?)
Some Washington Republicans have been in leadership so long they've learned--they've learned too well!--that politics is the art of the possible. It is. But this is not an excuse to be weak, or ambivalent, or passive, or superior
...
Democratic leaders in Washington are in a worse position than Republican leaders in Washington. Neither likes their base, really, and both think they are smarter. But the Democrats think, deep down, that their base is barking mad. The Republicans don't. They just think their base is a bore."
#4
This is roughly cyclical. The two parties vacillate between their radical wings controlling their agenda, and from conservatives and moderates running things.
The democrats were riding high on the hog with the election of old Frank, a devastating defeat for the republicans. So for many years republicans accepted their minority status and moderates joined with the democrats to get more middle of the road legislation. This marginalized the extreme wings of both parties.
Finally the scale tipped from moderate democrat to conservative republican, with the election of Eisenhower. This so stimulated the republican radicals that they briefly reversed course by putting Goldwater, a radical candidate, up against Johnson in 1964.
The resulting defeat humbled the republican radicals and set the stage for both the rise of the republican conservatives and the democrat radicals in 1968.
This set the democrats on the path to loss across the country, on which they are still sliding. Their recovery will only come when their moderates embrace the conservative republican platform, and marginalize both radical party wings. When they vote republican, and are rewarded with largesse, it should help them regain control of the democrat party from the radicals.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/22/2006 18:13 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Since we know the democrat base is anti-American leftists, then, why not send them all to Cuba in exchange for any Cuban who would prefer to leave Communism for a better life ? Cuba has everything they love, controlled media, social medicine, no pesky right wing books, only the police have guns, what's not to like ?
#8
why should I listen to a woman who scoffed, mocked and ridiculed Bush when he introduced his idea that he would help to quell terrorism by introducing Democracy around the world?
Sure, I like what she's saying here - but it's not exactly rocket science that the Democratic party has become the party of frothing lunatics.
The Democrats have many mantras and slogans: "grim milestone," "hopeless quagmire," "culture of corruption" and "Karl Rove's dingo ate my baby." But for a while they've had one big overall slogan, dripping with gusto: "Together, America Can Do Better."
Not will, or should, or must, but "can." It's like saying, "Together, Frenchmen can win a hot-dog speed eating contest." Doesn't mean it's going to happen, or that you'd want to watch. But it's typical of modern politics -- vague and patriotic, but not so patriotic it would unnerve a Dixie Chick. Together, America Should Be Greater! Together, America Might Go Further! Together, Democrats Can Win Elections! Providing the Republicans stay home.
This fine slogan was recently retired when the Dems needed something new to accompany their new vision for Western civilization. The winner was another phrase focus-tested into a thin smear of rhetorical mush: "A New Direction for America." Disaffected Republicans were heartened. You mean less spending, quicker confirmation of conservative judges, permanent tax cuts and increased military outlays? Well, no. Nancy Pelosi announced that should the Democrats retake the House, item No. 1 will be bold and sweeping: They will "give America a raise by increasing the minimum wage."
Apparently Pelosi believes that America makes the minimum wage. The population consists of industrial workers who get a dime each day for the number of fingers they haven't lost to the machinery, a few million skinny Bob Cratchits shivering in underheated counting houses, and six plutocrats whose tight control over Consolidated Spats, Amalgamated Whalebone and other nefarious trusts keeps everyone poor and shoeless.
The minimum wage was indeed a New Direction -- last century, anyway. But when the unofficial GOP slogan is "Fight and win the War on Terror by blowing up more bad guys real good," a call for a wage boost is like running against FDR with a pledge to reduce postal rates.
The Dems' manifesto goes on. My, it does go on.
"Lower Gas Prices and Achieve Energy Independence." By cutting the gas tax? More nukes? ANWR? Faster, pussycat! Drill! Drill! Right? Alas: They will "crack down on price gouging," presumably by hiring 100,000 people to roam the land looking at gas station signs and comparing notes. They will use federal funds to "develop American alternatives." Because there's a magic fuel just waiting to be invented, if only we spend enough money. Forget hydrogen cells; we're going to spend $230 billion on hydrogen stem cells. Everyone will be driving a Ford Embryo by 2016.
