Excerpted from a much longer article--go read it all.
These are dark times for the world: we are on the brink of the nuclearization of ancient pathologies. It's a very strange feeling to read 19th-century novels and travelogues and recognize the old psychoses currently re-emerging in even more preposterous forms. I'm a bit behind in responding to the gazillion Jews-are-to-blame-for-everything emails, but when I do I usually say I take a relaxed view of hatred but take my advice and don't get over-invested in it. There's a very sharp short book by Andrew Roberts called Hitler And Churchill: Secrets of Leadership and, as you go through it, you realize that the key difference between the two is that the prime minister had a very shrewd understanding of what the Führer was like and the Führer had absolutely no clue about the prime minister. To Hitler, Churchill was "that puppet of Jewry": he didn't offer that as a bit of rhetorical red meat for the Saturday-night Nuremberg crowd, but as a serious analysis in the privacy of his study. That's the problem with full-blown Jew-hatred: it's not just a toxic frosting on what may otherwise be a perfectly agreeable cake, so much as a reliable indicator that your entire worldview has been infected. Which is why it doesn't usually work out so well for the Jew-haters. "I have a premonition that will not leave me," wrote Eric Hoffer, America's great longshoreman philosopher, after the '67 war. "As it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us."
Posted by: Mike ||
08/08/2006 13:08 ||
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#1
That's the problem with full-blown Jew-hatred: it's not just a toxic frosting on what may otherwise be a perfectly agreeable cake, so much as a reliable indicator that your entire worldview has been infected.
I have never met anyone who thought the Jews were in control of everything who didn't also have a 5-mile long train of boxcars filled with insecurity, loathing and idiocy in tow.
#2
Same with all racist jerks. They are so hateful and insecurity of themselves, they gotta force it on someone else to make themselves feel better or they will eat a bullet.
#4
MARY MATALIN was on HANNITY AND COLMES thia AM [Guam time] - she admonishes the Dems and asked what had happened to the Dems in the looming primary victory of Lamont over Lieberman. The Party of Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson os dead - HANNITY > iff Lamont wins, as he is expected to iff post-primary outcome trends continue, it'll be a sign that MOVEON.org and the FAR/RADICAL/ULTRA-LEFT now has de facto, pro forma control of the core of the Dems in [Clintonian] America = Amerika. and that today is that day = death of the old Party. MATALIN > new MOVEON. etal., FAR/RADICAL LEFT-led Dems = in favor of anti-USA geopol isolationism, retreat, and concessions, and also favor a domestic agenda that suppors the "Coarsening" of Amer politics, culture, beliefs, and society in general, i.e. to "justify" national-universal-pervasive Governmentism/Socialism in America. MATALIN > new Dems Party want to "RUN AWAY", and NOT TAKE A STAND ON ANYTHING. IOW, MARX et LENIN et STALIN, etc VIDAE - ALL HAIL THE FUTURE PEOPLE"S REVOLUTIONARY CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AMERIKA; ALL HAIL OUR GREAT LEADERS IN MOSCOW-BEIJING. The extermination of 200Milyuhn-plus Amerikans + 90%-plus of World's population is "necessary" for the Enviro, good SOcialism, OWG, Russia-China = Commie Asia = Mackinder's WOrld Island, and the Global Politburo, the
"status quo" for Americans = Amerikans, for Amerikan Hated Nazis-Hitlerists = well-meaning but defective Limited Communists-Totalitarianists.
After so many years of heated debates homosexuality is no longer considered a chronic mental disease in China. However, being a homosexual there is a serious violation of the law. So, sexual minorities in China are not conscripted into the army. The Chinese army with 2.5 million people under arms is the worldÂ’s most numerous. And none of the soldiers belongs to sexual minorities. To find out if conscripts are heterosexual or not all of them must undergo thorough medical examination. Doctors need to find out if a foreign object was ever placed into a conscriptÂ’s anus.
Those suspected of homosexuality are rejected as defective. The Chinese leadership states that a gay army cannot have high morale. At the same time, conscripts having same-sex partners serve in the armies in 23 countries of the world, in Britain and Israel for example. Great Britain even launches special advertising campaigns to engage homosexual conscripts in the Navy.
Ex-president of the USA Bill Clinton allowed conscription of sexual minorities into the army. But the US army faced another problem during the operation Desert Shield in Iraq when the number of female soldiers was so great that sexual activity in the army nearly frustrated the entire of the operation.
The official annual budget of the Chinese army is $30 billion while the real return reaches even $70 billion. In Russia , the amount makes up $23.8 billion. In 2007, the US supposes to spend $439 billion on the defense.
In large Chinese cities twenty men account for one woman, and this is the reason why homosexuality is so widely spread in the country. In the Chinese villages the ratio is better: one woman accounts for seven men.
In the Ancient Sparta, same-sex lovers were subject to conscription into the army and were certainly enrolled into one group. And it is known that the warriors of the army in Sparta had absolutely high morale.
#1
Ex-president of the USA Bill Clinton allowed conscription of sexual minorities into the army.
No conscription here. It's been a volunteer Army since President Nixon's time.
But the US army faced another problem during the operation Desert Shield in Iraq when the number of female soldiers was so great that sexual activity in the army nearly frustrated the entire of the operation.
Someone is living in another universe. It created problems, but not in the manner or magnitude the writer implies. The biggest hit in morale was when women intentionally got pregnant in order to get removed from the theater of operations. Nothing like pushing 'equality' for years and then one group has a quick release valve from danger the other doesn‘t. . Should have been treated like a male using a bayonet for a self-inflicted wound in order to avoid combat.
And it is known that the warriors of the army in Sparta had absolutely high morale.
It's also known that there are no longer any Spartans. Sparta suffered a population decline in its enrolled citizens and then was basically destroyed by its more populous neighbors whom the Spartans had at one time or another antagonized.
