So what lies somewhere between Iraq and Afghanistan that might demand the urgent deployment of a stealth aircraft that can quietly drop a 30,000lb bomb and destroy something several storeys below ground? The secret wine cellars in Tehran that house the illicit stash of vintage clarets belonging to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The vast collection of grey polyester suits and Iranian goody bags that lie in wait for the next batch of luckless British sailors? Ouch.
Pat yourself on the back if you correctly identified the subterranean nuclear enrichment facilities operated by the Iranian Government in its pursuit of an epoch-altering Bomb. Let's repeat that: epoch-altering Bomb
The debate in Washington about what to do with the increasingly recalcitrant and self-confident Iranian regime has taken a significant turn in the past few weeks. And the decision to upgrade the bombing capacity of the US military is perhaps the most powerful indication yet that the debate is reaching a climax.
A number of developments have tilted the argument towards a more assertive US posture. First, even the ever-optimistic Sisyphuses at the State Department are tiring of pushing the rock of diplomatic futility up the slopes of Russian intransigence. Its clear even to the most starry-eyed of Russophiles that Moscow, under its breathtakingly arrogant and ambitious President, has no intention of lifting a finger to help the US and its allies with serious economic measures that might persuade the Iranians to disarm. (This is a staggeringly shortsighted decision given the threat posed by a militant, nuclear-armed Islamist state on the borders of former Soviet republics with large Muslim populations.) Meanwhile, China too continues its myopic pursuit of global commercial opportunities to the exclusion of its long-term strategic security.
At the same time other diplomatic signalling has become much more favourable. France has long been an advocate of a hardline approach towards Iran and Nicolas Sarkozys Government has recently indicated its willingness to put its military wherewithal where its mouth is.
Then there was the resignation last week of Ali Larijani as the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator. Those of us who have watched Mr Larijanis deadpan performances over the years as he has explained Irans wholly peaceful intentions to international conferences have wondered how long he could keep it up.
Its possible he just got fed up with the effort of telling all those lies to disbelieving Western audiences. But the more likely explanation, among Iran watchers in Washington, is that he failed to convince the religious leaders to whom he was accountable to rein in the lunatic reveries of Mr Ahmadinejad. So much, by the way, for the old comforting contention that the mullahs didnt really share the Presidents apocalyptic messianism on the issue of the Bomb.
Another significant development was what happened last month when Israeli jets attacked a target inside Syria. The details remain murky but it looks increasingly as though Israel may have pulled off a near-repeat of its 1981 takeout of the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor. The word in parts of the US Government is that the assault went encouragingly well, defanging an emerging threat, and, crucially doing so without obviously provoking a devastating backlash against Israel and its allies.
Iran is not Syria, of course. Its tentacles, through terrorist networks around the world, are much more extensive. But the biggest argument within the US against military action in Iran has always been that such a move would inflame public opinion, causing the Iranian people who despise their regime perhaps more than the Americans do to rally around the Government, while, at the same time, not doing enough to set back the nuclear programme.
Now the US thinks it has the intelligence and the military capacity to undermine the Iranian threat seriously, and the costs of doing so may not be as high as once seemed.
Of all the silly arguments that pass as conventional wisdom in this debate is the claim that the US would be crazy to start a war with Iran. Its a silly argument because America is already at war with Iran. Every day US soldiers in Iraq are attacked by Iranian-financed paramilitaries, with Iranian-produced weapons in pursuit of Iranian political objectives. Iran is manipulating the Iraqi Government in ways that undercut the steady progress the US is making in Iraq.
#1
Pat yourself on the back if you correctly identified the subterranean nuclear enrichment facilities Booming subterranean command and control centers might be a nice first step.
#2
In the current political context in the Ayatollah tyranny, US intelligence services would have secured scores of walk-ins with valuable information. Targeting will not be a problem. One thing that surprised me is reports that Stealth bombers can carry the huge bombs in their bomb bays. I thought they had to be pushed off a Hercules. Of course, that was an old report.
#3
even the ever-optimistic Sisyphuses at the State Department are tiring of pushing the rock of diplomatic futility up the slopes of Russian intransigence
#4
The B-2 is being retrofitted with the mother of all hard points - this is a new weapon, not the much discussed MOAB.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
10/26/2007 12:22 Comments ||
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#5
Well Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we haven't been able to get your attention. You have not answered our emails and diplomatic messages. So, go f^ck yourself.
#5
Let's hope so. I rather we not spend billions of tax dollars and hundreds of millions each year for maintenance that the Europeans are perfectable of shouldering. If Bush wants to put up a missile shield, do it in Virginia.
