#1
Would someone tell this moron to STFU? Japan's emperor had issued radio instructions for all Japanese citizens to commit ritual suicide if the home islands were invaded. Had we not used atomic weapons to secure Japan's surrender the death toll could have been astronomical.
The nuclear bombs saved Japanese lives.
I'm confident that Tutu is utterly uncapable of wrapping his room temperature IQ around such a complex notion. Why he's bringing it up half a century after the fact is nothing but another round of America bashing. Screw this tranzi wanker.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/02/2006 17:27 Comments ||
Top||
#5
A 100 thousand+ citizens of the American territory of the Philippines couldn't be reached for comment upon the treatment they received from Japan's Imperial forces in the months leading up to Hiroshima.
#6
Spot on Procopius! We'll just have to excuse poor old Desmond. He's the South Afrikan bottom feeding equivelent of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Cindy McKinney, and Louis Farrakhon dressed in a robe and rolled into one.
#8
Spot on Procopius! We'll just have to excuse poor old Desmond. He's the South Afrikan bottom feeding equivelent of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Cindy McKinney, and Louis Farrakhon dressed in a robe and rolled into one.
Jeebus, Besoeker, did you just call her Cindy McKinney? Somehow, now, I've got a mental picture of Sheehan's face w/ McKinney's "new doo". Can someone photoshop that combo for me, so that I'm not the only one with that image in my head?
Posted by: BA ||
11/02/2006 20:16 Comments ||
Top||
#9
So is he saying to Japan that since they were bombed that they should give away money? I fail to see the logic.
Posted by: jim ||
11/02/2006 20:55 Comments ||
Top||
You won't sell my book in Canada? Why, I'm flattered
MARK STEYN
Some years ago, back when this here Internet thing that the kids are crazy over was brand new, I remember reading a piece about Amazon.com. And some fellow was wondering whether he should invest in Amazon.com. "No," said the big financial journalist, "you should be amazon.com."
From the murky slough of my memory, this thought swam up to the surface for the first time in years. The other day my new book was published -- as you may recall, if only because it was the cover story in Maclean's a couple of weeks back. Don't worry; lest you think this is a book plug, I don't think it's possible to plug a book that at the time of writing is unavailable in any Canadian bookstore coast to coast, from Gander to Victoria. Authors have always been interested in inventory, of course. I don't know whether he still does it, but for many years the "novelist" Jeffrey Archer had a habit of wandering into shops and surreptitiously autographing all copies of his books, thus rendering them unreturnable. Less motivated chaps, on discovering the local emporium has not a single copy of the magnum opus, tend just to shrug and move on to writing our next unwanted book.
...
According to the CBC, in Canada a "bestseller" sells 5,000 copies. I was amazed to discover that we've already sold that many just on my little website. And a huge number of that 5,000 were shipped out to readers across Canada who'd tried and failed to buy it at Chapters-Indigo and, like Shelley Ide of Port Moody, B.C., wrote to say that "I will never set foot in a Chapters again." If Heather Reisman carries on boycotting me, I should be able to retire to Tahiti within the year.
He may have botched a joke as written by his staff, but deep down, I have no doubt that Kerry holds most of the military in contempt. It appears that he used his own military career as little more than stepping stone for his true calling a political career. This wouldnt be the first time hes thrown the troops under the bus his senate testimony back in 1971 makes me shake with rage, because he calls my father and each soldier, sailor, airman, coastie or marine who fought there a war criminal. Interesting that he could learn so much in four short months.
I think he really does believe that its the poor and stupid who get suckered into the military. And yes some do. But its a great place for them to better themselves. And the majority are smart, capable and good people.
Kerry is a blue falcon at best. I think he should resign from the Senate. Hes not fit to serve.
SSG Paul Rankin
I know we have a lot of active and retired military here in the 'Burg. If you are so inclined, hit the link and provide Colonel Bay with your comments.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/02/2006 12:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
All the comments I've heard aren't safe to print in a family friendly area....
Posted by: Mark E. ||
11/02/2006 13:46 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Wow. The Blue Falcon is worth the trip!
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/02/2006 14:10 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We all know that the our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen have taken it on the shorts from the MSM for years now, and their level of frustration and contempt are sky high.
Finally, it seems, John Kerry has given them an outlet, a focus, for all this aggravation. I hope they let everyone they know exactly how they feel about the senator, and his party.
Well, did he believe in having an army at all? What about a civilization?
You realize when the real imperialists finally take over, whether they're communists, nazis, salafists, or tranzis, they're gonna institute a draft of their own.
#1
Actually they'll institue education. Kerry also believes in education. If you don't learn the lessons the first time the'll simply reeducate you again and again. Probably set up camps specifically for that purpose if need be.
There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.
And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.
If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.
Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.
But at least there will be a chance.
I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.
But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.
To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide. . . .
Go read all of it. It's long, but it's worth every minute. He makes a lot of important points, including this one:
When there is no hope of deliverance, the people have no choice but to bow under the tyrant's lash, pretending to be true believers while yearning for relief. In Russia it came ... after more than seventy years. China and Cuba are still waiting -- but then, they started later.
So it would be in the Muslim world -- if Islamicism were ever able to come to seem inevitable and irresistible.
You know: If America withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and exposed everyone who had cooperated with us to reprisals.
As happened in South Vietnam. The negotiated peace was more or less holding after American withdrawal. But then a Democratic Congress refused to authorize any further support for the South Vietnamese government. No more armaments. No more budget.
In other words, we forcibly disarmed our allies, while their enemies continued to be supplied by the great Communist powers. The message was clear: Those who rely on America are fools. We didn't even have the decency to arrange for the evacuation of the people who had trusted us and risked the most in supporting what they thought was our mutual cause.
We did it again, this time in the Muslim world, in 1991, when Bush Senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam. He meant for the senior military officers to get rid of him in a coup; instead, the common people in the Shiite south rose up against Saddam.
Bush Senior did nothing as Saddam moved in and slaughtered them. The tragedy is that all it would have taken is a show of force on our part in support of the rebels, and Saddam's officers would have toppled him. Only when it became clear that we would do nothing did it become impossible for any high-ranking officials to take action. For the price of the relatively easy military action that would have made Saddam turn his troops around and leave the Shiite south, we could have gotten rid of him then -- and had grateful friends, perhaps, in the Shiite south.
