Indy-Borg black propaganda update.
(This one is so good because moonbats themselves created the material for us, we don't even have to make it up.)
I have e-mailed NBC to wail and moan about their decision to refuse commercials for the Dixie Chicks' paranoid fantasy, Shut Up and Sing. Naturally I didn't call it that. I called it a daring exercise in free speech and a bold affirmation of creative responsibility. I castigated NBC for censorship and caving to the Bush/Rove gang.
What? Have I gone moonbat on you?
You should know better.
I am pushing this line simply because the commercials are so shrill, over the top, and paranoid that they will work against the Democrats. Conspiracy theories appeal to a very limited voter base and will seriously alienate other voters. Lots of dopers go to movies but not many vote, and the drug culture is THE market for commercial conspiracy theories.
(For those who may not know, the commercial unambiguously attributes the collapse of the Chicks' career to a White House orchestrated conspiracy, and even uses the word "conspiracy." Karl Rove could have written it as black propaganda.)
I urge all Rantburgistas who are so inclined to write to NBC and browbeat them to run these commercials before the election. You know the moonbat talking points and style. Quoting Chomsky will impress the interns who screen these things. Use them and help the Chicks' make paranoid raving fools of themselves on the big MSM outlets. It might turn some undecided voters back to the right.
#2
One more thought. The Dixie Chix do this for attention. They insulted the people who buy their albums, lost their au$ience and found themselves singing to tiny niche audience of Bush haters.
Because she craves attention like a whore craves crack, the little fat chix is getting more demanding and shrill since she discovered that insulting Bush or America assures the media will give her a fix of the spotlight - no matter how temporary.
Ignore. Paying attention is the worst thing you can do.
#3
I must respectfully disagree. The Chicks' career is not the issue here. I don't care if I am helping them revive their sales by doing this. The more the better. They need to be poster children for the left, their brainless tantrums burned into the public retina as the true face of pop-culture activism.
This goes way beyond Natalie's pandering sound-bite about Bush. She has made many arrogant, childish, silly, and just dishonest remarks in the years since, and so have her fellow chicks. Natalie has questioned the very concept of patriotism, admitting for all the world to hear that she literally does not understand it. One of her cohorts referred to the presence of flags and soldiers in music videos as a "disgusting display of ultra-patriotism." More recently, Natalie told a Canadian interviewer that Lubbock has only one radio station and people here are quite willing to slaughter local Arabs if Bush tells them to.
These views need more attention and scrutiny, representing as they do the real intellectual capacity, motivation, and character of the pop-left. If that sells a few records for them, so what? It's not as though we are going to rout the left simply by starving them financially.
Now Amy's right. It would be useful, for the purposes of electoral politics, for liberals in the media to avoid expressing the view that the belief -- adhered to by millions of Americans -- that failure to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior will result in eternal damnation is daft. On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd. And not just absurd in a virgin birth, water-into-wine, I-believe-an-angel-watches-over-me kind of way. On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?) but who didn't accept Jesus as his personal savior would be subjected to a life of eternal torment after his death and we're supposed to understand that as a right and just outcome. That, I think, is seriously messed up.
But I shouldn't say so!
But why not? If Liberals as a whole truly believe that the central tenet of a religious belief is a bunch of absurd crap, then why wait until after the elections to say so? In naval warfare in the sailing age even pirates flew their true colors at the moment of engagement. . . .
People old enough to remember Communism will remember when the most important thing for any proud Communist to hide was the fact that he was Communist. It was the original closet and the largest one in history. Part of the problem, I suspect, is not that Liberals disdain religion but simply that they have very strong religious views of their own. And like the pirate ship of the Captain Blood movies they are the very opposite of ships without a flag. They have a flag, all right, but simply one which is impolitic to fly until the other ship is boarded and captured. But I think that ultimately, it is counterproductive for political organizations which are secretly contemptuous of religions to hide their disdain. It is ultimately better to march openly against beliefs contrary to their convictions instead of waiting until the last moment to unfurl their banners. You can always respect an intellectual opponent, but there is little regard owed to a fraud.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/31/2006 12:32 ||
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#1
I'd accept their opinion if they'd stand up and say they think Jews, Muslims and Wiccans are mythology I'd at least believe them intellectually consistant and honest about it. If they are just gonna pick on one they come off as children rebelling against authority.
#2
On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?)
Gandhi was a racist.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/31/2006 16:21 Comments ||
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#3
On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd
Well of course it's absurd to them. They still think they are pretty great folks. The vast chasm that separates a holy God from sinful man cannot be breached by intellectual argument however.
a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world
Red herring. Again, this assumes that God is keeping a scorecard. He isn't. He's perfect. How can he let imperfection into his realm? That's the basic Christian argument. Only through the sacrifice of Christ can man be made fit for heaven, no matter how good he or others think he is. Absurd? Perhaps to most. Biblical? Absolutely.
As to the libs pandering to evangelicals before the election, we see right through that. Who cares. Next story.