#5
It's also known that there are no longer any Spartans. Sparta suffered a population decline in its enrolled citizens and then was basically destroyed by its more populous neighbors whom the Spartans had at one time or another antagonized. Posted by Snaviting Angulet5501 2006-08-08 12:14|| Front Page|| ||Comments Top
I saw some Trojans at the gas station recently however.
#6
Great Britain even launches special advertising campaigns to engage homosexual conscripts in the Navy.
Special appearances by the Village People:
In the Navy, yes, you can sail the seven seas.
In the Navy, yes, you can put your mind at ease.
In the Navy, come on now people, make a stand.
In the Navy, can't you see we need a hand.
In the Navy, come on, protect the motherland.
In the Navy, come on and join your fellow, man.
In the Navy, come on, people, and make a stand.
In the Navy, in the Navy.
#8
Ya gotta love it, Red China outflanks the western leftists by taking the high moral ground. Also, in China and all other countries of the world, marriage is between a man and a woman. Even in the ME, where goats, sheep, donkeys, and camels are sometimes close cousins.
#9
To find out if conscripts are heterosexual or not all of them must undergo thorough medical examination. Doctors need to find out if a foreign object was ever placed into a conscriptÂ’s anus.
Oh this is hilarious, to find out if anything has been stuck up his anus, they stick something up his anus.
Fucking brilliant.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/08/2006 18:29 Comments ||
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#10
So the recruit goes to the Medic complaining of pain in his posterior. The Medic quickly determines that the recruit has a foreign object inside. He removes it and to his shock, it's a rose. "Here's your problem. You had a rose up your butt", he says. The recruit replies, "Read the Card, Read the Card!"
Kim Jong Il attended a Russian art performance and visited a tire factory July 4, a day before the missile launches, and he hasn't appeared publicly since, according to South Korea's spy agency.
The North's propaganda machine hasn't reported on Kim's activities since the missile launches, but last week the country's official news agency said Kim sent a consolation message to ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Kim usually visits military units a few times a month to bolster his "songun," or "military-first," policy that rewards the 1.1 million-strong military with the country's scarce resources despite chronic food shortages, according to the AP. Out of Kim's 131 public activities last year, 70 events were military-related, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry. So far this year, 52 of 69 public activities were connected to the military, the backbone of Kim's totalitarian rule.
Some North Korean watchers have speculated that Kim might be in a bunker since the communist country is believed to have imposed a quasi-war footing after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning the North's missile tests and calling for nations to stop any missile-related trade with the country.
In 2003, Kim disappeared from the public eye for seven weeks when his hard-line regime quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the United States invaded Iraq.
Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the independent Sejong Institute, attributed Kim's latest absence to massive flood damage in North Korea, saying he has shied away from the public in times of crisis in the past.
A senior South Korean intelligence official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of his position, didn't attach any significance to Kim's seeming absence from public, saying he often disappeared from the public.
#2
A senior South Korean intelligence official, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of his position, didn't attach any significance to Kim's seeming absence from public, saying he often disappeared from the public.
New crop of imported hookers and cognac.
He has been busy!
WASHINGTON--My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I
“... in recent years--with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage--I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.”
spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.
This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing--in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against "communists and their fellow travelers." . . . I came to believe that we liberals couldn't possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years--with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage--I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right.
Now, in the closing days of the Lieberman primary campaign, I have reluctantly concluded that I was wrong. The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony. (Not that it ever did.)
Here are just a few examples (there are many, many more anyone with a search engine can find) of the type of thing the liberal blog sites have been posting about Joe Lieberman:
“... as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact, so that we might better ignore all that jewish propaganda [by Lieberman] about participating in the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on"
(by "tomjones," posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005)”
• "Ned Lamont and his supporters need to [g]et real busy. Ned needs to beat Lieberman to a pulp in the debate and define what it means to be an AMerican who is NOT beholden to the Israeli Lobby" (by "rim," posted on Huffington Post, July 6, 2006).
• "Joe's on the Senate floor now and he's growing a beard. He has about a weeks growth on his face. . . . I hope he dyes his beard Blood red. It would be so appropriate" (by "ctkeith," posted on Daily Kos, July 11 and 12, 2005).
• On "Lieberman vs. Murtha": "as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact, so that we might better ignore all that jewish propaganda [by Lieberman] about participating in the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on" (by "tomjones," posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).
• "Good men, Daniel Webster and Faust would attest, sell their souls to the Devil. Is selling your soul to a god any worse? Leiberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife's name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover" (by "gerrylong," posted on the Huffington Post, July 8, 2006).
. . . And these are some of the nicer examples.
One Sunday morning on C-Span I debated Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on the Lieberman versus Lamont race. Afterwards I received a series of emails--many of them in ALL CAPS (which often suggests the hyper-frenetic state of these extremist haters)--that were of the same stripe as the blog posts, and filled with the same level of personal hate.
“He has actually decided not to return to Connecticut for the primary today; he is fearful for his physical safety. . .”
But the issue is not just emotional outbursts by these usually anonymous bloggers. A friend of mine just returned from Connecticut, where he had spoken on several occasions on behalf of Joe Lieberman. He happens to be a liberal antiwar Democrat, just as I am. He is also a lawyer. He told me that within a day of a Lamont event--where he asked the candidate some critical questions--some of his clients were blitzed with emails attacking him and threatening boycotts of their products if they did not drop him as their attorney. He has actually decided not to return to Connecticut for the primary today; he is fearful for his physical safety. . . .
Mr. Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton between 1996-98, is the author of "Scandal: How 'Gotcha' Politics (i.e. the stuff we did to Ken Starr) Is Destroying America," forthcoming from Palgrave.