That is part of our track record: Two times we persuaded people to commit themselves to action against oppressive enemies, only to abandon them. Do you think that would-be rebels in Iran and Syria and North Korea don't remember those lessons? . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
11/02/2006 06:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Worth the trip. I'll be e-mailing the link, with some encouragements, to all my non-Rantburg converts at lunchtime.
Posted by: J. Edgar Hoover ||
11/02/2006 9:07 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Oops. My secret identity has been revealed!
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/02/2006 9:08 Comments ||
Top||
#4
A long, but quite insightful, lesson into the global war we're in the middle of. Written by a moderate Democrat, who has no love for the far right, but explains why Bush is the right man, in the right place, at the right time, with respect to the only issue that matters in this election.
He explains all the many competing forces that comprise our enemy - Iranian Shi'ite despots and Iraqi Shi'ite power grabbers, Sunni radicals and Syrian tyrants ... Why Iran is about to fall, but China isn't, and how the US could speed up the Iranian fall, but not with an invasion (I happen to disagee with him on that issue; I don't want an invasion, either.) He also explains why the survival of the US depends on not withdrawing from the middle east until all the competing voices of tyranny are quieted - they don't all have to be defeated, but they have to be shown we will not run away.
His conclusion, if you can't manage to get all the way through the logic -
For the sake of our children's future -- and for the sake of all good people in the world who don't get to vote in the only election that matters to their future, too -- vote for no Congressional candidate who even hints at withdrawing from Iraq or opposing Bush's leadership in the war. And vote for no candidate who will hand control of the House of Representatives to those who are sworn to undo Bush's restrained but steadfast foreign policy in this time of war.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/02/2006 14:07 Comments ||
Top||
#5
After reading this, I'd like to give Mr. Card a standing ovation!
#6
Yet another proof, along with an interesting list of Rantburger nyms, that being a registered Democrat is not proof of the inability to think logically based on reality. Orson Scott Card is one of my favourite science fiction writers -- trailing daughter #1 was so devastated to learn that he'd given up teaching creative writing at one of the universities in South Carolina that she is currently thinking of majoring in linguistics instead. ;-)
I don't usually do deep political analysis, particularly when it comes to getting down and dirty with demographics, but I'm fascinated by this story, and it seems particularly appropriate on Halloween:
An analysis of state-wide records by the Poughkeepsie Journal reveals that 77,000 dead people remain on election rolls in New York State, and some 2,600 may have managed to vote after they had died. The study also found that Democrats are more successful at voting after death than Republicans, by a margin of four-to-one, largely because so many dead people seem to vote in Democrat-dominated New York City.
In light of today's holiday, on which, like Kwanzaa for blacks and Cinco de Mayo for Mexicans, this demographic is particularly celebrated, I'm going to ask the question that nobody seems to ever ask, and one that the Republicans have to be asking themselves: how have they lost that key demographic, the metabolically challenged?
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Juz noticed that all the dead voters are donks, go figure
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/02/2006 0:35 Comments ||
Top||
#2
there are many times as many dead people as there are living ones
I've heard an interesting statistic somewhere that there are more living human beings right now then there has ever been in the history of mankind combined. Meaning that if you count up all the people that have ever lived (and died) throughout history it would not match the number of people living right now.
Of course this doesn't take into account all the imaginary friend voters out there working for the Democrats.
#3
Oh, we're not even going to discuss the voting habits of the non-existent.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2006 0:59 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We could discuss the voting rights of Mexicans, then.
While looking for projected election information, I came across the banner ad for this site: votefromabroad.org.
Imagine my utter lack of surprise to find that name of the group is not the URL, but rather "Democrats Abroad." You can choose English or Espanol, and they explain how to vote even if you've never lived in the US.
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Damn I wish I could write like OSC. He nails it every time.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
11/02/2006 6:58 Comments ||
Top||
#2
EXCELLENT POST!
For the last few years, I've been trying to put into words what OSC says right here. Naturally, he does it 1000X times better than I could ever hope to. I find his ability to paint the broad strokes that matter while not missing the finer details that count so impressive, really.
Being that this essay is one of the most succint and yet comprehensive and well thought-out treatments on the WOT to date, it deserves to be on every op-ed page in the country. Wishful thinking, I know.
He's also authentically American and Western, and that shows, too.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/02/2006 18:43 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Too long to read the whole thing, but I got the flavor. It's a thin ice situation, and no easy answer.
But, my observation. If we had full support including the MSM, we could win the minds of the moderates and help them build their free countries as they wish. With constant second guessing of our efforts, the enemy is constantly refreshed and we are constantly on the defense.
The phalking donks and the MSM have stabbed us in the back and for that, we will slaughter far too many muzzies before it's all over.
Phalk them, I will never forgive them, and if in some far away dark street, I come face to face with Katie Curic or any lefty MSM scumbag, I'll kill her or him and feel fine about it.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
From todays KOMOTV website is this editorial; one of the talking heads, Ken Schramm has a trophy he awards for topical 'stupid people tricks,' and this one is for JFK's remarks. i don't know how to do a link so just use this website to view his editorial. the best part of the whole thing is, he is using JFKs remarks against him to raise money to defray shipping costs for Christmas care packages for the ME troops.
http://www.komotv.com/news/4545431.html
#2
I wonder if Jon Carry thinks his Swift Boat, I hesitate to say, comrades and Navy chain of command are stupid when they singlehandedly sank his presidential hopes.
Posted by: ed ||
11/02/2006 13:31 Comments ||
Top||
I don't give a crap about how the Supremes are interpreting the 2nd Amendment - my interpretation is that the Framers meant me to have a gun to fight oppressive government... militia doesn't have squat to do with it. It's insurance for my freedom.
#4
In the end they keep running into this problem.
Title 10, U.S.C., 311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
It's Congress power in defining the militia under Article I, Secion 8 of the Constitution. It is also the basis of what you commonly refer to as the 'draft' which is in reality the selective activation of the federal militia. Do away with one, you do away with the other.
#5
Here's a great reason why everyone should keep a gun, just in case.
Our government, once of, by, and for the people had up till now refused to stop the flood of foreigners into our country. Still today, those illegals are our problem, the law ignores them.