#4
I read the comments at Belmnont Club and was not surprised by the venom towards evangelicals.
Hate towards a group of others whom you do not know for slights that attributed to the group rather than to the individuals that perpetrated them. What's the word for that?
They remind me of the Palestinians - at a time when liberals, Jews, Christians and anyone who believes in non-violence should be working together to defeat Islamic radicals - they take the opportunity to spew hate towards groups less threatening.
Just like the Palestinians throw rocks at Jews because they are confident they won't shoot back, the enlightened at the Belmont club rage at Christian evangelicals they have never met, have no clue what they think or do on a daily basis - but the enlightened at the Belmont Club are just sure they deserve it cause they don't support gay marriage and are geeky squares. They make a very safe group of "others" to blame for the worlds ills.
Just like Palestinians can't embrace democracy because they can't get past their hatred of Jews - some of those posters over there gladly focus on the peaceful evangelicals, claiming that they deserve it because they believe others won't get to heaven - and they ignore the REAL threats to women, homosexuals, freedom, democracy and instead and dig up the hatchet to bully a less threatening group that won't fight back.
#5
The funniest thing is the attribution of the belief in the necessity of accepting Christ as an "evangelical" belief. It's not. It's a basic Christian belief, no?
Dante put the "virtuous pagans" in Hell. Granted, the least unpleasant part, but they were still in Hell.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/31/2006 18:42 Comments ||
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#6
What strikes me the most about Yglesias' article is how totally ignorant he is of 2000 years of Western theology and philosophy.
Note that I'm not saying he is ignorant because he doesn't believe -- rather, he has absolutely no idea of the long intellectual history within which the issues he raises have been discussed, both by Christians and by those hostile to Christianity.
We have more than a generation of people whose roots in Western culture are so shallow they are non-functional. That is not by accident, IMO -- many on the left labored long and hard to produce just that result.
#8
We have more than a generation of people whose roots in Western culture are so shallow they are non-functional. That is not by accident, IMO -- many on the left labored long and hard to produce just that result.
If we leave Iraq, what happens to the supporters of democracy?
To say that "exit strategies" from Iraq have become the flavor of the month would be to exaggerate the situation to the point of absurdity. Exit strategies are not even the fall fashion. They are the regnant topic of conversation all across the political establishment and have been for some time. Even the Bush administration has some share in this discourse, having now abandoned the useless mantra of "staying the course" without quite defining what that "course" might beor might have been. (A rule of thumb in politics is that any metaphor drawn from sporting activity is worse than useless, but at least one doesn't hear people saying that in Iraq we are "at the bottom of the ninth" or some such horse manure.)
Many of those advocating withdrawal have been "war-weary" ever since the midafternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, when it was discovered that the source of jihadist violence was U.S. foreign policya mentality now reinforced by the recent National Intelligence Estimate circulated by our emasculated, demoralized, and incompetent intelligence services. To this way of thinking, victory is impossible by definition, because any response other than restraint is bound to inflame the militancy of the other side. Since the jihadists, by every available account, are also inflamed and encouraged by everything from passivity to Danish cartoons, this seems to shrink the arena of possible or even thinkable combat. (Nobody ever asks what would happen if the jihadists had to start worrying about the level of casualties they were enduring, or the credit they were losing by their tactics, or the number of enemies they were making among civilized people who were prepared to take up arms to stop them. Our own masochism makes this contingency an unlikely one in any case.)
I am glad that all previous demands for withdrawal or disengagement from Iraq were unheeded, because otherwise we would not be able to celebrate the arrest and trial of Saddam Hussein; the removal from the planet of his two sadistic kids and putative successors; the certified disarmament of a former WMD- and gangster-sponsoring rogue state; the recuperation of the marshes and their ecology and society; the introduction of a convertible currency; the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan (currently advertising for investors and tourists on American television); the killing of al-Qaida's most dangerous and wicked leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and many of his associates; the opening of dozens of newspapers and radio and TV stations; the holding of elections for an assembly and to approve a constitution; and the introduction of the idea of federal democracy as the only solution for Iraq short of outright partition and/or civil war. If this cause is now to be considered defeated, by the sheer staggering persistence in murder and sabotage of the clerico-fascist forces and the sectarian militias, then it will always count as a noble one.
But the many disappointments and crimes and blunders (the saddest of which is the utter failure to influence Iran, and the corresponding advantage taken by Tehran-backed militias) do not relieve us of a responsibility that is either insufficiently stressed or else passed over entirely: What is to become, in the event of a withdrawal, of the many Arab and Kurdish Iraqis who do want to live in a secular and democratic and federal country? We have acquired this responsibility not since 2003, or in the sideshow debate over prewar propaganda, but over decades of intervention in Iraq's affairs, starting with the 1968 Baathist coup endorsed by the CIA, stretching through Jimmy Carter's unforgivable permission for Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, continuing through the decades of genocide in Kurdistan and the uneasy compromise that ended the Kuwait war, and extending through 12 years of sanctions and half-measures, including the "no-fly" zones and the Iraq Liberation Act, which passed the Senate without a dissenting vote. It is not a responsibility from which we can walk away when, or if, it seems to suit us.