The rabid visciousness of the common North American moonbat (Liberalis ieffinghatebushis) is no news to anyone who's spent any amount of time here in Rantburg observing some of the pathetic creatures caught in the municipal Sink Trap, or peeked in at the DU/Kos/MyDD/TimesSelect fever swamps, but it is interesting that (1) now they're turning on brother liberals like Lanny Davis with a fury equal to what they use on us conservatives, (2) Davis (to his credit) is sufficiently bothered by this that he actually breaks the "no enemies on the Left" rule to speak up about it, and (3) Davis seems to be on the ragged edge of recognizing (and admitting out loud) that this is the logical end of the attack machine politics he and the other Clintonistas perfected in the 1990s.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/08/2006 08:44 ||
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#1
The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony.
It took The Church [tm] a couple hundred years to acknowledge that Galileo was in fact correct. It's taken this writer only forty years to figure out what the rest of the Rant community has known for as long. Hey Mr. Davis ever read George Orwell? Four legs good, two legs better.
#2
(2) Davis (to his credit) is sufficiently bothered by this that he actually breaks the "no enemies on the Left" rule to speak up about it
I'm not sure this should be given to his credit. His boy is losing. This would still be true if Lieberman were winning, but Davis wouldn't be saying any of it.
#3
(2) Davis (to his credit) is sufficiently bothered by this that he actually breaks the "no enemies on the Left" rule to speak up about it
Only to strike a "these guys are acting like rightwingers" pose while doing so.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/08/2006 11:39 Comments ||
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#4
"I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right."
Mr. Davis, seeing how you’ve long refused to believe enlightened individuals that just happen to be minorities such as Shelby Steele or Thomas Sowell you might have tried asking your Poverty Pimp and Race Baiter pals behind closed doors if they had ever experienced any intolerance from the Liberal elite. If you had, you may have not been so “reluctant” to come to your most recent conclusion.
#6
sure, I remember Lanny condemning - "a vote for Bush is like more black churches burning" and James Byrd's daughter in the NAACP ad saying "a vote for Bush would be like dragging her father behind a truck again"....
lying sack of shit has just begun to realize what his 24/7 Clinton campaign cohorts has done to American politics. He decides to come clean, yet still tries to invoke moral equivalence. Motion Denied, counselor
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/08/2006 12:06 Comments ||
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#7
So when do the Donk Show Trials[tm] and Party Purges[tm] start?
I want to stock up on soda and popcorn and program the Tivo.
#8
Sometimes, your on a horse heading for Damascus and God pops you out of the saddle with a lightening bolt and you join the good guys right then and there and start a new career writing epistles.
Most conversions are just not that spectacular. Optimist that I am, I'd like to think that this is Lanny Davis' first halting, uncertain step away from the dark side.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/08/2006 12:47 Comments ||
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#9
I'd like to think that this is Lanny Davis' first halting, uncertain step away from the dark side.
Cynic that I am, I expect he's just being his sleazy self getting into a win-win position for the post election punditry.
er no. Clinton was the victim of hate politics on the right. He was also hated by the more savvy folks on the left (ie Howell Raines, Lewis Lapham, the Nation, etc) That the sillier folks on the left (Im talking about you, Salon) were fooled into supporting him cause the right hated him is neither here nor there. The savvier folks on the center (like Dick Morris) fully understood this. They hit back when they were hit, and got vicious when they were slimed.
Why should centrists always play nice, and lose. Lieberman, maybe, should have hit back harder.
You know damn well that when Kos and pals try this stuff on Hillary, theyll live to regret it.
"...When he started investigating President Clinton 's Whitewater dealings, Jim Leach knew he wouId be playing hardball. But the Iowa Republican never expected to see Jack Palladino lurking around his house. But there Palladino was, scoping out Leach's Northwest Washington premises one evening as the congressman arrived home in 1994.
Palladino, a San Francisco private detective who had been paid more than $100,000 by the Clinton campaign in 1992 to deal with what Clinton intimate Betsey Wright called "bimbo eruptions," quickly scurried away, and Leach never went public with what he saw. But the House Banking Committee chairman privately told colleagues the intended message was clear: You mess with us, we'll mess with you. William Clinger got the same treatment.
When the now-retired Pennsylvania Republican congressman was probing Commerce secretary Ron Brown's business dealings in 1995, a New Jersey detective named Louis Stephens suddenly started snooping around.
Stephens had been hired by Brown's ex-business partner and mistress Nolanda Hill to button up Clinger's sources. About the same time, a member of Clinger's staff got a call from a reporter working on a Clinger profile. She'd been tipped by a supposedly solid source that Clinger was a wife-abuser who'd once viciously pushed his spouse down a flight of stairs in a rage..... "Can I prove it was the White House behind the story? No," concedes a well-informed source. "Do I think it was them? Absolutely. They do have a pattern of getting into your past." ....
The president's impressive people skills and abundant personal charm mask a streak of political cold- bloodedness and score-settling worthy of a Mario Puzo novel. That's particularly true in the way he and his lieutenants deal with anyone-critic or innocent victim alike-who poses a potential menace to the massive effort to keep the lid on the various scandals dogging Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, and his administration...." Weekly Standard 8/4/97 Thomas M. DeFrank and Thomas Galvin
Opponents of President Bush and his Iraq policy have jumped on a comment last week by Gen. John Abizaid, commander, U.S. Central Command, before the Senate Armed Services Committee: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."
Ignored in most of the media coverage was what Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same hearing: "I believe that we do have the possibility of that devolving to a civil war, but that does not have to be a fact." Gen. Pace added: "Our enemy knows they cannot defeat us in battle. They do believe, however, that they can wear down our will as a nation."
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY.) called the administration's Iraq policy a failure, which can only encourage the terrorist insurgents to keep on fighting and killing Iraqis and American soldiers. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI.) seemed fixated on timetables for withdrawal instead of defeating those who want to destroy the elected government of Iraq.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reminded the panel that the United States and the free world are in a "global struggle against violent extremists." Rumsfeld's testimony bears reading and repeating to a large number of people who, in their quest for pleasure and personal peace, appear to lack the staying power required to defeat perhaps the greatest evil the world has ever faced.