"Cut College Costs." Why? Because it's the job of the federal government to regulate the cost of a four-year degree in English lit, with a minor in textile history.
"Ensure Dignified Retirement." Again, sounds great. Mandatory fedoras for men; a 50 percent reduction in Viagra commercials. But no: The Democrats wish to "prevent the privatization of Social Security," because you cannot be trusted with your own money. It's an interesting definition of dignity: waiting by the mailbox for your government check.
"Require Fiscal Responsibility: Restore the budget discipline of the 1990s that helped eliminate deficits and spur record economic growth." Translation: taxes. Well, we've had 33 unbroken months of job gains. Tax revenues are up almost 13 percent over 2005, reflecting both the rosy-pink business climate and gains in personal income. As for the fat cats: Taxpayers making more than 200K used to pay only 40.5 percent of total income taxes -- the parasites! -- and now they pay 46.6 percent. When you let them make more money, they pay more taxes. Or you could take a "new direction" -- kill the goose, pull out the golden egg, and send it on a 40-city tour so everyone could see it and take pictures.
Anything on the war? No. The Dems slam President Bush for not adjusting Pell Grants for inflation, but the manifesto says nothing about Terror, the War On. We're supposed to intuit that they'd redeploy to Camp Murtha, from which we can strike Iraq with only a fortnight's delay. Let no one mistake their position: They have risen to the challenge of these perilous times, and come out against excess CEO compensation. No doubt this means they'll be hard on Iran.
Those mullahs are pulling down millions.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/22/2006 09:23 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
For a moment there, I thought they said "Nude Erections for America"--which makes sense, considering Bill Clinton wanted to have Medicaid cover Viagra prescriptions.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/22/2006 10:34 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Cut college costs: at the risk of harming my own meal ticket, I have a great idea for cutting costs. Stop raising the god-damned tuition.
Everytime the Federales pump more money into the grant and loan programs, flinty-eyed college presidents raise tuition. It's basic economics (and I took that course): supply is constrained, demand is increased, why, the price goes up.
Bet your bottom dollar that if the Feds decide to guarantee a college education to every youngin' who maintains a 'B' average, two things will happen: 1) the Feds will have to introduce tuition price controls and 2) no student will ever again get a 'C'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/22/2006 12:38 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"New visision for Western civilization?" We don't want either party setting the tone for the civilization. They're competing to run the government, not the country or the civilization. People should remember that.
#5
You got that right Dr. Steve. The fastest way to completely ruin university education in the US is to "guarantee a college education to every youngin'". Lots of kids are too dumb, too unprepared, or too unmotivated for college work. They can be acommodated only by lowering standards (below the already low levels). It's one thing to guarantee admission to college, it's another to guarantee graduation. Goverment should get its hands off and let the market rule.
#6
Here in CA the Donks in the State Gov't are trying to add financial aid to illegals in addition to the already passed in-state tuition rate. Arnold better veto this shit. If my child can't receive aid and an illegal can....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/22/2006 15:03 Comments ||
Top||
#7
A few years ago I remember watching TV recruitment ads for both the US and British armies within a few weeks of each other.
British Army motto: 'Be the best'
US Army motto: 'Be the best that you can be'
Motto of this story: design by committee produces bland dross.
A barbaric enemy disqualified from the Geneva Conventions.
The Pentagon yesterday announced the names of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman charged with the April 26 kidnapping and murder of a 52-year-old Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania. The accusations are grave and, if proved, will almost certainly lead to severe sentences. We suspect no parallel process is taking place among Iraqi insurgents for the weekend murders near Yusufiya of U.S. soldiers Thomas L. Tucker and Kristian Menchaca.
That's a distinction worth pondering the next time you hear Iraq war critics carp at the U.S. refusal to apply Geneva Convention privileges to enemy combatants. The Convention extends those privileges to combatants who abide by the laws it sets for war, including the treatment of prisoners.
Combatants who fail to obey those laws--by not wearing distinctive military insignia or targeting civilians--are not entitled to its privileges. If they were, the very purpose of the Convention would be rendered a nonsense. And this is why the U.S. has refused Geneva privileges to the enemy combatants at Guantanamo, which we hope is an argument heeded by the Supreme Court as it decides the Hamdan case.