Some time ago, I wrote rather offhandedly that the coalition forces in Iraq act as the defensive militia for those who have no militia. I get e-mails from civilians and soldiers in that country, as well as from its growing number of exiles, and this little remark generated more traffic than I have had in a while. Just look at the report in the Oct. 30 New York Times about the kidnapping of an Iraqi-American Army interpreter in the (still) relatively civilized Baghdad neighborhood of Karada. A few days earlier, according to the residents who tried with bare hands to stop the abduction, the same gang had been whipping teenage boys with cables for the crime of wearing shorts. (It is always useful to know what is on the minds of the pious.) A Sunday Washington Post headline referred to the "tipping point" in the erosion of congressional support for the Iraq intervention. Well, the "tipping point" between the grim status quo in Karada and its full-scale Talibanization is rather more acute. And does anyone want to argue that a Talibanized Iraq would not require our attention down the road if we left it behind us?
There are many different plans to reconfigure forces within Iraq and to accommodate, in one way or another, its increasingly tribal and sectarian politics. (Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith's suggestion, arising from his admirable book The End of Iraq, involves a redeployment to the successful and peaceful north, with the ability to answer requests for assistance from the central government and the right to confront al-Qaida forces without notice.) But all demands for an evacuation are based on the fantasy that there is a distinction between "over there" and "over here." In a world-scale confrontation with jihadism, this distinction is idle and false. It also involves callously forgetting the people who would be the first victims but who would not by any means be the last ones.
#1
You mean our buddy Jimmah flipped off the Shah of Iran and gave the green light to Sadass to charge into Iran all inside a 4 year term ? And, in his spare time totally f**ked the economy to inspire interests rates at 14-15%. I forgot some of that. He was a busy boy (body) indeed. Salutations Jimmah. Your record will be difficult to surpass. And, just think, in retirement, along with your able assistant Halfbright, you proceeded to f**kup relations with the twit in NKorea too.
#2
Christopher Hitchens
*
Hitch nails them here thank you!
Many of those advocating withdrawal have been "war-weary" ever since the midafternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, when it was discovered that the source of jihadist violence was U.S. foreign policya mentality now reinforced by the recent National Intelligence Estimate circulated by our emasculated, demoralized, and incompetent intelligence services. To this way of thinking, victory is impossible by definition, because any response other than restraint is bound to inflame the militancy of the other side. Since the jihadists, by every available account, are also inflamed and encouraged by everything from passivity to Danish cartoons, this seems to shrink the arena of possible or even thinkable combat. (Nobody ever asks what would happen if the jihadists had to start worrying about the level of casualties they were enduring, or the credit they were losing by their tactics, or the number of enemies they were making among civilized people who were prepared to take up arms to stop them. Our own masochism makes this contingency an unlikely one in any case.)
And coins it here! clerico-fascist forces
And winnows the crucial away from the blizzard of bullshit......
There are many different plans to reconfigure forces within Iraq and to accommodate, in one way or another, its increasingly tribal and sectarian politics. (Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith's suggestion, arising from his admirable book The End of Iraq, involves a redeployment to the successful and peaceful north, with the ability to answer requests for assistance from the central government and the right to confront al-Qaida forces without notice.) But all demands for an evacuation are based on the fantasy that there is a distinction between "over there" and "over here." In a world-scale confrontation with jihadism, this distinction is idle and false. It also involves callously forgetting the people who would be the first victims but who would not by any means be the last ones.
#3
"Cut and run" in Iraq will lead to mass murder much worse than the current situation. I am hoping that bases and supplies have already been set up in the peaceful portions of northern Iraq, but I doubt this has happened.
#4
So, we remove all US troops from the Middle East? Then just leave issues like proliferation, energy, foreign investment, jihad terrorism, for resolution by locals. Makes sense (to a moron).
#5
MARK STEYN article > ONLY CHOICES IS TO WIN WAR OR LOSE IT. As said/argued times before, WOT > WAR FOR CONTROL OF WORLD + FUTURE OWG/ORDER, and is so regardless of whether Dubya, or even Saint Bill for that matter, invaded Iraq in 2003 or not. STALEMATE/ARMISTICE > will be interpreted as de facto US loss of geopol-national power = ENEMY ARMIES WILL ATTACK = INVADE AMERICA. They will be in our back yards and main streets, they will take [armed]photo-ops under the Mickey D sign ala RED DAWN. It t'aint gonna matter to the Hard Lefties whether the Federalist = Socialist, Communism-Socialism = Demo-Capitalism, America = Amerika, USA = USSA/USR, NPE = CPUS invites them in; or demands areas of CONUS be saved and liberated from the Male Brute, Fascist = Limited Communist/Stalinist, national Rightist Conservative Socialist, GOP minority-faction. LEFTIST-SOCIALISTS > POWER IS POWER, BY ANY EACH ALL + EVERY MEANS NECESSARY. DIALECTICISM =WAFFLE-lism > ONE SIDE = ALL SIDES = NO SIDES. The competition and substitution of Nations is gonna stop just because America is a hyper-power or going into space.