We know of one type of person who may possible infiltrate our population in that manner. Those people believe it their duty to kill anyone who is not of their religion, Islam.
Will the government which was once of, by, and for the people protect every individual from being murdered by such fanatics ? They failed on September 11, 2001. They may fail again.
Everyone should take responsibility for themselves, for their actions, and for their safety and security as well.
United we stand. Stripped of self defense, we surrender to dhimmitude, be it Islamic or Clintonista (Communist).
The framers of the Constitution were under no pressure from the NRA when they wrote "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
In the same spare sentence, they reaffirmed their historical preference for a "militia" over a standing army, and indicated that this militia should be composed of armed citizens citizens of a "free state" whose right to keep and bear arms must never be infringed. Anti-freedom zealots, including academic invalids and the hypocrites of the mis-named American Civil Liberties Union, have stood on their pointy heads in tortured attempts to misinterpret this sentence ever since. Those of us who know how to read the English language have no trouble at all.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed. The right of the people TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS shall NOT be infringed. The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. What part of NOT do the illiterates out to subvert the Constitution NOT understand?
The Constitution of the state of Pennsylvania (adopted September 28, 1776) allocated more words to make the point even more unmistakable: "XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
Indeed, the individual right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is based on exactly the same principle as civilian control of the military. One wonders if the ACLU would argue with that.
The Second Amendment, like most other articles in the Bill of Rights, was adopted from the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which, in turn, was based on centuries of English Common Law. English jurist Sir William Blackstone observed that the English Bill of Rights clearly meant that Englishmen possessed "the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense" and that "having arms suitable for their defense" was one of the five auxiliary rights people possessed "to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights," the first of which is "personal security."
Unfortunately for the English people, they have been persuaded by their own far-left government and insidious anti-gun activists to allow the English Bill of Rights to be, as they might say, shat upon. Today, the English do not have the right to keep and bear arms for self-preservation and defense. As a direct result, they live in a crime-ridden society that grows worse with each passing day.
The recent 2000 International Crime Victims Survey published by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, a highly respected and accurate measurement of the percentage of people by nation who are victims of violent crimes, ranked England far ahead of the United States (which ranked 8th), and second only to Australia (where English-style anti-gun laws are also in effect) as the most violent nation. A recently disarmed England now has twice as much violent crime as the United States.
The English Home Office, which cooperated in the survey, has refused to publish these findings in England. Its better not to remind the gullible subjects how empty were the promises of safety and security for which they so eagerly traded away their very real and priceless freedoms and responsibilities. The great Roman philosopher and senator, Cicero, immortalized armed self-defense as an "inalienable right" more than 2,000 years before the U.S. Constitution did so. Cicero said: There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.
Even people to whom armed self-defense is but a remote abstraction often endorse, without even realizing it, the unquestionable principles underlying the right to carry a gun. Jaron Lanier, writing in Discover Magazine (Feb. 2001) said in reference to new copyright-protection technology "In a democracy, citizens are supposed to act as partners in enforcing laws. Those forced to follow rules without being trusted even for a moment are, in fact, slaves."
It is perfectly obvious that we have a natural right to arm ourselves and to kill any criminal or other force that threatens us just as surely as an elephant has a right to kill an attacking lion and a mother bear has a right to kill a wolf grinning suspiciously at her cubs. Animal-rights extremists extend the animals right to the killing of humans under such circumstances.
Even the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize and all, said in May of 2001 during a speech about "nonviolent resolutions to conflict" to 7,600 Oregon and Washington high-school students "But if someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." So said the Dalai Lama. There are criminals among us who are both homicidal and incorrigible. Their parents took a shot at civilizing them and failed. Their school teachers took a shot at them and failed. The odds are overwhelming that government welfare programs and penal institutions took a shot at them and failed. If it ever becomes your turn to take a shot at them, dont fail. Carrying a Gun Has Always Been Both a Right And a Duty
There have been many societies in which not carrying a weapon was a serious and severely punishable crime. This was true in Greece, Rome, Europe, Britain and, though seldom enforced, is still true in certain places in America today. This is as it should be. A citizen who shirks his duty to contribute to the security of his community is little better than the criminal who threatens it, and is better off living in a society that places lesser demands on his capacity to accept responsibility.
Armed Citizens Of The 21st Century
In 1987, a year after Glocks were introduced to the U.S., Florida enacted a pioneering "shall-issue" right-to-carry law that has served as the model for the rest of the country. The Florida law affirmed the right of a private citizen to carry a concealed gun and eliminated the abuses so typical of "discretionary" right-to-carry laws that resulted in gun permits being awarded arbitrarily to the political cronies of petty officials, limousine liberals, movie actors, athletes and various other celebrity representatives of the rich and famous crowd, but denied to so-called "ordinary" citizens. The Florida law made it crystal clear that any citizen with basic firearms training and a felony-free record would be issued a concealed-carry permit upon request, period.
Floridas landmark right-to-carry law was supported by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Sheriffs Association, Florida Police Chiefs Association and other law enforcement groups. And it was supported by Florida voters.
The media, however, was predictably vociferous in its opposition to the exercise of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, and in its total submission to the party line of radical anti-freedom, anti-self-defense and anti-gun forces. Headlines predicted vigilante justice and wild-west shootouts on every corner. "Florida will become the "Gunshine State." "A pistol-packing citizenry will mean itchier trigger fingers." "Floridas climate of smoldering fear will flash like napalm when every stranger totes a piece." "Every mental snap in traffic could lead to the crack of gunfire."
Such dire and colorful predictions, of course, proved totally false. Nevertheless, that same hysterical fear-mongering and bald-faced lying are used even today every time a new state gets ready to pass an enlightened right-to-carry law. In actual fact, the only notable thing that happened for the first five years after Florida passed its right-to-carry law was that, as homicide rates in the U.S. soared, Floridas homicide rate fell a dramatic 23 percent. A few of the opponents of concealed carry actually had the courage to admit they were wrong.
Thanks to the intensive lobbying efforts of the NRA, along with the tireless grassroots work of politically aware gun owners, 33 states now have Florida-style laws which require the prompt issuance to their citizens of legal permits to carry concealed weapons. Well over half of the U.S. population, more than 60 percent of all handgun owners, live in these free states, yet no more than one to five percent ever apply for such licenses.