Especially so given the kinds of combatants the U.S. and the rest of the civilized world now face in Iraq. Privates Tucker and Menchaca were not simply ambushed, taken prisoner and killed. "The torture was something unnatural," said Major General Abdul Azziz Mohammed Jassim of Iraq's Defense Ministry, hinting at the state of the soldiers' remains. The corpses were so mutilated that they could be positively identified only through DNA testing.
Here, then, is the enemy we face in Iraq: not nationalists or extremists or even fanatics, but something like a band of real-life Hannibal Lecters for whom human slaughter is both business and religious fulfillment. Following the killing, an Internet statement said to be from the Mujahadeen Shura Council praised Abu Hamza al-Muhajir--who is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's successor as head of Al Qaeda in Iraq--with "the implementation of the sentence." Note the legalistic pretensions: This is the kind of "justice" Iraqis could expect should the insurgents come to power. And it is the enemy that might well come to power if the U.S. left Iraq prematurely, as many Senate Democrats urged yesterday.
No wonder so many Iraqis are risking their lives by joining the military and the police force to defend themselves against their would-be masters, a point that's too often forgotten by critics of the war. Thus, following the slaughter of Tucker and Menchaca, Representative John Murtha issued a statement, notably short on grief, insinuating that Iraqis are a nation of conniving killers.
"I continue to be concerned with the fact that our military men and women fighting in Iraq often tell me they do not know who the enemy is," said the Pennsylvania Democrat, who favors immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. "They do not know whom they can trust. . . . One day the Iraqis are smiling and waving at them on the streets; the next day the same people are throwing grenades at them."
Mr. Murtha might have checked his facts before issuing this generalized slur. According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site (http://icasualties.org/oif/), in 2005 there were 3,510 Iraqi military and police fatalities, almost all at the hands of terrorists. That's four times the number of U.S. servicemen killed that year, and it gives the lie to the notion that Iraqis are doing little in their own defense while Coalition forces do all the heavy lifting.
Meantime, the U.S. military continues to examine allegations that Marines killed 24 civilians in the town of Haditha last November. Pentagon investigators have also uncovered evidence of detainee abuse by U.S. Special Forces in early 2004--just as the Army was the first to disclose the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib.
For some, all this is just more evidence of inveterate U.S. barbarity or the criminal abuses made possible by Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales. In fact, it testifies to a U.S. military and executive branch willing to investigate, disclose and prosecute errant military behavior, whatever the military or political price. That's something Mr. Murtha and his fellow-travelers in Congress and the media might not recognize. But a majority of Iraqis do, which is why, in the battle against the killers of Privates Tucker and Menchaca, they line up to fight on our side.
You will probably recognize at least one name of the presentors
20 June 2006
Note: This is from a recent "Retired Flag Officer Conference " recently held at Ft. Carson. Some of the comments and observations will not be news, but some of them will be. All of it is very interesting and has been released by the author for posting. I think you will be glad you gave it a gander.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MGen Butcher has approved relaying this email. His quote "------is just too important not to pass on." Although many of us have had suspicions about the true situation this provides us with hard no spin evidence from officers who have "had their feet on the ground". Paul
-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: "Bob Butcher"
Subject: Retired Flag Officers Conference -
Comments from a Navy Rear Admiral (2 star) Retiree
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:45:51 +0000
--------------- is just too important not to pass on. Bob
Earlier this week I (Rear Admiral) attended a retired general and flag officer conference at Fort Carson, hosted by MGen Bob Mixon, the 7th Infantry Division Commander, which calls the Fort its home. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ft. Carson, it is a huge installation located to the south of Colorado Springs; its in the process of becoming one of the larger Army installations in the country (26,000 soldiers); and it is the test location for the new modular brigade concept that will reflect the Army of tomorrow by 2008. It is also the home post of the largest number of troopers who have served multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and, regrettably, the largest number of troopers who have died in combat there over the past three years. There are Ft. Carson units going to and returning from the combat area virtually on a monthly basis.
The conference was primarily organized to explain the modular brigade concept, and it featured a panel of officers who had either very recently returned from commands in the combat zone or were about to deploy there in the next two months. Three of the recent returnees were Colonel H.R. McMaster, Colonel Rick S., and Captain Walter Szpak.