#6
I'm beginning to wonder if we are now at the Jimmy Carter point of this current conflict, where we must take one large step back into utter passivity and craven cowardice to allow the two big Reagan steps forward once everyone realizes that being a big puss only makes things worse.
Weve got a lot of issues with Iran, President Bush told a news conference last week. The first is whether or not they will help this young democracy succeed, he said, referring to Iraq. He said the second issue was whether Iran would help the Lebanese government, and that the big issue was whether or not Iran will end up with a nuclear weapon.
The heart sinks. Can anyone let alone the president possibly believe that the mullahs might help Iraq succeed? The only success they are interested in is the humiliation of America and the domination of Iraq. Can anyone possibly believe that Iran might help the Lebanese government? The only thing they care about is the destruction of that government, the slaughter or domination of the Maronite Christians, and the creation of an Islamic Republic under the thumb of Hizbollah. And finally, how can anyone possibly believe that the big issue is whether or not Iran will get nukes? The issue is American lives, now being taken in Iraq and Afghanistan by Iranian weapons, killers, and managers. This is not new; it has been going on for 27 years, and we have yet to respond.
As I warned both before and after the liberation of Iraq, the Iranians and their Syrian allies, fearing their doom if we succeeded in creating a free Iraq, unleashed a terror war against us and the Iraqi people, just as they had done 20 years before in Lebanon. There is abundant evidence, as Bob Woodward tells us in his latest book, State of Denial.
Here are three examples (actually two; the first and third appear to be the same, albeit 60 pages apart):
Pages 414-415: Some evidence indicated that the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah was training insurgents to build and use the shaped IEDs, at the urging of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That kind of action was arguably an act of war by Iran against the United States. If we start putting out everything we know about these things, Zelikow felt, the administration might well start a fire it couldnt put out...
Page 449: The components and the training for (the IEDs) had more and more clearly been traced to Iran, one of the most troubling turns in the war.
Page 474ß: The radical Revolutionary Guards Corps had asked Hizbollah, the terrorist organization, to conduct some of the training of Iraqis to use the EFPs, according to U.S. Intelligence. If all this were put out publicly, it might start a fire that no one could put out...Second, if it were true, it meant that Iranians were killing American soldiers an act of war...
Its not the first time we have had information about Irans murder of Americans. Louis Freeh tells us that the same thing happened following the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. On page 18 of Freehs My FBI he reports that Saudi Ambassador Bandar told Freeh we have the goods, pointing ineluctably towad Iran. The culprits were the same as in Iraq: Hezbollah, under direction from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. And then there was a confession from outgoing Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani to Crown Prince Abdullah (at the time, effectively the Saudi king): page 19: the Khobar attack had been planned and carried out with the knowledge of the Iranian supreme ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei.
As Freeh puts it, this had been an act of war against the United States of America.
Clinton famously failed to respond to Irans act of war. Instead, he attempted to achieve a modus vivendi with the mullahs, the kind of negotiated surrender now so fervently proposed by realists of the Brent Scowcroft/Richard Haass/James Baker school, supported by Henry Kissinger on his pessimistic days. This sort of appeasement has always encouraged enemies like the Iranian theocrats to intensify their attacks on us and on those of their own people who dare to call for freedom, and so it has proven ever since.
Is it possible that President Bush is not aware of this history? Just barely. Woodwards account shows that there were at least some policy makers (he cites Zelikow, but there are no doubt others as well) who were very reluctant to pass this information up the line to a president who could be expected to take action after he learned about it. The secretary of State, Colin Powell, was famously unwilling engage the United States involved in support of Iranian dissidents (We dont want to get involved in an Iranian family squabble), and his Deputy, Richard Armitage, actually argued that Iran was a democracy. They would not have wanted the president to know that there were daily Iranian acts of war against the United States.
What about the intelligence community? Are they not obliged to inform the president of Iranian acts of war? Indeed they are, but they, too, were concerned about the presidents muscular foreign policy. I was asked by a high-ranking intelligence officer to take it easy on Iran, because, he thought, things were going along nicely, and in a decade or so we could expect an Iranian democracy. But if we got engaged, God only knows what will happen. I suppose he is now one of the happy thinkers who say that Iran wont have nukes for another decade or so. Worse yet, in December, 2001, Iranians meeting secretly with American officials in Rome, informed the United States about Iranian plans to kill coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. The information was correct, and the killers were eliminated. But in short order, orders were given to terminate all such contacts with Iranians, even though the Rome meeting had produced life-saving information. I can well believe that the preside nt was never told about the Iranian-sponsored killers.
According to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Bob Woodward had eight hours with the president. Did he ever ask if we were at war with Iran? Given the explosive evidence provided in State of Denial, he certainly should have. But if he did, there is no record of it in his book.