Notwithstanding the fact that most people do not carry guns, the mere possibility that an intended victim could be armed with a handgun eliminates millions of crimes every year.
According to the FBI, states with "shall-issue" right-to-carry laws have a 26 percent lower total violent crime rate, a 20 percent lower homicide rate, a 39 percent lower robbery rate and a 22 percent lower aggravated assault rate than those states that do not allow their citizens to legally carry guns.
Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, Gary Kleck, in Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1991) found that "robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all."
Convicted felons reveal in surveys that they are more afraid of armed citizens than they are of the police. And well they should be. Armed citizens kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by the police. And only two percent of civilian shootings involve an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal, whereas the error rate for the police is more than five times that high.
Klecks research shows that private citizens use firearms to protect themselves and thwart crime about 2.5 million times a year. Citizens use firearms to prevent mass killings, bank robberies, gang attacks, carjackings, rapes, kidnappings and hostage-takings. They use them to help capture prison escapees and murderers, to come to the aid of outnumbered or ambushed law enforcement officers. Yet only a handful of these 2.5 million life-saving uses of firearms are ever reported in the mainstream press.
If a lot more people carried guns, what kind of a society would we have? Certainly not the kind predicted by anti-gun fanatics. Those hysterical doomsayers have been proven absolutely wrong one hundred percent of the time. Would we have a crime-free society? Certainly not. Criminals are as natural and immune to total eradication as fruit flies. But a better-armed society would severely limit the violent damage criminals wreak before they are stopped. Criminals are naturally self-destructive. The reasons they are so doesnt matter. To assist them in their self-destructiveness is the polite and civilized thing to do. Thus another ageless axiom: An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.
In 1998, John R. Lott, Jr., senior research scholar in the School of Law at Yale University, authored the most comprehensive and exhaustive study of crime and gun control laws ever conceived, based on the largest data set on crime ever assembled. His landmark book, More Guns, Less Crime (The University of Chicago Press, 1998, 2000), now available in an updated second edition, includes thorough analyses of more than 54,000 observations and hundreds of variable factors across more than 3,000 counties in all 50 states for 18 years.
The assiduously researched conclusions reached by Lott immediately set off a wave of panic among anti-gun fanatics and drew organized, systematic personal attacks of the most vicious and dishonest nature, including death threats leveled at Lott and his wife and children. Yet not a single serious academic challenge of Lotts research, his methodology or his incontrovertible conclusions has ever been successfully mounted. In fact, Lotts conclusions have reluctantly been called "bulletproof" even by the liberal mainstream press.
Bottom line, in keeping with the title of his work, the more guns there are in society and the more these guns are carried by private citizens, the less crime there is.
These are some of the reasons why police, who fight crime for a living and are well aware of the realities of street criminals, support right-to-carry laws for private citizens by an overwhelming three-to-one margin. This is an even higher margin of support for right-to-carry than the strong support voiced by the civilian population.
Policemen are nobodys personal bodyguards. Their jobs are to find and arrest people who have committed crimes, not to prevent such potential crimes from happening in the first place. Clearly, the responsibility for victim-prevention lies with the victim-to-be.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Bowers v. DeVito, 1982) did not mince words when it ruled, "There is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."
What It Means To Carry A Gun
That loaded pistol in your holster is a powerful expression of your Constitutionally guaranteed liberty as an American citizen, your recognition of the solemn duty you have to your fellow man, and your willingness to accept the full weight of a life-and-death responsibility.
When you are prepared to defend yourself, you are equally prepared to defend all of society and all of its guiding principles. Your responsibilities are therefore many moral, legal and tactical. That is why most people, including lifelong gun owners, experienced hunters and competitive shooters, even in states that freely issue concealed carry permits, do not choose to carry a gun.
Your moral responsibilities are to fire your gun into another human being only when the line of necessity has clearly been reached, and then to fire without hesitation and to full effect. Remember the words of Cicero.
Your legal responsibilities are to justify your actions to those who would call you a criminal at the drop of a hat, and quite possibly to a jury of your peers, most of whom have neither the competence nor the courage to carry a gun in their own defense. Read the findings of the Citizens Self-Defense Act of 2001.
Your tactical responsibilities are to carry your gun with confidence, to be well trained in your ability to operate it effectively, and to have instilled in yourself an iron will to use deadly force to prevent or end violence committed against yourself or others. Most of this book is dedicated to your tactical responsibilities, because thats what will save your life.
Violence happens either at random, or directed toward the obviously vulnerable, or toward someone in particular for a reason. You can rest assured it will not happen at the shooting range when you are all suited up in your speed rig with a plan of action worked out for the coming run-and-gun stage. It will happen when you are home sleeping in your bed, shopping at the grocery store, walking out to get the mail, mowing the grass, at dinner, at church, at the theater.
The most dangerous places in the world are those called "gun-free safety zones" by their ignorant political creators and known by criminals and psychopaths as "safe-to-kill zones." Even an adolescent school kid can figure out that an advertised killing field where no one is allowed to shoot back is the safest location in the world to carry out a mass shooting. Dont even consider going to a place like that unarmed, whether its your kids school or a national park. If you cant handle breaking the law, dont go.
The assistant principal of a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, broke the law. He kept a .45 in his car parked on the school grounds. When a deranged student opened fire, Joel Myrick ran for his gun. Two students were killed because Myrick had to retrieve his gun from his car instead of his holster. But the .45 eventually prevailed, and Myrick stopped the massacre long before police arrived on the scene. God only knows how many lives he saved. But assistant principal Joel Myrick wasnt awarded any medals. Of the several hundred newspaper and television stories about the incident, only a few even mentioned his name. Almost none revealed the fact that he used a gun to stop the killings.
When you bodyguard someone for a while, or when you just live a normal life with your eyes wide open, you realize how vulnerable we all are to becoming another tidbit-of-opportunity in the relentless food chain that sustains the life of this unpredictable world. Its a realization not of paranoia but of reality. Thats the way it is, always has been, always will be. You can ignore it out of faint-heartedness, deny it out of lunacy, submit to it out of a fatalistic contempt for your own life and the lives of others, or you can face it with courage and intelligence and prepare yourself to deal with capricious realitys predisposition toward danger.
