OK. I know I'm linking a blog, but this is Lileks.
A nuisance? I don't want the definition of success of terrorism to be "it isn't on the rise." I want the definition of success to be "free democratic states in the Middle East and the cessation of support of those governments and fascist states we haven't gotten around to kicking in the ass yet." I want the definition of success to mean a free Lebanon and free Iran and a Saudi Arabia that realizes there's no point in funding the fundies. An Egypt that stops pouring out the Jew-hatred as a form of political novacaine to keep the citizens from turning their ire on their own government. I want the definition of success to mean that Europe takes a stand against the Islamicist radicals in their midst before the Wahabbi poison is the only acceptable strain on the continent. Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.
But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were.
But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we've learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don't want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.
We have to get back to the place we were.
No. We have to go the place where they are.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck ||
10/11/2004 8:27:27 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
No. We have to go the place where they are.
That, my friends, is a classic, jerri-curl pimp slap.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/11/2004 11:16 Comments ||
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#3
Certainly one of the most revealing. And leave it to Lileks to slap him upside the head like the deserving red-headed stepchild he is. Mebbe he's trying to subconsciously appeal to a bunch of Babs fans. Who knows. The worst twerp ever put forward for Prez by anyone, anytime. That it's close and he might be elected is stupefying.
#4
Even though we are white sheep in a green field, and even if there are the remains of eaten sheep all around us, I'm sure that if we dont move the hungry wolf won't see us and will simply go away.....
I'm sure this will play well in the Bush/Cheney ads as well as the debate.
And if it doesn't then Bush doesn't deserve to win. This is as bad as Gerald Ford claiming that Poland wasn't dominated by the soviet union.....
#5
Ford's verbal idiocies combined with Carter's intellectual fatuousness. The prostitution/organized crime analogy was especially revealing. Kerry still thinks this is a matter for law enforcement. But more troubling is the sheer stupidity of this notion: we tolerate prostitution! It's de jure legal in several jurisdictions and de facto legal everywhere (check your Yellow Pages under "Escorts").
Kerry's recent debate performances may have successfully convinced swing voters that he's not emotionally disturbed, but he's doing his best to convince everyone that he's mentally defective. AQ are not a "mafia organization," and this is not a matter for Interpol. This is war.
#6
Here's an excerpt from a letter to the NYT (dead tree version) today:
[Praises Kerry, But:] "I was disturbed, however, by Mr. Kerry's harsh language about hunting down and killing the terrorists. I would have preferred less barbaric phrasing."
I wonder how this person would have preferred the news of the latest beheading to have been delivered.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/11/2004 11:59 Comments ||
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#7
W.R.:
To paraphrase lex's comment above, Rantburgers tolerate links to Lileks--nay! there is a sort of "Lileks exception"--those links're de jure legal here in the 'Burg. (There's also a "Mark Steyn exception," "VDH exception," and "Wretchard execption.")
No surprise, that. Lileks is the best op-ed writer in the world, at least until Peggy Noonan's enlistment is up and she returns to the Wall Street Journal.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/11/2004 12:35 Comments ||
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#8
Forget Kerry. O! Lost loser of yore. You can't go back again. You also ain't carrin North Carolina.
Posted by: Abu Wolfe ||
10/11/2004 12:38 Comments ||
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#9
"I was disturbed, however, by Mr. Kerry's harsh language about hunting down and killing the terrorists. I would have preferred less barbaric phrasing."
As long as this idiot is only a letter-writer and not in some position of power or authority, it's no big deal. These types can go on yelling "Ya ya ya ya" with their fingers in their ears when "barbaric" words are spoken, while the rest of us do the job that needs to be done.
The only request I have is that these jerks stay out of our way, and out of our sight.
#10
Uh oh... one of those turns coming on...
---
He wants to manage it, Kerry does. Keep it so that these incidents occur only once in a while.
He'll ensure that these attacks only happen in places far from home. We wouldn't want people to get riled up and think about things other than their 401(k)s! And by all means, he won't actually do anything about it! We wouldn't want them to get mad at us. And we certainly wouldn't want to be big, global bullies. Oh no... that won't do at all.
We'll just be like those Europeans. I mean, it isn't fair that they get blown up once in awhile and we don't.
So we'll turn the way-back machine to about 1994 and pretend like those other bothers in Manhattan and Washington and Pennsylvania never happened. 'k?
-----
It's not precisely Kerry's words, but I think I've captured the underlying wishful friggin' thinking.
"We have got to get back to the place we were! Hey that sounds like Woodstock.
Clinton played the sax on Leno. I'm ready for Leno. Oh, I miss the 60's. Those were the days. I liked the war hero/anti war hero bit. Take both sides--it is nice being liked by everyone. Ta, Ta. "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with." That's great music, "sigh." Got this flip flop thing down to an art. Kumbayah. Hey that might get the African-American vote.
Posted by: A. Bungfodder ||
10/11/2004 17:04 Comments ||
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#15
Or the '90s: dotcoms and blowj*bs,
holiday from history,
I'm OK, EurOK
Hear-NOsama, See-NOsama, ThinkNOsama.
There, all better now. 9/11's just a frame of mind, 's all.
#16
Listen to Hillary Rodham â she still sounds like the Port Huron Manifesto. Kerry sounds like a strange mixture of Carterism and SDS rhetoric. Liberals now seem to inhabit a make-believe world where wishing makes it so, and there are no bad ideas, only ideas that were not tried earnestly enough. We are all being mugged by a reality called Islamism.
Terrorism was not simply a nuisance in Israel, or in the Rome and Vienna Airports, or in the African Embassies, or Beirut, or East Timor⦠before 9/11/01. It is difficult to imagine hold diplomatic talks with head-cutting, masked terrorists.
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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.