Perhaps the question was not asked for the same reason the policymakers and spooks didnt want it known that Iran was waging war on us: fear of the consequences. For once you put the Iranian question in that context, its really impossible to pretend that our issues with the mullahs consist of trying to convince them to help freedom in Iraq and Lebanon, and getting them to cooperate in dismantling their nuclear program. Once you are forced to address the facts, all sorts of issues drop into the background.
#1
Weve got a lot of issues with Iran, President Bush told a news conference last week. The first is whether or not they will help this young democracy succeed, he said, referring to Iraq. He said the second issue was whether Iran would help the Lebanese government, and that the big issue was whether or not Iran will end up with a nuclear weapon.
Dear God...
We are in the fight of our lives against the menace of radical Islam; but we are not going to win that fight unless we continue the war until the job is done.
And the American people aren't going to be willing to continue the war if they become convinced their leadership is lost and confused and pursuing a course of action which is aimless and ineffectual.
And they sure as Hell aren't going to continue supporting the war when they hear their President spout nonsensical diplobabble like the quote above.
This administration better get it's ass in gear and start talking sense, or the American people are apt to decide to abruptly end this so-called "generational conflict" exactly 812 days from now when Bush's successor takes the oath of office.
"The heart sinks."
No shit.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/31/2006 11:38 Comments ||
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#2
Sometimes a President will say and do things so you watch one hand and don't see what the other hand is doing. Much like a magician.
Since our media rarely actually listens to what Bush says its hard to say if this is what is happening or not though.
#4
It strikes me that Bush et al. are (much like their predecessors) soft-pedalling Iranian involvement; one presumes this is because we are unvilling OR UNABLE to take action at this time. Which is worse: 1) to admit a situation exists that calls for military action and then not act, or 2) to deny the situation that would call for action you can't take anyway?
This would be analogous to what I suspect went on following the JFK assassination: the FBI etc. may have been afraid the USSR was involved, and to admit it would tend to force an unacceptable confrontation, so investigations were cut short or diverted (leading to the zillions of conspiracy theories). Better to let some guilty escape than to force a catastrophic war - regardless of whether there was any direct or indirect Soviet involvement.)
The most frightening aspect of the present war is how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages.
Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.
Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?
Over 400 years before the birth of Christ, ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.
It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.
Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims' heads on poles for public display, would've been thrilled by such a gruesome show.
Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans in fear of radical Islamists would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?
The astonishing fact is not just that millions of women worldwide in 2006 are still veiled from head-to-toe, trapped in arranged marriages, subject to polygamy, honor killings and forced circumcision, or are without the right to vote or appear alone in public. What is more baffling is that in the West, liberal Europeans are often wary of protecting female citizens from the excesses of Sharia law sometimes even fearful of asking women to unveil their faces for purposes of simple identification and official conversation.
Who these days is shocked that Israel is hated by Arab nations and threatened with annihilation by radical Iran? Instead, the surprise is that even in places like Paris or Seattle, Jews are singled out and killed for the apparent crime of being Jewish.
Since Sept. 11, the West has fought enemies who are determined to bring back the nightmarish world that we thought was long past. And there are lessons Westerners can learn from radical Islamists' ghastly efforts.
First, the Western liberal tradition is fragile and can still disappear. Just because we have sophisticated cell phones, CAT scanners and jets does not ensure that we are permanently civilized or safe. Technology used by the civilized for positive purposes can easily be manipulated by barbarians for destruction.
Second, the Enlightenment is not always lost on the battlefield. It can be surrendered through either fear or indifference as well. Westerners fearful of terrorist reprisals themselves shut down a production of a Mozart opera in Berlin deemed offensive to Muslims. Few came to the aid of a Salman Rushdie or Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh when their unpopular expression earned death threats from Islamists. Van Gogh, of course, was ultimately killed.
The Goths and Vandals did not sack Rome solely through the power of their hordes; they also relied on the paralysis of Roman elites who no longer knew what it was to be Roman much less whether it was any better than the alternative.
Third, civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang. Insidiously, we have allowed radical Islamists to redefine the primordial into the not-so-bad. Perhaps women in head-to-toe burkas in Europe prefer them? Maybe that crass German opera was just too over the top after all? Aren't both parties equally to blame in the Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan wars?
To grasp the flavor of our own Civil War, impersonators now don period dress and reconstruct the battles of Shiloh or Gettysburg. But we need not show such historical reenactment of the Dark Ages. You see, they are back with us live almost daily from the Middle East.
#1
If you are a muslim, be afraid. We do not walk centuries so you can take us back to square one. And if you are a ghastly Democrat, be more afraid. You aid evil.
#2
"The Goths and Vandals did Islamonutz will not sack Rome the West solely through the power of their hordes; they will also relied rely on the paralysis of Roman Western elites who no longer knew know what it was is to be Roman Western much less whether it was is any better than the alternative."