Most of those dangers can be met with nothing more than a strong Im-not-a-victim mindset and body language. Many others may shrivel with the demonstration of superior verbal skills. Still others may require a fundamental knowledge of martial arts, a container of pepper spray, a makeshift club, the presence of a well-wielded knife or the sight of a firearm. A few, perhaps one in a lifetime, will not be affected by any kind of less-than-lethal response and will not end until you churn your attackers dreams and determination into a chunky red stew and spew it all over the street with a couple of big-bore hollow points. The trouble is, you never know when or where that last one is coming.
If you ever find yourself under attack by an armed criminal, you will be on the defensive and he will be on the offensive. In other words, he will have a strong advantage going in. And, though he will not have trained himself to shoot nearly as well as you have trained, he will be far more experienced in the art of killing. The odds are, any criminal who is intent on killing you has probably killed men before, knows how to do it, knows how it feels and likes it. Youre not going to talk him out of it, scare him out of it, or wound him out of it. Youre going to have to kill him.
Studies show that simply brandishing a weapon saves many lives, but I am personally against the idea of waving a gun around while your adversary thinks. The way to overcome his offensive advantage is to strike without warning. Once you make the decision to free your Glock from its holster the entire situation should be over and done with in a second or two. The most important component in practicing your draw is firing the instant you have a sight picture on your target, and continuing to fire until your assailant no longer exists.
More than a century of military and police research tells us that most people, including up to 85 percent of trained soldiers and cops, are psychologically unable to use deadly force in a life-or-death situation no matter how compelling the circumstances may be. If you cant kill, there is no reason for you to carry a lethal weapon.
Carrying a loaded gun with the ability and will to use it is not a casual fling meant to bring some excitement into your boring life. It is an all-embracing lifestyle and must take precedence over your respect for law, your fear of social criticism, your love of humanity, your wardrobe and your drinking habits. You can never be unaware of the weight you carry on your hip or under your arm. You can never forget your responsibilities. You must wear your Glock with the same allegiance as your wedding ring. If youre not married, your Glock is your wedding ring. Wear it for life. Dont even think about leaving home without it. Be prepared to use it at a moments notice. Carry it all the time. And shoot to kill.
"Liberty or death," the meaning of which is clear and absolute, is but a trivial phrase if you do not carry a gun. For freedom-loving Americans, the five most important words in the English language are, and always have been 'from my cold dead hands'.
funny that I don't either Leigh, I don't even bother anymore unless I purchase from a unknown dealer. Happiness is a case of US 1970s 30-06 FMJ BALL and another M1 Garand.
#9
What I've never understood is why liberals who tend to be somewhat nancy boys, would willingly take the one thing that evens the playing field between them and violent cavemen and toss it aside.
It's even less understandable for liberal women to despise guns when even the frailest sorority girl could stop the largest drunken caveman rapist by brandishing a firearm.
Simply put, they honestly believe in the "New Man" just as the Soviets did. With the right education and training, the New Man will not have material desires, will not be jealous, will not covet power, will not be...human.
#11
Maybe an easy answer rj...they hire their guns...just ask Rosie O'Donnell. Violent anti-gun but her kid's bodyguard has one. The old liberal song. "Rules for thee but not for me..."
#12
Clearly the Democrat Party has been traditionally more receptive to those who favor tighter restrictions on gun laws. But like most issues, perception, not simply partisan affiliation, shapes legislation. Ask a group of Republican Soccer Moms from an urban area what an Assault Rifle is and many will describe a Fully-automatic military weapon. Ask an equal number of rural Democrat women about guns and many will gloat over their family arsenal. Then ask all of them about infringement of their rights and there will be a near unanimous consensus.
#15
Even assuming the 'new man' is in all our future, I'd like a little protection because we're not there yet and the transition might be a little rough.
Personally I think many lefties think of everyone as children and as long as you keep the pointy objects away from them, nuture them right, all will be well. Jeffrey Dalhmer is not a bad person, he just did a bad thing. That sort of crap.
Oh, and our overlords must be protected. How else can they keep us safe from ourselves and make sure someone changes our diapers.
4. Arsenal Licenses (5 guns and 250 rounds of ammunition).
Five guns and 250 rounds of ammo is not an "arsenal". Five guns is probably "adequate", but 250 rounds of ammo is "Holy cow! We're almost out of ammo!!!"
November 19th is National Ammo Day: say a loud "FUCK YOU!!" to the gun-grabbers by going out that day and buying a hundred rounds in every caliber you use. Better yet, buy a thousand; it's cheaper in bulk.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/02/2006 17:05 Comments ||
Top||
#17
I use ammoman.com and cheaperthandirt.com
I'm guessing I have about 5000 rounds of 9mm and .40 S&W on hand. Surprised I could get it shipped to Kalifornia. Feeds my Glock 19, Browning BPM-D in 9mm and my Sig P226ST in .40
#18
the sad thing is the cops (usually Police Chiefs) who do ads supporting Donks for political office. They're selling out the future officers who will die in the great confiscation
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/02/2006 19:59 Comments ||
Top||
#19
Two simple addages convinced me regarding right-to-carry and right-to-bear arms.
At all times the American public must possess sufficient firepower to take back its government by force.
And:
Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.
Terrorists could assemble a small group of fewer than 20 to construct a Hiroshima-size nuclear bomb, purchase the fissionable uranium needed and transport it to the U.S. city of their choice for less than $10 million, says a new report published in the November-December issue of Foreign Policy.
"The Bomb in the Backyard" was the result of the investigative work of Peter D. Zimmerman and Jeffrey G. Lewis. Zimmerman is professor of science and security in the Department of War Studies at King's College in London and previously served as chief scientist of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chief scientist of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Lewis is executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
"To put it in strictly commercial terms, terrorists would likely find a nuclear attack cost effective," they write in the article. "The simple appeal of nuclear terrorism can be illustrated with a hypothetical situation. A failed nuclear detonation, one that produced only a few tens of tons in yield, could kill 10,000 people in just a few hours if the device exploded in a crowded financial center. Not only would 10,000 persons represent the upward limit of a conventional terrorist attack, but that figure would exceed the combined casualties in all of al-Qaida's attacks over the entire history of the organization." And that's the "worst-case" scenario for the terrorists, the authors point out. If "successful," the nuclear detonation would kill 10 times more people 100,000.