McMaster is the commander of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, the unit that, through very innovative and population-friendly tactics, rid the city of Tal Afar of insurgents. The mayor of Tal Afar came back to Carson two weeks ago to thank the troopers and their families personally for freeing his people. (You say you didnt hear about that in the mainstream media?) McMaster is considered the foremost U.S. expert on modern insurgent warfare, has written a book on the subject which is widely circulated at the war colleges and staff colleges, and he was asked to testify before Congress when he returned from the 3rd ACR combat deployment. He is obviously one of the great combat leaders that has emerged from the war and is highly respected (some would say revered) by his troopers and his superiors alike.
Colonel S. is assigned to the 10th Special Forces Brigade and he headed up all of the 31 Special Forces A-teams that are integrated with the populace and the Iraqi Army and national police throughout the country. Many of these are the guys that you see occasionally on the news that have beards, dress in native regalia, usually speak Arabic and dont like to have their identities revealed for fear of retribution on their families (thus the Colonel S.)
Captain Szpak was the head of all the Army explosive ordnance teams in Iraq. He and his troops had the job of disarming all the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosive formed projectiles (EFPs) that were discovered before they were detonated. They also traveled around the country training the combat forces in recognizing and avoiding these devices in time to prevent death and injury. IEDs and EFPs are responsible for the vast majority of casualties experienced by our forces.
Despite the objective of the conference (i.e., the modular brigade concept), it quickly devolved into a 3œ hour question and answer period between the panel and the 54 retired generals and admirals who attended. I wish I had a video of the whole session to share with you because the insights were especially eye opening and encouraging.
Ill try to summarize the high points as best I can.
All returnees agreed that we are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents but we are losing the public relations battle both in the war zone and in the States. (Ill go into more detail on each topic below.)
All agreed that it will be necessary for us to have forces in Iraq for at least ten more years, though by no means in the numbers that are there now.
They opined that 80% to 90% of the Iraqi people want to have us there and do not want us to leave before the job is done.
The morale and combat capability of the troops is the highest that the senior officers have ever seen in the 20-30 years that each has served.
The Iraqi armed forces and police are probably better trained right now than they were under Saddam, but our standards are much higher and they lack officer leadership.
They dont need more troops in the combat zone but they need considerably more Arab linguists and civil affairs experts.
The IEDs and EFPs continue to be the principal problem that they face and they are becoming more sophisticated as time passes. (They are catching bomb makers with masters degrees from American universities!)
He then goes into more depth on each of these topics. Some interesting news and observations. Well worth the read
#2
All returnees agreed that we are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents but we are losing the public relations battle both in the war zone and in the States. (Ill go into more detail on each topic below.)
So, how many piped up and recommended that this 'PR' work no longer be outsourced? How many recommended that they'd accept a 'cut' of their force structure to build a world class news organization to tell the Big Picture[tm] by utilizing the modern technology and the 'kids' on the ground who know how to talk to their generation [vice the over 60 crowd who read the same old dead tree pubs and listen to the old talking heads]?
What's the purpose of winning on the ground but lose the war at home?
#1
I don't see how anyone can look at the military without being truly amazed at the complexity of their mission and how well they perform it. In Iraq and Afghanistan they are:
1. Waging a war against a very difficult enemy and thus defending our nation,
2. Nation-building,
3. Infra-structure building (developing schools, hospitals, electrical grid, water-supply, and sewage, etc.)
4. Diplomacy.
God bless them and protect them!
#2
I think they're doing well on point 1 but it is buried in negative reporting.
Point 3 is very much under-reported as well, I've only seen it in an analysis by a swiss officer circa 2004-2005, and yet the efforts and achievement are huge.
On point 4, I'd say it would be mostly intestine diplomacy, IE dealing with the shifting and bizantine nature of iraqi society.
And on point 2, I'm pessimistic, not because they can't do it, but because I really have no faith at all in the iraqi ability to form a coherent Nation-State, but then again, it is just an uneducated guess, and because I'm gloomy.
#3
The left has to live by these myths cause their own world of failures can't stand another organization that is effective. Power and responsibility usually finds competent handlers. Powermongers can't stand people who actually deliver.
When you stereotype blacks, youre racist. When you stereotype women, youre sexist. When you stereotype the troops, youre a lefty.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