There, fixed that. Accuracy is important when discussing the future of the modern world.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/31/2006 13:47 Comments ||
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To avoid total defeat, the United States must reduce and redeploy its troops and nudge the Iraqis toward a deal. Here's how. Didn't know we were on the brink of total defeat. But perhaps that's the disadvantage of not having a seat at the all seeing Newsweak.
Something like the close of the Korean War is, frankly, the best we can hope for in Iraq now. One could easily imagine worse outcomesa bloodbath, political fragmentation, a tumultuous flood of refugees and a surge in global terrorist attacks. But with planning, intelligence, execution and luck, it is possible that the American intervention in Iraq could have a gray endingone that is unsatisfying to all, but that prevents the worst scenarios from unfolding, secures some real achievements and allows the United States to regain its energies and strategic compass for its broader leadership role in the world.
The outlines of the deal that needs to be made are by now obvious. Iraq would end up a loose confederation, but would divide its oil revenue so that all three regions were invested in the new nation. A broad amnesty would be granted to all those who have waged war, which means mainly the Sunni insurgents, but also members of Shia death squads. Government and state-sector jobs, the largest share of employment in Iraq, would be distributed to all three communities, which would entail a reversal of the postinvasion purges that swept up, for example, schoolteachers who happened to be members of the Baath Party. Finally, and perhaps most urgently, the Shia militias must be disbanded or, if that becomes impossible, incorporated and tamed into national institutions.
What is equally obvious is that such a deal does not seem to be at hand.
So what should the United States do? First of all, Washington has to make clear to the Iraqi leaders that its continued presence in the country at current troop levels is not sustainable without some significant moves on their part.
Iraqi leaders must above all decide whether they want America there. Iraq's Parliament should publicly ask American troops to stay.
Next, Iraqis must forge a national compact. The government needs to make swift and high-profile efforts to bring the sectarian tensions to a close and defang the militias, particularly the Mahdi Army.
There is one shift that the United States itself needs to make: we must talk to Iraq's neighbors about their common interest in security and stability in Iraq.
Unfortunately, there's a strong possibility that these changes will not be made in the next few months. At that point the United States should begin taking measures that lead to a much smaller, less intrusive presence in Iraq, geared to a more limited set of goals. Starting in January 2007, we should stop trying to provide basic security in Iraq's cities and villages. U.S. units should instead become a rapid-reaction force to secure certain core interests.
Currently we have 144,000 troops deployed in Iraq at a cost of more than $90 billion a year. That is simply not sustainable in an open-ended way. I would propose a force structure of 60,000 men at a cost of $30 billion to $35 billion annuallya commitment that could be maintained for several years, and that would give the Iraqis time to come together, in whatever loose form they can, as a nation.
The core national-security interests of the United States in Iraq are now threefold: first, to prevent Anbar province from being taken over by Qaeda-style jihadist groups that would use it as a base for global terrorism; second, to ensure that the Kurdish region retains its autonomy; third, to prevent or at least contain massive sectarian violence in Iraq, as both a humanitarian and a security issue.
President Bush is fond of warning, "If we leave Iraq, they will follow us home." This makes no sense. Does the president really believe that because we're in Iraq, terrorists have forgotten that we're also in America? Here's what we really need to worry about doing:
Battle Al Qaeda. In fact, the fight in places like Anbar is largely not a jihadist crusade against America, but a Sunni struggle for control of the country. The chances of Iraq's being taken over by a Qaeda-style group are nonexistent.
Secure Kurdistan.
Prevent a bloodbath.
Draw down troops and ramp up advisers.
This plan might not work. And if it does not, the United States will confront the more painful question of what to do in the midst of even greater violence and chaos.
The lesson of Korea, where more than 30,000 U.S. troops are stationed to this day, is not that America should withdraw from Iraq completely. But to have any chance of lasting success, we must give up our illusions, scale back our ambitions, ensure that the worst does not happen. Then perhaps time will work for us for a change.
President Bush is fond of warning, "If we leave Iraq, they will follow us home." This makes no sense.
Makes perfect sense to me, but I've forgotten to take my meds for over a week, that must be it.
The chances of Iraq's being taken over by a Qaeda-style group are nonexistent.
The chance of Iran taking over the Shia part of Iraq is rather high, however. It seems to have already happened. The author semi-contradicts himself when he warns about the danger of "Anbar province ... being taken over by Qaeda-style jihadist groups that would use it as a base for global terrorism"
Secure Kurdistan
This is so critically important, so obviously necessary that only the most incompetent strategists could ignore the need to be making these preparations now. Uh-oh...
Prevent a bloodbath.
Draw down troops
Choose one and only one. A mini-bloodbath is the current situation.
It's now out that the American security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, has been giving secret training to the Palestinian Presidential Guard. It's part of his program to provide "support" to the Palestinian Fatah faction in its internal struggle with Hamas.
The initial training was conducted by American military instructors in a military camp near Jericho, for some 400 men. And now Dayton has asked the Quartet to put in place a program that will have Egyptian, British and perhaps even Jordanian instructors to train the force loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, helping it to grow to some 6,000 men.