Taking note of the differences between the way the United States and terrorists fight, Rumsfeld said, "one side puts their men and women at risk in uniform and obeys the laws of war, while the other side uses them against us." We have seen that in the world's reaction to Guantanamo Bay prison and Abu Ghraib. Terrorists use torture and murder and no court of public opinion or judicial entity holds them accountable. The rare instance of abuse by American soldiers is punished.
Rumsfeld elaborated on the difference between the two sides: "One side does all it can to avoid civilian casualties, while the other side uses civilians as shields, and then skillfully orchestrates a public outcry when the other side accidentally kills civilians in their midst. One side is held to exacting standards of near perfection; the other side is held to no standards and no accountability at all."
Rumsfeld noted how the enemy uses our media to undermine American resolve, "planning attacks to gain the maximum media coverage and the maximum public outcry." And then, most importantly, he said: "If we left Iraq prematurely - as the terrorists demand - the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us - and all those who don't share their militant ideology - to leave what they call occupied Muslim lands, from Spain to the Philippines, and then we would face not only the evil ideology of these violent extremists, but an enemy that will have grown accustomed to succeeding in telling free people everywhere what to do."
For those who claim Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terrorism, Rumsfeld noted, "This enemy has called Iraq the central front in the war on terrorism."
During World War II, U.S. and German forces fought the battle of Hurtgen Forest. It began Sept. 19, 1944 and ended Feb. 10, 1945. That was one battle in a strategically insignificant corridor of barely 50 square miles east of the Belgium-Germany border. The Germans inflicted more than 24,000 casualties on American forces, while another 9,000 Americans were sidelined due to illness, fatigue and friendly fire. Had live TV beamed this battle to America, there might have been an outcry that the policy was failing and somehow a cease-fire and an accommodation with Hitler should be achieved.
America won that war because the objective wasn't to understand the Nazis, or to reach an accommodation with them; the objective was to win the war. Anything less in this war - against an equally evil and unrelenting enemy - will mean defeat for the United States and for freedom everywhere. That's what Rumsfeld was getting at when he said, "We can persevere in Iraq or we can withdraw prematurely, until they force us to make a stand nearer home. But make no mistake: They are not going to give up, whether we acquiesce in their immediate demands or not."
#1
Piss poor analogy Rummy. Your Hurtgen Forest example simply highlights past leadership absense from the action and failures.
With US forces outnumbered 10 to 1, the first step down the road to this disaster can be traced to the following order:
COMBAT UNITS ARE AUTHORIZED TO BASE DAILY REPLACEMENT REQUISITIONS ON ANTICIPATED LOSSES FORTY EIGHT HOURS IN ADVANCE TO EXPEDITE DELIVERY OF REPLACEMENTS. TO AVOID BUILDING UP OVERSTRENGTH, ESTIMATES SHOULD BE MADE WITH CARE. SIGNED EISENHOWER.
This order was based on the necessity of providing replacements for battle losses in time to insure that the initiative would not be lost in battle situations where the enemy was on the run but might recover if replacements were not quickly available. Unfortunately, the order enabled inept staff officers to bring in replacements at such a fast pace that companies and even divisions could take tremendous losses that only could be acceptable because of this replacement policy. The officers making these decisions were never close enough to the front lines to be in danger themselves so they were always around to continue to make more costly mistakes.
Combat veterans said that only on the rarest of occasions was any officer above the rank of captain or officer from the staff were ever seen.
#2
Besoeker - what planet are you on? The Hurtgen was a close quarters, bloody, no quarter given battle. Forward replacement had little to do with its conduct. This reads like a cheap shot.
#3
I'm sure you've noted that the analogy was Thomas', not Rummy's. But aside from that, I think Thomas' point was that the cost to the US of the Iraq operation, in historical context, is not that great. All this, of course, including the true but shopworn caveat that every killed or wounded is a tragic loss for our country and the families involved.
Having said that, I am leery of these historical comparisons if they rely too much on numbers. The key point, which Rummy makes and the clueless or irresponsible among us including elected officials routinely miss, is that this is a battle of wills. WWII had far worse losses, far far far more mistakes and disasters, but was still a test of wills with our enemies.
#4
Thanks for the correction Verlaine, hope things are quiet at Victory and elsewhere. Wen I see Rumsfeld's name I can't even think straight anymore. I agree with your historical analysis of the battle 52. My point was "lack of leadership" ... which is what I think Rumsfeld has provided quite all on his own.
#5
"I'm sure you've noted that the analogy was Thomas', not Rummy's"
I note that. Whatever issues I have with Rummy, i respect him far more than I do Cal Thomas.
". But aside from that, I think Thomas' point was that the cost to the US of the Iraq operation, in historical context, is not that great. All this, of course, including the true but shopworn caveat that every killed or wounded is a tragic loss for our country and the families involved.
Having said that, I am leery of these historical comparisons if they rely too much on numbers. The key point, which Rummy makes and the clueless or irresponsible among us including elected officials routinely miss, is that this is a battle of wills. WWII had far worse losses, far far far more mistakes and disasters, but was still a test of wills with our enemies."
But this isnt a war being fought like WW2. No dozens of divisions, aircraft carriers, etc. Its more like the cold war, a shadowy war of covert actions, economics, diplomacy, with the occasional flare up to hot war. In case anyones forgotten, we abandoned Viet Nam, and 14 years later the Berlin wall fell.
Now Im NOT saying we should withdraw now from Iraq - Im heartened we seem to be taking on Sadr, I note that the Iraqi army seems to be improving, and I hope the influx of US troops to Baghdad can restore a greater degree of order to the capital. And yes, this is the central front of the WOT, as much as any other single place is.