Posted by: ed ||
10/26/2007 17:25 Comments ||
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#6
perfectable = pertectly capable
Careful with that axe delete key, Eugene.
Posted by: ed ||
10/26/2007 17:27 Comments ||
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#7
If the same job can be done with a satelite in GSO near Iran we should spare no expense as satelites don't require permission and aren't held hostage to the whims of the voters.
Having said that we should pull everything out of Europe. Everything, and downgrade embassies to consolate status everwhere except in Brussels. This would remove the piggybacking on US defense the Europeans have enjoyed and the guilt that goes along with it. It would also help eliviate the paranoia the Russians are always dealing with.
#8
Geosynch satellites can detect a launch. They don't have the resolution to guide for an intercept. I guess this satellite could also have radio/TV broadcasting equipment telling everyone downrange to kiss their asses goodbye.
Posted by: ed ||
10/26/2007 18:13 Comments ||
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#9
Europe, the Americas, central-southern Africa, Australia, and south and east Asia have only one real enemy: Muslims. The way to end an Iranian ICBM threat is to destroy their capacity to deliver same. Russians didn't pull out of Eastern Europe so that others could move in. Placement of Euro-missiles are counter-productive, and displace the real arena for contention. You can trust a Muslim as far as you can spit against a hurricane.
#2
...rowdy protesters continually interrupted him and less than half an hour into the event, the crowd became so disruptive that police were called in and Horowitz had to be escorted off stage.
Unless universities get back to education and away from leftish elitist underpinnings, they will become an endangered species. They will become irrelevant.
#3
Janet Levy, a board member of the Horowitz Freedom Center, and her son, who is a student at Emory, attended the event and were both noticeably disturbed by the spectacle, describing it as absolutely insane. I never expected this at Emory, said Levy.
Emory University in Atlanta and Fulton County. Hardly a bastian of Republican conservatism and culture. Not surprising at all to those who live in Georgia. The following from Al Googlam:
Alumni
The Association of Emory Muslim Alumni (AEMA) is the first of its kind Muslim Alumni organization in the United States. The AEMA is a great benefactor to the Emory MSA experience and a resource available to all of Emory's MSA members past and present. Their website can provide you with further information to what is at offer.
Haider Shamsi Award
The Haider Shamsi Award is an Islamic studies award available to all Emory Muslim students. This pioneering effort by AEMA is an attempt to establish a long-term Islamic studies scholarship. In its current form, the Haider Shamsi award involves an essay-writing component which along with other factors, such as leadership qualities, is then judged for a $500 and $100 dollar cash prize. For further information please visit the Haider Shamsi award website.
#4
I live in Fulton County (Alpharetta) and this is pretty embarrassing. I knew there were lots of liberals around, but had the impression they had some class. Anyway, I made a donation to Horowitz to help them get a little more security. I hope they keep this going.
#6
Isn't Emory Jimmy Carter's home away from home?
Posted by: ed ||
10/26/2007 17:36 Comments ||
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#7
I think it's wonderful that Mssrs Horowitz and Spencer have put on these events.
I really am frustrated, though, that it was so difficult to get detailed information about the events. Days beforehand I emailed many friends encouraging them to attend one of the events and posting a link to the website:
www.terrorismawareness.org
In addition to speakers, there were to have been showings of rarely seen movies critical of Islam. Do you think you could find out when and where those movies would be shown? No. Could you find out what the topic for Horowitz would be before his actual event? No. The topic for Spencer's October 22nd appearance was available, but it took some searching to find it, and I only found it in the last few days before the week began.
The extremely poor communication around Terrorism Awareness Week may be due to the fact that they are relying on volunteers to coordinate events, or perhaps they wished to hold their cards close to their chests to prevent sabotage at the events by loony lefties. Whatever the reason, I was unable to persuade others to go to events without a better idea of what was on the schedule.
The next time they host events at universities, they need to get their act together and COMMUNICATE.
To read the Thomas pieces was, simply, to doubt them. And to wonder if its editors had ever actually met a soldier on his way to or from Iraq, or talked to any human being involved in the modern military. . . .
On the Thomas stories, which I read not when they came out but when they began to come under scrutiny, I had a similar thought, or a variation of it. I thought: That's not Iraq, that's a Vietnam War movie. That's not life as it's being lived on the ground right now, that's life as an editor absorbed it through media. That's the dark world of Kubrick and Coppola and Oliver Stone, of the great Vietnam movies of the '70s and '80s.
If that's what you absorbed during the past 20 or 30 years, it just might make sense to you, it would actually seem believable, if a fellow in Iraq wrote for you about taunting scarred women, shooting dogs, and wearing skulls as helmets. This is the offhand brutality of war. You know. You saw it in a movie.
If you'd had a broader array of references, and were less preoccupied by the media that is the great occupying force in our own country, and you were the editor of the Thomas pieces, you might have said, "Whoa." Just whoa. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
10/26/2007 06:28 ||
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Senator Hillary Clintons presidential campaign is gaining fans, even on the West Bank. I hope Hillary is elected in order to have the occasion to carry out all the promises she is giving regarding Iraq, said Ala Senakreh, West Bank chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian terror group. President Clinton wanted to give the Palestinians 98 percent of the West Bank territories. I hope Hillary will move a step forward and will give the Palestinians all their rights.
Senakreh and other top Islamo-fascists want Hillary in the Oval Office. These mass murders also have gone negative. They want GOP contender Rudy Giuliani dead.
We see Hillary and other candidates are competing on who will withdraw from Iraq, said Abu Jihad of Al Aqsas Nablus unit. This is a moment of glory for the revolutionary movements in the Arab world Al Aqsas Nasser Abu Aziz, considered it very good that there are voices like Hillary and others who are now attacking the Iraq invasion.
Islamic Jihads Abu Ayman felt emboldened by Clintons demands that America retreat from Iraq. He said: It is clear that it is the resistance operations of the mujahideen that have brought about these calls for withdrawal. All Americans must vote Democrat, insisted Jihad Jaara, an exiled Al Aqsa agent who commanded 2002s siege of Bethlehems Church of the Nativity.
Since 1995, these terrorists organizations have killed an estimated 162 and wounded 368 others in Israel. Aaron Klein, an Orthodox Jew who is WorldNetDaily.coms Jerusalem Bureau Chief, interviewed some three dozen leading Muslim fanatics, including those quoted here. His new book, Schmoozing with Terrorists, details these chilling encounters with violent Islamic extremists in Israels Palestinian territories.
Why do these hardened butchers have a soft spot for Hillary Clinton? Perhaps because the New York Democrat is soft on terrorism.
*Clinton rejects robustly interrogating terrorists even in ticking time bomb scenarios. In a September 26 Democratic debate, she said: It cannot be American policy, period.
*Clinton opposes the U.S. Terrorist Surveillance Program, calling it a secret program that spies on Americans.
*Clinton voted against military tribunals for terror suspects, including al-Qaeda detainees.
*Clinton has zigzagged on Iraq. In autumn 2002, she voted for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last January 18, she told PBS: I think the timetable still remains problematic for leaving Iraq. But on February 17, she stated: Its time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days
Meanwhile, Clintons campaign has not responded to my request to list her counterterrorist accomplishments. These terrorists love for Hillary mirrors their hatred for her leading GOP rival, Rudy Giuliani.
If I had the occasion to meet him I would hurt him, said Ramadan Adassi, a West Bank Al Aqsa leader. For the sake of the American people, Giuliani shouldnt be elected.
Giuliani doesnt deserve to live or even to be mentioned, said Al Aqsas Ala Senakreh. He hates Palestinians and we hate him. Al Aqsas Abu Hamed said Giuliani can hate Arafat and the Palestinians, but he knows that nobody is hated in the world more than his leadership, his party, his president, and his Zionist friends.
Why the hard feelings? Perhaps because Giuliani has snipped terrorists bomb wires for 31 years.
*Mayor Giulianis NYPD officers in July 1997 arrested two Palestinians with Jordanian passports and five pipe-bombs. They were convicted of immigration fraud and plotting to blast Brooklyns Atlantic Avenue subway station.
*As New York Citys U.S. Attorney, Giuliani attempted in 1988 to close the Palestine Liberation Organizations United Nations observer mission under the 1987 Anti-Terrorism Act.
*In 1986, Giuliani targeted an anti-Castro group responsible for two murders and 25 bombings. Giuliani secured guilty pleas from three Omega 7 members who conspired to kill Cubas U.N. ambassador in 1980 and blow up its Manhattan consulate in 1979.
*Giuliani represented the Justice Department on President Gerald Fords Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism in 1976.
I dont believe Americans should base their votes entirely on what the terrorists think, Aaron Klein says from Jerusalem, but its certainly telling that our enemies are rooting for the Democrats, particularly Hillary.
As the War on Terror continues, Americans should study our foes political preferences -- and then pull the lever the other way.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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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.