Without giving away any information about the assembling of such a device that cannot already be found easily on the Internet, Zimmerman and Lewis construct a scenario for building a nuclear bomb within the U.S. for a budget of less than $10 million finding it can done with a small team of about 19, the same number of people involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. "It is certainly possible that a terrorist group might not want to risk detection within U.S. borders and would prefer to make the bomb overseas," they write. "But, for purposes of this hypothetical situation, we chose a scenario that would be far less uncertain for the terrorists by eliminating the risks of moving the bomb across a border."
In fact, the backyard bomb project came in under budget at $5.433 million. The authors said the project from start to finish would take no more than a few months. "Once complete, the nuclear device itself is likely to be less than 9 feet long," said the report. "Although it would not fit easily in a sedan, it could be transported in a van or small panel truck with, say, a couple drivers and a couple more people to keep an eye on the device. The plotters could target any number of metropolitan areas and would be free to choose based entirely on their desire to travel unobtrusively and undetected, presumably across a large fraction of the United States."
The authors warn that nuclear terrorism is still very much on the minds of al-Qaida, which began plans more than a decade ago for what it dubbed "American Hiroshima," a nuclear attack on the U.S. As recently as September, they say, al-Qaida put out a call urging nuclear scientists to join its war against the West.
Also in September, the new al-Qaida field commander in Afghanistan called for Muslims to leave the U.S. particularly Washington and New York in anticipation of a major terror attack to rival Sept. 11, according to an interview by another Pakistani journalist.
Abu Dawood told Hamid Mir, a reporter who has covered al-Qaida and met with Osama bin Laden, the attack is being coordinated by Adnan el-Shukrijumah and suggests it may involve some form of weapon of mass destruction smuggled across the Mexican border.
"Our brothers are ready to attack inside America. We will breach their security again," he is quoted as saying. "There is no timeframe for our attack inside America; we can do it any time." As WND has previously reported, el-Shukrijumah is a trained nuclear technician and accomplished pilot who has been singled out by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The terrorist was last seen in Mexico, where, on Nov. 1, 2004, he allegedly hijacked a Piper PA Pawnee cropduster from Ejido Queretaro near Mexicali to transport a nuclear weapon and nuclear equipment into the U.S., according to Paul Williams, a former FBI consultant and author of "The Dunces of Doomsday."
"He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks five years ago," said Dawood. "We call him 'Jaffer al Tayyar' (Jafer the Pilot); he is very brave and intelligent. (President) Bush is aware that brother Adnan has smuggled deadly materials inside America from the Mexican border. Bush is silent about him, because he doesnt want to panic his people. Sheikh Osama bin Laden has completed his cycle of warnings. You know, he is man of his words, he is not a politician; he always does what he says. If he said it many times that Americans will see new attacks, they will definitely see new attacks. He is a real mujahid. Americans will not win this war, which they have started against Muslims. Americans are the biggest supporters of the biggest terrorist in the world, which is Israel."
Mir reportedly interviewed Dawood Sept. 12 at the tomb of Sultan Mehmud Ghaznawi on the outskirts of Kabul. Dawood and the al-Qaida leaders who accompanied him were clean-shaven and dressed as Western reporters. The al-Qaida commander had contacted Mir by cell phone to arrange the meeting.
El-Shukrijumah was born in Guyana Aug. 4, 1975 the firstborn of Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, a 44-year-old radical Muslim cleric, and his 16-year-old wife. In 1985, Gulshair migrated to the United States, where he assumed duties as the imam of the Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn.
The mosque, located at 554 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, has served as a hive for terrorist activities. It has raised millions for the jihad and has served as a recruiting station for al-Qaida. Many of the planners of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, including blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, were prominent members of this notorious "house of worship."
In 1995, the Shukrijumah family relocated to Miramar, Fla., where Gulshair became the spiritual leader of the radical Masjid al-Hijah Mosque, and where Adnan became friends with Jose Padilla, who planned to detonate a radiological bomb in midtown Manhattan; Mandhai Jokhan, who was convicted of attempting to blow up nuclear power plants in southern Florida; and a group of other homegrown terrorists.
Adnan Shukrijumah attended flight schools in Florida and Norman, Oklahoma, along with Mohammad Atta and the other 9/11 operatives, and he became a highly skilled commercial jet pilot, although he, like Atta and the other terrorists, never applied for a license with the Federal Aviation Commission.
In April 2001, Shukrijumah spent 10 days in Panama, where he reportedly met with al-Qaida officials to assist in the planning of 9/11. He also traveled to Trinidad and Guyana, where virulent al-Qaida cells have been established. The following month, he obtained an associate's degree in computer engineering from Broward Community College.
During this time, he managed to get passports from Guyana, Trinidad, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States, according to Williams. He also began to adopt a number of aliases, including Abu Arifi, Jafar al-Tayyar, Jaafar At Yayyar, Ja'far al-Tayar, and Mohammed Sher Mohammed Khan (the name that appeared on his official FBI file). He traveled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where he met with Ramzi Binalshibh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and other members of the al-Qaida high command. He also spent considerable time within al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, where he received training in explosives and special operations.
Following 9/11, el-Shukrijumah was reportedly singled out by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to spearhead the next great attack on America. One plan was for a nuclear attack that would take place simultaneously in seven U.S. cities, leaving millions dead and the richest and most powerful nation on earth in ashes. "Muslims should leave America," said Dawood. "We cannot stop our attack just because of the American Muslims; they must realize that American forces are killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have the right to respond back, in the same manner, in the enemy's homeland. The American Muslims are like a human shield for our enemy; they must leave New York and Washington."
Mir, the journalist, has reported previously that al-Qaida has smuggled nuclear weapons and uranium into the U.S. "I am saying that Muslims must leave America, but we can attack America anytime," he said. "Our cycle of warnings has been completed, now we have fresh edicts from some prominent Muslim scholars to destroy our enemy, this is our defending of Jihad; the enemy has entered in our homes and we have the right to enter in their homes, they are killing us, we will kill them."