BUT - whats happening in Iraq, the number of iraqi deaths, the number of US combat deaths, needs to be seen in the context of Iraq, NOT in the context of World War 2. If the number of Iraqi deaths in Baghdad grows large enough that ordinary Iraqis abandon the central govt entirely, and give all their support to sectarian militias, if Sadr pushes Malike and Sistani aside and establishes in southern Iraq a situation like Hezbollah established in S Lebanon, if KSA and Jordan try to do to Sadr what Israel is doing to Nasrallah, etc, etc it will be little comfort that Baghdad was safer than circa 1943 Shanghai, or that US casualties were less than in the Battle of the Bulge.
#6
You're not a hawk. You can't handle a fight. You can't handle dead soldiers. You want to make peace at any cost, no ?
You're all phalking lucky I'm not Sec Def. The bodies would be buried in trenches as I went door to door searching for weapons, uniforms, korans, whatever. Only when they lost their appetite for a fight would they be invited to vote, and take responsibility for their future. You don't defeat an enemy with jestures, gut a generation out of them and they usually sober up. A nuke will have a similar effect. Bush, Rummy, Blair, none of them have managed to get the attention of mother Islam long enough to make demands.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/08/2006 17:13 Comments ||
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#8
Rumsfeld noted how the enemy uses our media to undermine American resolve, "planning attacks to gain the maximum media coverage and the maximum public outcry."
The main stream media are altogether too willing dupes or dopes. This self-destructive arrogance is difficult to understand. They are a party to publishing fake photographs and stories siding with the enemy. The press would not like the world of islamofacism.
You might not like what WX has to say about his response but like it or not, I think he's pretty much on target with what it will take to win this war. The unfortunate thing is that it will take another 9/11 or worse to make all the people thinking like you realize it.
Posted by: mac ||
08/08/2006 17:52 Comments ||
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#10
Gen. Pace added: "Our enemy knows they cannot defeat us in battle. They do believe, however, that they can wear down our will as a nation."
And they are being helped, willingly and cynically, by the Democratic Party and its paid propagandists in the media.
Want a depressing statistic? Try this: Americans are being killed in Iraq at a rate only slightly higher than they are being killed in recreational boating mishaps here at home.
And that's all it has taken, with the Democrats' connivance, to bring America to within a hair's breadth of giving up in Iraq and slinking home with our tails between our legs-- and calling it "responsible redeployment" or some such pablum.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/08/2006 18:57 Comments ||
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#11
Can't we all just get along?
Posted by: Rodney K. ||
08/08/2006 18:58 Comments ||
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#12
Unfortunately none of those in the senators or press at the hearing were self aware enough to realize Gen. Pace's comment was directed at them.
Posted by: ed ||
08/08/2006 19:13 Comments ||
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#13
Cal Thomas's analogy is one of the worst I've seen. Hurtgen was probably the worst run and most wasteful US campaign of WWII. Hurtgen was just one WWI-style frontal infantry attack after another. If Iraq is Hurtgen, we are in trouble.
#14
Hurtgen was a complete waste of US lives and strenghts. The US Army should have gone around it where air, armor and artillery dominance could be used and then set the forest on fire with the Germans in it. Bradley should have had his ass kicked for refighting WW1.
Posted by: ed ||
08/08/2006 20:02 Comments ||
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I am not a gloom & doom person, except when it comes to myself, and I am still optimistic in general, since I learned long ago that depending on a US-USSR thermonuclear exchange eventually disappoints and promotes bad savings habits. Nevertheless, when you wake up and read that the entire Alaska oil supply is OFF LINE for the next nine years or so, you wonder: what next? Texas-sized comet chunks heading for America? Comet-sized Texas chunks heading for Europe? The pace of bad news seems to have picked up an unnerving momentum. Enough with the flow. Some ebbing would be nice.
Mind you, it’s not the actual news that bothers me as much as the reaction to it; the reactions speak to something amiss in the heart of the West, a failure of nerve, a fatal lack of faith in the civilization we’re entrusted to defend. But the heart has two ventricles. There’s a large portion of America who – well, no. I can’t make generalizations like this, because they’re ridiculous, and it’s not for me to speak for 150 million of my countrymen. But I’ve had this suspicion for the last year. People joke about the “American street,” the basic Joe’s rising animosity to the Middle East. I don’t think there’s a rising hatred of the area; I think there’s a growing indifference. In the end, that’s worse.
In the end, most Americans simply don’t care what happens to the Middle East aside from Israel. They’d like the region to be free; they’re happy when everyone gets to vote. They don't give a fig about Libya but it would be nice if Egypt was safe, what with all those museums and the like. They’d be perfectly fine if every nation in the Middle East was like France – open, free, stable, great vacation destinations, full of politicians and intellectuals who didn’t like the US but confined the rhetoric to tart epigrams or unreadable academic polemics. It’s the seething sectarian nutwad component that makes people weary. The looped scripts, the Jew-slagging, the misplaced blame, the unslakable aching sense of injustice over things that happened 500 years ago. Okay, well, sorry about the Crusades. Now you Persians apologize for Ionia and the war on the Greeks. C’mon. C’monnn, ya knuckleheads. I knew Darius, and he was a Party. Animal. But let’s send it all to the big Bygone House and hug, for Mr. Planet’s sake! (Bill Murray for UN Secretary General. Seriously.)
But this isn’t going to happen. Mind you, I’m not raising this to debate the veracity of the claims or the reactions, just to note what many people think, inasmuch as they think about it at all. (Which they don't, and that's why it seems a spiky shouting ullulating Durkastan, just like America seems like Fat-Ass Burger Whore Town to others. ) So. As I was saying: most people would like the Middle East to be free and happy and prosperous and free of incomprehensible religious differences (Sunni, Shiite, Sufi – help us out, guys; do they all have to start with S?) and generally off the radar. Thirty years of hearing Death to the Great Satan, however, hasn’t left the average American mad. It’s left them bored. It's left them disinterested in the final consequences to the societies in which the chanting mobs appear. They don’t care. And as I said, that may have more injurious consequences than Disappointed Engagement or Active Animus. The former leads to withdrawal; the latter leads to rash plans quickly nixed when the anger cools.
A nation that no longer cares about what happens Over There is a nation, I think, that has already made its peace, however subconsciously, with a horrible conclusion.
Just a thought.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/08/2006 07:04 ||
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#1
that has already made its peace, however subconsciously, with a horrible conclusion.
#2
Good question given the current state of public discourse in America but I have a sneaking suspiciion that if it came down to a choice between "us or them" we'd suddenly find an overwhelming majority more than willing to actively support our side of the conflict.
#4
It's left them disinterested in the final consequences to the societies in which the chanting mobs appear. They donÂ’t care.
Meaning if they got "Prejudicially Terraformed" we wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/08/2006 10:33 Comments ||
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#5
Mike, I don't know how you arrive at any conclusion without a few paragraphs on how and why our media bullshits the shit out of us daily, tirelessly, and relentlessly. If it were possible for us to drop a crow bar into the MSM operational gears and bring them to a sudden halt, an additional 30 percent of Americans would awaken to the truth about the world on the same day. That would have an impact on our behavior and on our worldview.
I don't know. Sort of the Parable of the Cave. Some people just don't want to know. "Can we please stop talking about Iran and Korea and WMDs so I can go back to reading about Lindsey Lohan's breasts?"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on the brink of handing President Bush the worst diplomatic disaster of his presidency. She is poised to agree to two United Nations resolutions that will tie the hands of both Israel and the United States in the war on terror and, in particular, inhibit future action on its number one state sponsor — Iran.
The catastrophe is the brainchild of Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has effectively turned the United Nations into the political wing of Hezbollah. Rice and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns are working furiously to satisfy a timetable dictated by Annan, not by the interests of the United States.
How did the United Nations become the forum for producing peace between Israel and its neighbors, which have rejected the Jewish stateÂ’s existence for the past six decades? In the last three weeks, a multi-headed hydra of U.N. actors has risen to defeat Israel on the political battlefield in an unprecedented disregard of the U.N. CharterÂ’s central tenet: the right of self-defense.
Existing Security Council resolutions have for years required “the Government of Lebanon to fully extend and exercise its sole and effective authority throughout the south, [and] ensure a calm environment throughout the area, including along the Blue Line, and to exert control over the use of force on its territory and from it.” A combination of Iranian aggression, Syrian support, and Lebanese impotence and malfeasance, has actively prevented the implementation of the existing resolutions.
Posted by: j. D. Lux ||
08/08/2006 15:23 Comments ||
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#2
Now I know why we don't declare this WW3 and be done with. The moment this becomes WW3, the UN goes the way of the League Of Nations.
Years ago, many of us called for an end to the charade known as the UN. The situation has gotten worse. Please terminate the UN now.
#3
Pull the plug on the U.N. now. Send these useless idiots back to their home country. More than useless, they are dangerous. Get them off the welfare roster.
#7
Nah, they just pick a few more turds.
It has gone way too far towards CAmeroon and Guinea making world policy.
Somebody needs to retool whatever the mandate of the UN is and how they go about picking a reasonably strong individual with some ethics and credentials to lead the organization toward something instead of constantly "writhing in it's own waste".
Posted by: J. D. Lux ||
08/08/2006 21:25 Comments ||
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#8
I once defined (on these pages) Colin Powel as UN ambasador to US, guess the person changes but job description does not.
Prior to 9/11, no terrorist organization had killed more Americans than Hezbollah, which was responsible for the 1983 Beirut Marine barracks bombing, among other attacks. The outcome of Israel's current war with the "Party of God" remains very much in doubt. But the good news is that Israel is being given all the diplomatic cover it could have hoped for to strike a blow to the terror group and its Iranian patrons.
The U.N. cease-fire resolution for Lebanon offered on the weekend by France and the U.S. isn't everything we might like. But it does show a new international sobriety concerning the Hezbollah problem. While there are few sources of vocal support for Ehud Olmert's Israeli government, there does seem to be widespread recognition that a return to the status quo before Hezbollah attacked is unacceptable.
Thus the draft resolution would allow Israeli troops to remain in southern Lebanon and to act defensively should the Hezbollah rocket barrages continue. A second resolution would then be needed to create a multinational peacekeeping force whose mission would be to disarm Hezbollah, not just verify that it isn't launching Katyushas.
We doubt this or any other U.N. plan can succeed before Israel has done a lot more to degrade Hezbollah's military capabilities. But the U.S.-French approach is certainly far preferable to the kind of solution proposed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which is essentially an unconditional Israeli cease-fire that would leave Hezbollah intact and ready to attack again whenever it chooses. For Hezbollah, this would be a major victory--one that would damage both Israel and Lebanon for years to come.
Reaction to the Security Council text has certainly been clarifying. "This agreement is bad in every sense of the word," said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, whose government effectively ran Lebanon until last year. President Bush gave the appropriate response yesterday at his Crawford ranch when he said that "Syria and Iran sponsor and promote Hezbollah activities." He added that the Syrians "know exactly what our position is. The problem is that their response hasn't been very positive. As a matter of fact, it hasn't been positive at all." . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
08/08/2006 07:28 ||
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This is from yesterday's "Morning Edition" JOHN HENDREN reporting:
This is how staggeringly pointless the killing in Iraq is getting: shepherds in the rural western Baghdad neighborhood of Gazalea have recently been murdered, according to locals, for failing to diaper their goats. Apparently the sexual tension is so high in regions where Sheikhs take a draconian view of Shariah law, that they feel the sight of naked goats poses an unacceptable temptation. They blame the goats.
I've spent nearly a year here, on more than a dozen visits since the early days of the war, and that seemed about as preposterous as Iraq could get until I heard about the grocery store in east Baghdad. The grocer and three others were shot to death and the store was firebombed because he suggestively arranged his vegetables.
I didn't believe it at first. Firebombings of liquor stores are common, and I figured there must've been one next door. But an Iraqi colleague explained matter-of-factly that Shiite clerics had recently distributed a flyer directing groceries how to display their food.