Dayton seems to have managed to help his masters to forget the history of the Presidential Guard and its elite Force 17 unit, and is probably hoping that the Quartet will also have a spot of amnesia.
He has also sidestepped the conclusions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that, before the addition of more than 35,000 troops in the last 3 years, the Palestinian Security Services were overstaffed, out of control, and an insurmountable burden on the Palestinian economy. Of greater concern, though, is that Force 17 is well known for its involvement in terror activities.
In this context, the experience of previous US training efforts is of interest. Journalist Mathew Kalman revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle in early 2005 that as far back as 1998, the CIA spent tens of millions of dollars, contracting secret training for hundreds of Palestinian Security Service personnel, including members of Force 17. Kalman managed to get hold of this "graduation picture" of one of those courses. Look at the fellow kneeling fourth from the left in the front row. Kalman identified him as Raafat Bajali a member of the terrorist Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who was killed in a "work accident", while making a bomb. Fortunately, he took fellow Al-Aksa terrorist Nedal Zedok with him
And standing in the back row, second from the left, is Khaled Abu Nijmeh. He was one of Bethlehem's most-wanted Palestinian militants in the city, suspected of involvement in a string of suicide bombings and shooting attacks against Israelis. In May 2002, he was one of 13 gunmen escorted from the Church of the Nativity siege in Bethlehem, flown to Cyprus and then to exile in Europe. Several of his fellow deportees received their salaries from the Palestinian Security Service payroll. Nijmeh proudly told Kalman of his membership in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades alongside his job as first sergeant in Palestinian General Intelligence. He was very pleased with the CIA training that helped him learn the trade. "I was not alone. Many Palestinian security people were trained by the Americans. We hope they will continue helping us."
Well, now that our memories have faded a little, it seems that Nijmeh's prayers are being answered. The Americans are once again training tomorrow's terrorists.
The Pentagon must study the Muslim prophet Muhammad and his military doctrine to beat the growing number of jihadists, a former senior Pentagon intelligence official warns.
The failure of Pentagon brass to implement a "systematic study" of Muhammad's military doctrine is hurting the U.S. military's effort to control and defeat insurgents and terrorists, complains William Gawthrop, who until recent months headed a key counterintelligence and counterterrorism program set up at the Pentagon after 9/11.
During this year's Ramadan, just ended, U.S. troops suffered another spike in casualties. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month when Muslims believe Muhammad received the Quran, the Muslim scripture, in a divine revelation. Almost 100 GIs have been killed in Iraq this month alone. Attacks on U.S. and other coalition soldiers in Afghanistan also increased during Ramadan.
The U.S. still does not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, says Gawthrop, who recently stepped down as program manager for the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA.
"As late as early 2006, the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader," Gawthrop said. "As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered."
Washington-based CIFA is a key Pentagon intelligence agency involved in homeland security. It staffs hundreds of investigators and analysts to help coordinate Pentagon security efforts at home and abroad. CIFA also supports Northern Command in Colorado, which was established after 9/11 to help military forces react to terrorist threats in the continental United States.
Gawthrop says jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply following the example of Muhammad, who some 1,400 years ago personally led 27 attacks and sent his armies out 47 additional times against non-Islamic communities averaging about seven operations a year.
He says the Muslim prophet's military doctrine is contained in the Quran and its supplements, and the insurgents and terrorists are using them as their manual of warfare. They are Muhammad's soldiers in the 21st century. Homegrown and freelance terrorists are also following his example, he notes.
"There is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam," Gawthrop said. They include "the example of Muhammad, the Quran, the hadiths, Islamic law, the pillars of faith and jihad."
The Muslim sacred books cover all aspects of warfare, from methods and tactics of violence against kafirs to war booty to truces, he says. Even alms-giving is directed toward jihad, which is obligatory for Muslims, who are told by the Quran that "fighting is prescribed for you" (another translation says "warfare is ordained for you").
Gawthrop says the Pentagon needs to develop a broad new strategy to deal with the threat from Islamic terrorists. But to do so, officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, its sacred scripture and the personal example of its revered prophet.
"Muhammad's mindset is a source for terrorism," Gawthrop flatly says.
Dealing with the threat on a tactical and operational level through counterstrikes and capture has proven only marginally successful. Gawthrop and other military leaders want to combat it from a strategic standpoint, using informational warfare, among other things. A critical part of that strategy involves studying Islam, including the Quran and the hadiths, or traditions of Muhammad, and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and controversies within the faith itself.
"The ideological lever has largely been ignored," he said, while the threat from Islamic terrorism and jihadism grows stronger and stronger now now infecting Great Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, in addition to Thailand, Indonesia (and indirectly Australia), Somalia, Russia and India.
"Today the United States and an increasing number of other governments are beleaguered by an expanding array of states, groups and individuals whose goals, actions and norms are animated by Islamic values," Gawthrop said. "This places the defenders in the unenviable position of having to fight, at the strategic level, against an idea."