#1
Yes, and if they spent that amount of money on lethal industrial chemicals and a distribution system, they could wipe out 10 major metropolitan areas, which would remain uninhabitably contaminated for decades.
And it wouldn't even appear that what they were doing was illegal until it happened.
#4
My questions for the writers of the articles are : 1) Where the hell are you going to get enriched U-235 or Plutonium at? Not like you can pick it up at Wal-Mart; and 2) Where are you going to get the specialty electronic switches for the explosives from? Not like you can get them at Costco.
Other than that, who is going to machine the radioactive components to spec?
#5
Remember, North Korea has an entire country with a military and access to all sorts of restricted technology, and they produced a fissle. Terrorist groups are much more likely to purchase a nuke from someone and use it, then make one. And considering the fallout fingerprints we have on record, not many countries are insane enough to risk a MAD response for terrorists.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, makes it very plain why the U.N. has become the Trojan horse of nuclear proliferation. In an interview with Newsweek magazine on Oct. 20, Mr. ElBaradei laid bare his plan -- guaranteed to lead the international community into nuclear war.
His overall outlook toward nuclear proliferation, he explained, has two prongs. No. 1, the problem with Iran and North Korea is "not really leader-specific. It is country-specific: a country feeling insecure. And if it sees that the people in the major leagues are relying on nuclear weapons, it will at the very least be tempted to do the same."
It is interesting to speculate how Iranians and North Koreans have managed to communicate to Mr. ElBaradei that they really want to use their precious resources on acquiring nuclear weapons, given "criminal justice" systems that include torture, amputation and stoning. Of course, Mr. ElBaradei brings to bear two personal perspectives on the subject of "country feelings." He hails from the Arab world, the least democratically inclined neighborhood on earth, and has a long professional career in the U.N., where one state-one vote masquerades for "international democracy" regardless of the Castros, Hu Jintaos or Mugabes casting the ballots.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So what would Mr. ElBaradei propose as a way of extinguishing this heartfelt longing for weapons of mass destruction beating in the hearts of the Iranian and North Korean peoples? In his words: "the Korean situation, the Iran situation -- these problems hinge, in my view, on the parties sitting together." No sanctions of any kind for this master of international double-talk. The solution is not to isolate the leadership that terrorizes the population, but to sit down, talk and further empower their prison wardens.
ElBaradei left out the part about the four star catering and the limousines and the international travel junkets. Other than that it's a perfectly good plan of talking to death the enemies of freedom
Part two of the plan championed by Mr. ElBaradei -- the recipient of one of the most ignominious Nobel "Peace" Prizes of all time -- is to promote moral relativism. Says Mr. ElBaradei: "The second myth is that nuclear weapons are OK in the hands of 'the good guys' and not OK in the hands of 'the bad guys' ... We need to have a system that is not based on subjective considerations." Such a statement coming from the head of the organization intended to prevent nuclear war should send a chill down the spine of peace-loving people everywhere. The obscenity that there is no good and evil, or that such ideas are merely subjective, is the ultimate rallying cry for those who hate democracy and everything America stands for. It is also the antithesis of the IAEA mandate, which by Mr. ElBaradei's own admission is "an organization that is asked to sit and judge member states."
Moral relativism must eventually be identified as the intellectually bankrupt concept that it is. A host of vile and outright dangerous situations persist due to its application. Female genital mutilation, nuclear proliferation, theocracy, child labor and child sexual abuse all prevail as these dilettantes dither over philosophical hairsplitting and moral minutae.
If Iran ever goes nuclear, ElBaradei should be brought up on criminal charges. This man is the enemy of all free nations.
Has the president made a conscious decision to not act on Iran?
If the president knows that Iran is waging war on us, he is obliged to respond; the only appropriate question is about the method, not the substance. If he does not know, then he should remove those officials who were obliged to tell him, and get some people who will tell the truth. They are not entitled to withhold information on the grounds that they dont like the obvious policy implications. He must have that information, and he must be able to get more of it. The people in high positions of the intelligence community have demonstrably acted to limit his full knowledge of the war; the refusal to accept further information from proven sources of reliable information on Iran, all by itself, warrants a significant purge of Intelligence officials. As Bob Woodward suggests in State of Denial, there has been much more of that.
It is more likely that the president knows we are at war with Iran, but has chosen wrongly, in my opinion (but then I wasnt elected either) to delay our response. That could be due to any number of reasons, ranging from a belief that he had to give the Europeans every chance to force the Iranians to abandon their nuclear project, to purely domestic calculations that he lacks sufficient political capital to directly challenge the mullahs. But whatever his reasoning, it reinforces the original failure of strategic vision that has characterized the Iraqi and Afghan enterprises from the beginning. Once you see that Iraq and Afghanistan are battlefields in a larger war, you must figure out how to win that war, and not the one that was drawn up on the Power Points before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, based on the false assumption that we would fight a series of limited wars, one country at a time.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: DanNY ||
11/02/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sorry, Ledeen, I don't buy the premise. Moab is coming to AhMad at a date and time of our choosing.
Posted by: Captain America ||
11/02/2006 0:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Lawzy, lawzy, it's the same old story: Why isn't Bush as smart as me? Why, if I wuz King of the World, it'd be honey and sweetmeats for the Good People and everlasting hellfire for the Bad People.
And I'd know 'em - on sight. And the wars would run on time. My time. When I wanted it. I would not fumble the peace, cuz, well, cuz I wouldn't. I'd do it better.
Sometimes, like my Lefty Looney enemies, I wonder how that dumb cluck Bush manages to tie his own shoes. I can pose the burning questions - and answer them in 20 column inches. I sit here, safe and sound in my office, free to say anything I want, no recriminations. Oh, sure, maybe someone jibes me at lunch for last month's column where I got it all wrong, but it doesn't matter, I just write shit for a living. No harm, no foul.
But honestly, no really, this time I'm right. I gaze upon my dominion out the window, and I just know I'm the most brilliant mother-loving sumbitch that ever drew breath. I've got the answers - and those stupid drones never call me.
#3
Iran will be left for the next administration. Consider it Bush way of saying to the next (and the next) prez, "May your life be interesting."
Posted by: ed ||
11/02/2006 8:38 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Leeden has been saying faster, faster for some time but as far as I'm aware never really provided a roadmap of what such action would be like.