Standing up a celery stalk near a couple of tomatoes in a way that might - to the profoundly repressed - suggest an aroused male, is now a capital offense.
I've seen a lot in Iraq that has surprised me. A family living in the guard shack of an abandoned nuclear plant, suffering from what local doctors described as radiation sickness; the bearded head of a bomber, 500 feet from his still flaming vehicle. Sick stuff. But I've also been inspired: by a soldier who agreed to an interview with a bullet in his leg; by American military surgeons who operated side by side on an Iraqi policeman and an Iraqi insurgent; and Iraqis who've returned to work with us, despite death threats, kidnappings, and slain relatives.
Yet over three years of visits, I've never been able to fully appreciate the violent justice there. I've heard of a boy in Najaf whose throat was slit for blinding a neighbor's cow with a rock. I've learned a new oxymoron: religious assassins. And I've watched friends move repeatedly, to stay ahead of attacks by insurgents. And now, Iraqis are dying over goat panties and naughty veggies.
#1
I have always been in favor of an Iraqi democracy, mostly because I believe every bird should have one chance to straighten up and fly right. However, I am also in favor of eliminating Islam in all it's forms. If that includes killing every muslim nutcase, then let it be so.
There's not enough time and padded cells to save every soul in the ME. Many will have to change on their own or be cleansed. The lunacy of Islam will become the joke of the future and all of the remaining muzzies will deny their faith addiction.
By even the most conservative estimates the Sudanese Muslims have been killing - slaughtering - as many of their own countrymen every week for the last 10 years as have been killed so far in the current Israel - Lebanon (HezbAllah) War. Why has the 'world' said almost nothing about that for all those years yet screams in outrage around the clock for the past month over Israel's modest attempts at self-defense? Of course - silly me - because in Lebanon the evil Joooos are doing most of the killing, while in the Sudan it's those lovely, civilized practitioners of the wonderful 'Religion of Peace'. Arrrgghhh!!! It just does not compute. My brain feels like HAL trying to compute tic tac toe.
#1
The problem, Glenmore, is that you are looking for rational behavior from irrational people. You can frisk the Islamonuts (or the liberal Dhimmicrats for that matter) all day long and not find an ounce of logic. Cause and effect does not phase them either. It's a battle between the Jews and a demonic cult that wants to overlook the fact that the Jews predate it in Israel by a thousand years and then some.
Many international commentators who understand what a Hizbullah victory will mean for international security rightly argue that the international community today is repeating the mistakes of the 1930s, when it refused to contend with the growing dangers emanating from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
Here in Israel, the historical period that is being recalled with increasing frequency is the winter of 1973. Then, in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, as Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan sought to place all the blame for Israel's refusal to prepare for Egypt's October 6 invasion, in spite of obvious signs that it was about to take place, on the IDF, demobilized IDF reservists, led by Captain (res.) Moti Ashkenazi, launched a national protest movement. Their demand for accountability forced Meir and Dayan to resign and set the conditions for the Likud's rise to power in 1977.
THERE IS a palpable sense in Israel that we are on the edge of a revolutionary moment. Our national leadership in the government, the IDF and the media has utterly failed us.
As we stand poised on the edge of an even larger war, the main question that hangs in the balance is what lessons the Israeli people will take from the current fiasco. Will we continue to believe their fictions, or will we find a way to abandon them and move on with leaders who understand that territory is vital, that the jihad is real, that Israel has a right to defensible borders, and that Israel is not to blame for our enemies' hatred?
Arab media continue to revel in their victory over Israel. Hizbollah has not been smashed, Lebanese civilians continue to get killed, as do Israelis. In Arab eyes, this is winning. Which explains why the Arab world has fallen behind the rest of the planet in almost every measure (economically, politically, education, science).
Attempts to stop the fighting are doomed to failure because too many Arabs see Israel's destruction as the primary goal. While disarming Hizbollah would be in the best interests of Israelis, and the majority of Lebanese (those who are not Shia), that is not possible now because Hizbollah has been declared Islamic heroes for killing Israelis. Diplomacy is difficult when dealing with a culture of death, suicide and people on a mission from God.
Hizbollah does want some kind of ceasefire, because they are running out of resources (rocket and launch teams) faster than Israel is running out of anything (troops, money, jet fuel, smart bombs, etc). In the end, Hizbollah is a low budget operation up against the wealthiest and most powerful economy in the region. Trying to destroy Israel is a Fools Errand. But as long as the fools have rockets and suicidal volunteers, they will keep trying.
An interesting interview with Diane Bondareff, a free-lance photographer, at Shape of Days, about free-lance photojournalism, and what you can and can't do to a news photo.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/08/2006 00:05 ||
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Serious difficulties that the war is causing Syria:
[..]
One of those problems is a serious inflow of refugees from Lebanon. It looks like the Israeli effort to clear civilians out of Southern Lebanon was not strictly humanitarian in nature. It was also meant to destabilize the Syrian regime.
[..]
What, then, provoked Mohsen Bilal to offer to jump headlong into an Israeli trap? Contrary to Washington's hopes, the Bashar al-Assad regime may not be viable after the destruction of Hezbollah. The flood of refugees is painful to absorb. In addition, Syria's economy depends on Lebanon. Syrian workers in Lebanon remit US$4 billion a year, double Syria's reported exports. The Assad regime and its supporters draw substantial income from Lebanon's black market, which Syria continues to dominate despite the removal of Syrian troops last year.
US as well as Israeli analysts assume that the Syrian regime will do anything to survive, but in the wake of Hezbollah's collapse and the breakdown of Lebanon's Shi'ite community, it may not be obvious to Bashar Assad how he may accomplish this. Without the skim from Lebanon's black market and the remittances from Syrian workers in Lebanon, the regime's purse will shrivel and its hold on the reins will slacken. Double-crossing its allies in Tehran at just that moment might not be the wisest move, particularly with remnants of Hezbollah fleeing into Syria.
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What is the black market of which Spengler speaks? Blonde Lebanese hasish well known in the region and a favorite of many Israelis.[ hat tip Yehudit of Kesher Talk ] A Deep Purple concert was scheduled for this summer in Baalbeck. That would have attracted tourists from Israel and Europe. Not to mention many Lebanese. The Syrian's get a cut for providing protection all up and down the supply chain.
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#1
Deep Purple concert in Baalbek, eh? Well, Bashar, you shouldn't have let the Hezb dogs off the chain but now that you have, don't complain about what it's costing you. Just "Hush!"
Posted by: mac ||
08/08/2006 17:57 Comments ||
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#2
no Smoke On The Water jokes?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/08/2006 18:31 Comments ||
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there was a photo I was thinking of inculding with this but Rantburg is to family values oriented so I refrained.
Link points to a sucribers-only article, posted entirely. By Bernard Lewis
During the Cold War, both sides possessed weapons of mass destruction, but neither side used them, deterred by what was known as MAD, mutual assured destruction. Similar constraints have no doubt prevented their use in the confrontation between India and Pakistan. In our own day a new such confrontation seems to be looming between a nuclear-armed Iran and its favorite enemies, named by the late Ayatollah Khomeini as the Great Satan and the Little Satan, i.e., the United States and Israel. Against the U.S. the bombs might be delivered by terrorists, a method having the advantage of bearing no return address. Against Israel, the target is small enough to attempt obliteration by direct bombardment.
It seems increasingly likely that the Iranians either have or very soon will have nuclear weapons at their disposal, thanks to their own researches (which began some 15 years ago), to some of their obliging neighbors, and to the ever-helpful rulers of North Korea. The language used by Iranian President Ahmadinejad would seem to indicate the reality and indeed the imminence of this threat.
Would the same constraints, the same fear of mutual assured destruction, restrain a nuclear-armed Iran from using such weapons against the U.S. or against Israel?
There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers.
#1
This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.
Yes, and if anything does happen to Israel, we would be well advised, to hit Magic Mulla Central, Downtown Teheran, with a few well placed MOABs, so they are ID'ing what's left of Ahmadisnutz, and his cronies by DNA on bone chips the size of fleas. Using a MOAB reducxes the damaging the environment... because many innocent Iranians want out of this mess, and we don't want to harm them long term, we should not nuke Teheran.
Of course if our microwave/particle-beam weapon is ready, a few mullas exploding after they scream and start to smoke might be something interesting for Al-Jazzy or Cabal Network Nonsense to report. Get the paint scrapers handy, as well as the protective clothing. Cleaning exploded mulla on the wall is messy and a biohazard.
And if anyone doesn't like these descriptions, just think what the people in the airplanes thought when they realized that those horse feces f**kholes were flying those plane into the buildings, and they were going to die?
Flying planes into buildings, because of some mega-carnal reward they would get?
But they were doing so in the name of the devil they called Allah.
Or what about the people in those buildings (WTC) who saw the planes coming and had no escape?
Think long and hard before you criticize my rant. And don't bother me with this PC shit about us lowering ourselves. If you think this way than you have burka envy, and have no survival instinct.
A few mullahs dying an agonizing though relatively quick death (way to quick - less than a minute) is mild compared to the 9/11 horror. Allah akhbar, Baby!
#3
Lewis mentions the limitations posed by the Mutually Assured Doctrine, during the Cold War. I beat myself up sometimes when I think of what we should be doing in WOT, when we are NOT subject to MAD. We can use nuclear extortion, and all the other side could do was accept it. Yet we don't, and we are paying for it in crippling fuel prices while doing nothing as Iran develops nuclear weapons.
#4
The fact we (the West) are liberal democracies with a "public opinion" (shaped by "progressives")???
I really, really would have liked to live as a westerner in an 21st century technology Europe with 17/18th century values. Do you think any of this jihad sh*t would be happening?
Years of multiculturalism, PC, demasculization, UNism, brotherhood of manism bullshit. That is what limits us. We fight like we are afraid to do what it takes to win. The other side fights with no limits. Our military has both hands tied around their nuts, and they still are kicking ass. They just can't finish the job with all the liberal, feel good, ass nuggets running around in the State Department and the government.
Fucking nuke the assholes and then accept their unconditional surrender, or nuke them again and again into oblivion.
#6
The answer to any such attempt by Iran must be as follows, and must be announced beforehand (ie by next week): When the first such missile is launched, we will respond, not with nukes, but with MOABs and Daisy Cutters, and they will be packed with pork blood amongst the explosives, separately, dog and pork DNA will be seeded in all Iran's waterways. This will have no impact on health, but will render all who eat or drink unfit for Paradise. In fact, call in the news networks to have them film the bombs being packed and the dried DNA pellets prepared -- especially Al Jazeera, the BBC and CNN. Thus, all those killed in the response will made unclean and deemed unfit for Paradise. Whether or not Mullah Ahmadenijad believes his 12th Imam will make all pure, doubt will be sown in his followers' minds.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/08/2006 19:10 Comments ||
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I really, really would have liked to live as a westerner in an 21st century technology Europe with 17/18th century values. Do you think any of this jihad sh*t would be happening?
Bugger that. 19th century -- when the Thuggee were wiped out and the Brits put down the Mahdi in the Sudan.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/08/2006 19:11 Comments ||
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#11
A lot of bad things have been predicted for August 21/22. If the Persians use nukes on that day, August 23 will be the beginning of the end of the Muslim world.
See: http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/
2003_09_01_belmontclub_archive.html#106401071003484059
Much cited, but worthy of review
#15
I just home we have the belly for it if it happens and not piss around with the United Nations or allow the media to 'frame it approprately' for the masses.
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.
Kim Jong Il attended a Russian art performance and visited a tire factory July 4, a day before the missile launches, and he hasn't appeared publicly since, according to South Korea's spy agency. 