How do you attack an idea? By hitting "soft spots" in the Islamic faith that, once exploited, "may induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target," Gawthrop says.
"Critical vulnerabilities of the Quran, for example, are that it was uttered by a mortal," Gawthrop said. "Similar vulnerabilities may be found in Muhammad's character."
As the jihad spreads, he says the government eventually will have to get involved in a such a controversial national education campaign, politically incorrect as it may be.
"If the United States, moderate Muslim governments and the non-Muslim world seek to engage ideological adversaries on their own ground," he said, "they will have to develop, use and maintain the full range of capabilities in the ideological component of national power, and address Islam's strategic themes directly."
Gawthrop notes that the Defense Intelligence Agency has produced reports on jihad, but not any detailed reports on Muhammad and his political and military doctrine. The reports discussing jihad include: "Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct" by Air Force Lt. Col. Stephen P. Lambert and "Islam: The Peaceful Religion in Perpetual War" by the Joint Military Intelligence College.
Gawthrop's analysis appears in the new fall 2006 edition of "The Vanguard," the professional journal of the Military Intelligence Corps Association published out of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the Army's intelligence headquarters.
#1
This is a bunch of crap. All you have to do is understand the bad guys have access to calanders. They can see when an election is and uptick the violence in order to attempt to influence that election. That's what happened with each Iraqi election and that's what's happening now.
The dude is right, many misconceptions on many levels happened because of misunderstanding what we deal with. What you describe is just one of the tools Islamonazis use. But they use many, beside the human "tools" that is almost effortless to employ.
In a way, he points out that the ROP in reality means Religion of Pieces and has to be fought in that framework.
#4
How many curent-day Mohammeds lead their troops into battle? Osama? Blinky? Mullah Dadullah? Hek? Nasrallah? Meshaal? Fucking cowards. Sounds like good psyops angle
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/31/2006 20:35 Comments ||
Top||
Taliban insurgents don't need a media relations bureau
By Ezra Levant - Calgary Sun
The monthly number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq reached a year-long high in October. In other news, the U.S. midterm elections are next Tuesday. Coincidence?
Of course not. It is a sign of Western condescension to think only our own politicians use propaganda to win hearts and minds. In fact, when it comes to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, the media battle is more important than the military one -- because the media battle is the only one they can win.
Our press corps is so cynical and skeptical when it comes to interviewing Prime Minister Stephen Harper or President George W. Bush -- doubting everything and assuming even basic pronouncements to be tricks. But those same tough-as-nails reporters turn into mindless stenographers when they interview a foreign tyrant -- a perfect example being the fawning reception Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad receives.
That is the lesson every terrorist learned during the Vietnam era -- if you can just survive long enough without being killed by the military, the media will save you. In Vietnam, for example, the 1968 Tet Offensive by North Vietnam was a military disaster -- more than half of the 84,000 Communist troops involved were killed, and no territory was won.
It was a wipe-out. But anti-war media, led by Walter Cronkite, declared it a massive victory for the Communists, demoralizing Americans and undermining the military.
That is why terrorist groups such as Hezbollah have media departments with business cards, e-mail addresses and round-the-clock phone numbers for Western journalists to get the spin. During the recent Israel-Hezbollah war, CNN embedded a journalist with a Hezbollah spin doctor, with none of the ethical soul-searching that accompanied embedding troops with the U.S. military.
The Associated Press hired a Hezbollah activist as a photographer, firing him only after he doctored the photos he sold to AP to make Israel look more violent than it was. Doctored photos can be spotted -- what about doctored news stories?
How many other Hezbollah plants are AP freelancers?
Of course, the greatest undoers of the West are not Hezbollah freelancers, or even the al-Jazeeras of the world.
As in Vietnam, it was the Western collaborators -- or self-haters -- who did much more damage to the cause of liberty than any foreigner. Jane Fonda's traitorous visits to North Vietnam are the most blatant example.
In Canada, we don't have the same Vietnam culture in our press corps as the Americans do, but we're getting there. Every time a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, it is turned into a moment of national bathos.
The death makes the TV news when it happens, then when the body is put aboard a plane for Canada, then when the plane lands, then again at the funeral. Each of those events is not news -- each is an editorial effort by our press corps to create a public feeling of hopelessness and pointlessness.
The Taliban doesn't have a media relations bureau these days. It doesn't need one, it has the CBC.
It doesn't need a spokesman, it has Jack Layton, making the case for a humiliating evacuation of our troops.
The war against terror will not be won or lost by our brave soldiers. It will be won or lost by our media.
#1
The media has yet to notice the siege against the al-Sadrites. They little Mullah's terrorists are surrounded in 4 areas. Iraqi Forces might want in on the first wave.
#2
funny, but i don't think they are SFW. hard to keep from drawing cube visitors what with all the chortling and snickering going on (trying to keep the outright guffaws at bay was difficult)
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.