Would the people of Iran overthrow their government with a bit of help? Or are we being sold that story to get us involved the way Chalabi told the CIA (or was it State) what they wanted to hear. I've seen riots in Iran that peter out. Perhaps if they really want the Mullahs out the people in Iran shouldn't wait for our blessing or help but should throw the bums out on their own.
#5
That could be due to any number of reasons, ranging from a belief that he had to give the Europeans every chance to force the Iranians to abandon their nuclear project, to purely domestic calculations that he lacks sufficient political capital to directly challenge the mullahs.
Or maybe he's doing it just to piss you off, Ledeen.
#6
I'm kind of done with the nation building "thing". I was having a discussion with my father the other night... and he was all for blood thirsty destruction in Syria and Iran - but not a damn cent for rebuilding or occupation in either country.
If the axis of evil doesn't "get it" soon, they are going to be on the receiving end of a lot of ordinance with no loving occupation afterwords. They can sit in their rubble for all I care.
As the impasse over Irans nuclear-weapons program grows inexorably into a crisis, a kind of consensus has taken root in the minds of Americas foreign-policy elite. This is that military action against Iran is a sure formula for disaster.
To put it briefly, the Islamic Republic has its hand on the throttle of the worlds economic engine: the stretch of ocean at the mouth of the Persian Gulf known as the Straits of Hormuz, which are only 21 miles wide at their narrowest point. Through this waterway, every day, pass roughly 40 percent of the worlds crude oil, including two-thirds of the oil from Saudi Arabia.
The Tehran regime has made no secret of its desire to gain control of the Straits as part of its larger strategy of turning the Gulf into an Iranian lake. Indeed, in a preemptive move, it has begun to threaten a cut-off of tanker traffic if the UN should be foolish enough to impose sanctions in connection with the Islamic Republics nuclear program.
A 30-page document said to issue from the Strategic Studies Center of the Iranian Navy (NDAJA) features a contingency plan for closing the Hormuz Straits through a combination of anti-ship missiles, coastal artillery, and submarine attacks. The plan calls for the use of Chinese-made mines, Chinese-built missile boats, and more than 1,000 explosive-packed suicide motor boats to decimate any U.S. invasion force before it can so much as enter the Gulf. Irans missile units, manned by the regimes Revolutionary Guards, would be under instruction to take out more than 100 targets around the Gulf rim, including Saudi production and export centers.
Butand herein lies a fruitful irony, almost 90 percent of the mullahs oil assets are located either in or near the Gulf. So is the nuclear reactor that Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr. Virtually every Iranian well or production platform depends on access to the Gulf if Irans oil is to reach buyers. Hence, the same Straits by means of which Iran intends to lever itself into a position of global power present the West with its own point of leverage to reduce Irans powerand to keep it reduced for at least as long as the countrys political institutions remain unprepared to enter the modern world.
The first step would be to make it clear that the United States will tolerate no action by any state that endangers the international flow of commerce in the Straits of Hormuz. Signaling our determination to back up this statement with force would be a deployment in the Gulf of Oman of minesweepers, a carrier strike groups guided-missile destroyers, an Aegis-class cruiser, and anti-submarine assets, with the rest of the carrier group remaining in the Indian Ocean.
Our next step would be to declare a halt to all shipments of Iranian oil while guaranteeing the safety of tankers carrying non-Iranian oil and the platforms of other Gulf states. We would then guarantee this guarantee by launching a comprehensive air campaign aimed at destroying Irans air-defense system, its air-force bases and communications systems, and finally its missile sites along the Gulf coast. At that point the attack could move to include Irans nuclear facilitiesnot only the hard sites but also infrastructure like bridges and tunnels in order to prevent the shifting of critical materials from one to site to another.
Above all, the air attack would concentrate on Irans gasoline refineries. It is still insufficiently appreciated that Iran, a huge oil exporter, imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign sources, including the Gulf states. With its refineries gone and its storage facilities destroyed, Irans cars, trucks, buses, planes, tanks, and other military hardware would run dry in a matter of weeks or even days. This alone would render impossible any major countermoves by the Iranian army. (For its part, the Iranian navy is aging and decrepit, and its biggest asset, three Russian-made Kilo-class submarines, should and could be destroyed before leaving port.)
The scenario would not end here. With the systematic reduction of Irans capacity to respond, an amphibious force of Marines and special-operations forces could seize key Iranian oil assets in the Gulf, the most important of which is a series of 100 offshore wells and platforms built on Irans continental shelf. North and South Pars offshore fields, which represent the future of Irans oil and natural-gas industry, could also be seized, while Kargh Island at the far western edge of the Persian Gulf, whose terminus pumps the oil from Irans most mature and copiously producing fields (Ahwaz, Marun, and Gachsaran, among others), could be rendered virtually useless. By the time the campaign was over, the United States military would be in a position to control the flow of Iranian oil at the flick of a switch.
An operational fantasy? Not in the least. The United States did all this once before, in the incident I have already alluded to. In 1986-88, as the Iran-Iraq war threatened to spill over into the Gulf and interrupt vital oil traffic, the United States Navy stepped in, organizing convoys and re-flagging ships to protect them against vengeful Iranian attacks. When the Iranians tried to seize the offensive, U.S. vessels sank one Iranian frigate, crippled another, and destroyed several patrol boats. Teams of SEALS also shelled and seized Iranian oil platforms. The entire operation, the largest naval engagement since World War II, not only secured the Gulf; it also compelled Iraq and Iran to wind down their almost decade-long war. The world economic order was savedthe most important international obligation the United States faced then and faces today.
#1
Daniel Pipes has another point of view, here.
Charles Krauthammer has another, here.
Two of the biggest problems with a US strike on Iran are a constriction of the world oil supply with huge spike in prices and a worldwide economic depression and 2) an uprising by Iranian allies in Iraq aggravating an already very difficult position. There will be no effective uprising of the Iranians against their tyrants.
We must pay now or pay later for the mad mullah's nuclear ambitions. But pay we will.
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.
I don't usually do deep political analysis, particularly when it comes to getting down and dirty with demographics, but I'm fascinated by this story, and it seems particularly appropriate on Halloween:
