Archived material Access restricted Article
Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Sun 08/14/2005 View Sat 08/13/2005 View Fri 08/12/2005 View Thu 08/11/2005 View Wed 08/10/2005 View Tue 08/09/2005 View Mon 08/08/2005
1
2005-08-14 Home Front: Politix
Dem Rep. Says Iraq Conflict a NeverEndum
Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.
Posted by Vlad the Muslim Impaler 2005-08-14 00:08|| || Front Page|| [7 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 my opinion, it is the lack of a meaningful - ie: deadly - response to terror that fuels Islamofascist aggression

Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?
Posted by lyot 2005-08-14 07:59||   2005-08-14 07:59|| Front Page Top

#2 lyot is right.

The reality is that we are in a 20-30+ year war. It will be fought in a variety of places and with a variety of means, none of which can fully be predicted at this point.

Lynch is right in tht sense. There WILL be a long military conflict. The only question is how much of it will occur in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Consider, for instance, the reports that Carlos the Jackal and also a major Mexican revolutionary leader have converted to Islam. We talk here about the alliance between the far left and Islamacists but my guess is that that alliance will rapidly evolve beyond rhetoric into a military / terror network partnership.

Those who realize the dangers of Islamacism and appeasement - including most Rantburg readers - need to understand that there is no quick fix to this. Nuking this or that city, a Russian-style clampdown a la Chechnya ... none of this is going to put a decisive end to the threat. There will be times when tactics are used - look at the operation to wipe out the Afghan warlord whose fighters killed the SEALs. But that's tactical, not a strategy.

One reason I push back against extreme calls for nuking this or that muslim city is that we have GOT to realize that we will need determination and endurance to win this war. There will be no quick fixes to Islamacism or to the security threats posed by major geopolitical changes going on right not.

And retreating behind a barrier at our borders won't work either. This is going to be a long, painful, difficult and uncertain war, folks. We can win it, but only if we realize what we're up against.
Posted by leader of the pack 2005-08-14 08:08||   2005-08-14 08:08|| Front Page Top

#3 The supply of cannon fodder is endless? Then why is the "quality" of boomers going down? The use of the afflicted (Downs Syndrome) and even donkeys and dogs speaks to a SHORTAGE of cannon fodder class minions.
Posted by Dave 2005-08-14 08:08||   2005-08-14 08:08|| Front Page Top

#4 Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?

Your brilliant comparision works only if you ignore the emnity existing between Russia and Checnya, dating back to the days of the Czars 150 years or so.
Posted by badanov 2005-08-14 08:16|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org]  2005-08-14 08:16|| Front Page Top

#5 Let us take a lesson from this. A US government employee is basically saying the US will lose this war. The press in their never ending quest to help kill Americans, gleefully reports this nugget while faithfully ignoring the good news in Iraq.

Now, if you are a terrorist in Iraq and you hear this, this is all you need to have to go to your contributors to ask for more explosives and fighters, because a US congressman says terrorism is winning.

To me, that is prima facie evidence of a person who is not with the military folks he just spoke with, inasmuch as the same people he spoke with have themselves on the line to advance the cause of freedom.

Can this congressman be reliably considered to be a patriot if he publically announces his own nation is losing a war?

I don't think so, and in fact this congressman is a defeatist: someone who would rather indicate to the world he thinks they are losing, than to ask the obvious question if you are truley supporting your own country in time of war, what do you need to win?

We killed traitors after WWII for broadcasting enemy propaganda. What is different from what this congressman is doing?
Posted by badanov 2005-08-14 08:28|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org]  2005-08-14 08:28|| Front Page Top

#6 Not sure about the "no quick fixes" there LOTP. How about this set of events;

1) The republic of Eastern Arabia is set up (40km in the Eastern part of SA) and the oil there managed by a pro-Western, non-religious government. The Saudi oil-ticks are then bereft of cash and cannot fund terror organisations around the world. .com's idea and he's written on it in the past.
2) The blockading of all Iranian oil and an ultimatum issued 'step out of line and you're history' (actually the way things are going, this might well happen anyhow)
3) Mass deportation of Muslims to recognisable Muslim countries (this has the added bonus of showing up Multi-Culturalism as the evil sham that it is)
4) Splitting Iraq into three countries - Kurdish north, Shia South and Sunni in the middle. The North and South get large amounts of oil, and the Sunni in the middle get a little too (see the maps .com posted a few days ago)

Essentially - cut off the supply of money, isolate those people who want to live in a 7th century 'paradise' into a place where they can't hurt the outside world and then watch the whole house of cards come tumbling down. Harsh? maybe, but what's the alternative? a 20-30 year war that might be withdraw from at any time by the election of a US president that doesn't have the cojones that Bush has? Or a 20 minute war that sees much of the Muslim world a radioactive ruin?

The problem is that for those events to come into play, the West is going to have to be hit -badly- by the Islamists. If that hit is nuclear, then the genie really is out of the bottle and noone (except Bush) knows what happens next.
Posted by Tony (UK) 2005-08-14 08:39||   2005-08-14 08:39|| Front Page Top

#7 I agree that this is going to be a protracted battle and that nuking the world's bad guys won't fix it. Blockades are a declaration of war and also at this point in time blockading Iran's oil fields wouldn't be tolerated by China who at that point may decide it's a good time to take back Taiwan while we're busy in a bloodbath in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and God knows where else.

The ultimate answer to the whole quandry is to starve them all out though. We need a Manhatten type project to develop another form of energy. Oil drives the Mid-east. Get rid of the need for oil and the whole area again becomes a non-entity that we can destroy as we please. In the long run that's the only ultimate answer to our present problems because as long as the world is dependent on mid-east oil we really can't deal with them to forcefully.
Posted by BillH 2005-08-14 09:33||   2005-08-14 09:33|| Front Page Top

#8 Lyot -#1 my opinion, it is the lack of a meaningful - ie: deadly - response to terror that fuels Islamofascist aggression

Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?


So explain Afghanistan were the Russians lost and where American and multi-alliance sponsored democracy is now taking hold?

This is a war of cultures. All the Islamics have is numbers, just as the American Indian outnumbered the early British colonist on North America. It took a long time, but the 'West' was consolidated. There was no single 'final solution' forcused, organized or planned by the migrants from Europe. It was a long series of relatively small disassociated conflicts. Each side won some, lost some. Americans lost soldiers and settlers all the time to native attacks and ambushes which didn't cause a flinch in the well to do salon's of New York or Philidelphia, though it did generate 'humanitarian' outcries by the same when the Army executed the policies of the elected government in Washington. Sympathy was abundent for the 'distant' noble savage, who would just as likely make territorial displays of war against their neighboring clan as the white man. Not much really changes in human behavior over 4000 years of history, just the name of the players.
Posted by Elmavirong Greating7173 2005-08-14 09:53||   2005-08-14 09:53|| Front Page Top

#9 Russia's Chechnya policy isn't enough proof that this tactic ain't working ?

Russia's problem with Chechnya isn't that violence doesn't work to combat terrorism, but that the violence has to be applied in a controlled and competent manner. The Russian military is primitive in both organization and tactics. Their once-feared intelligence services are ineffective. If they had effective intelligence driving their military, the Chechen war would be over by now.
Posted by Fred 2005-08-14 10:01||   2005-08-14 10:01|| Front Page Top

#10 we have GOT to realize that we will need determination and endurance to win this war.

Did we ever realize we needed to have determination and endurance to win the Cold War? Perhaps at first. But by 1965 at the latest, we had settled into "peaceful" co-existance. By then no one any longer realized we needed determination and endurance, they just accepted the continued existence of the Soviet Union as "the way it is." I suspect this is how the current conflict will evolve, until they will have so weakened themselves that they collapse because of their internal contradicitions. They cannot win this war. We can only lose it. And useful fifth columnist idiots like Lynch are trying, howerver unwittingly, to do just that.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-14 10:05||   2005-08-14 10:05|| Front Page Top

#11 They cannot win this war. We can only lose it.

hear! hear!
Posted by Shipman 2005-08-14 10:12||   2005-08-14 10:12|| Front Page Top

#12 Did we ever realize we needed to have determination and endurance to win the Cold War? Perhaps at first. But by 1965 at the latest, we had settled into "peaceful" co-existance. By then no one any longer realized we needed determination and endurance, they just accepted the continued existence of the Soviet Union as "the way it is."

Until Reagan. Who did NOT accept that existence "the way it was" and did something about it. The Soviet Union did not simply fade away -- it collapsed under the pressure of military R&D and spending.
Posted by leader of the pack 2005-08-14 10:38||   2005-08-14 10:38|| Front Page Top

#13 And may I remind us all that Reagan's determination and endurance was required, because people here and in Europe regarded him as Satan, an irresponsible bully?

But that said, I agree with you Mrs. D., that this will be won in a series of encounters that will stretch on for some time and - barring some horrific miscalculation by the Islamacists - will have no single definitive battle and victory.
Posted by leader of the pack 2005-08-14 10:43||   2005-08-14 10:43|| Front Page Top

#14 He's from Massachusetts, for heaven's sake; Boston, no less!
Posted by Bobby 2005-08-14 10:47||   2005-08-14 10:47|| Front Page Top

#15 good point Bobby. Take this as seriously as Sheila "we landed men on Mars" Jackson Lee or Cynthia McKinney discussing foreign policy and the military
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2005-08-14 11:16||   2005-08-14 11:16|| Front Page Top

#16 LOTP, Agreed and I do not diminish Reagan's impact, but it was an impact on Soviet elites effected in spite of the resistance from western elites. It relied primarily on the internal degeneration of the Soviet system, a house of cards ready to fall from the pushes of a man, a woman and a Pope. We endured by outlasing them. Again an example of not one side winning, but the other losing.

A long fight it will be, but after having survived a real threat from the Soviets and their fellow travellers, I am confident we have the strength to outlast these pikers. I just don't know if I'll live long enough to see this wall come down. Or to find out what the next wall will be.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2005-08-14 11:26||   2005-08-14 11:26|| Front Page Top

#17 Stalin had no problem nipping the Chechen rebellion in the bud with a combination of ultra-violence and mass deportation to Siberia.
Posted by ed 2005-08-14 11:28||   2005-08-14 11:28|| Front Page Top

#18 Central Asia, not Siberia.
Posted by ed 2005-08-14 11:30||   2005-08-14 11:30|| Front Page Top

#19 We should not concede the proposition that there are infinite jihadis with infinite weapons so therefore we might as well give up, which is what Rep. Lynch seems to be saying. This has been an Islamist theme from the beginning ("We're willing to die but you life-loving westerners aren't.") If there were an infinite number of fearess jihadis Israel would have been pushed into the Mediterraneum sixty years ago, the Taliban would still be in power, and the "insurgents" wouldn't wear track shoes.

Nor should we assume that the parents of the young jihadis don't feel grief when they hear that Mahmoud Jr. briefly occupied the same space as chain-shot from a Bradley's main gun. Their losses are every bit as painful to them as ours are to us.

What we have here is a case of mini-hysteria brought on by the loss of the Marine AAV in Iraq and the Special Forces losses in Afghanistan, combined with the enemy's Number One Force Multiplier, our own media. Our army in Iraq is arguably the best ever fielded by anyone in any conflict. If we stay the course and let them do their job, we will defeat the enemy on the ground.
Posted by Matt 2005-08-14 12:50||   2005-08-14 12:50|| Front Page Top

#20 ..any resolution to the conflict has to be a "political, not military" solution.

Well no shit Congressman. Political resolution is what we have been working towards for the last 2 years. But, you can't get to the political resolution without the military victory. The former without the later is just stage-managed surrender and of no use to us. Thanks for the puppet show Congressman. Like Kermit, you have no spine.

Ah yes. Again with the canard support the troops, but not the mission. Nice riff on the theme Congressman. And just what does it mean Congressman, when after 2 years of battle, the troops have good morale. It does not mean they are getting three square meals a day and 8 hours sleep at night, it means they are confident in their ability to kick the snot out of the enemy in any situation. Take a hint from the troops Congressman and not your hand-wringing constituents, they expect and are confident of victory. You have failed the test of leadership Congressman - your resolve has been duly noted and held in contempt.
Posted by Zpaz 2005-08-14 14:02||   2005-08-14 14:02|| Front Page Top

#21 The way to win the war is to stop the money flowing to the Jihadists, the Madarassas. We in the civilized world, and I am not ethnocentric on the term, are financing our destruction with Petrodollars, petroeuros, that we work hard for and give to the oil ticks.

Look at Saudi Arabia. The so-called princes are getting wealthier and the per-capita income of the just-plain-joe Saudis is seriously decreasing. Unemployment among the young adults is 25% or so. This is a recipe for disaster in SA.

So the issue is how to deny the Saudi princes the money, or to ahem show the errant princes the errors of their ways. That is the big issue. I make no effort to minimize the valiant efforts of our military, but everything else is treating the symptoms. My tuppence worth.
Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-08-14 15:59||   2005-08-14 15:59|| Front Page Top

#22 The way to win the war is to stop the money flowing to the Jihadists, the Madarassas.

And Massachusetts politicians????
Posted by anon 2005-08-14 16:10||   2005-08-14 16:10|| Front Page Top

#23 anon---Massachussets politicians are closet jihadists wannabes. It is implied that their money gets cut off, LOL!
Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-08-14 18:05||   2005-08-14 18:05|| Front Page Top

#24 "-Massachussets politicians are closet..."

20 years ago, it was the NORAID supporting IRA.


Besides, to be Frank, some Massachusetts' politicians have been out of the closet for some time now.
Posted by Dave 2005-08-14 18:26||   2005-08-14 18:26|| Front Page Top

#25 The target is AMERICA, the objective is PC destabilizing and forcing/suborning America unto SOCIALISM and ultim COMMUNISM - the Burqua Boyz are just a DIVERSION, albeit violent. Remember, the Comie Clinton-led Dems are using the alleged arrogant, "Fascist" GOP-Right to conquer and dev GLOBAL EMPIRE WHILE RUSSIA-CHINA MODERNIZE VIA CONTROLLED OR LIMITED STATE CAPITALISM. As the alternate or antithesis to FASCIST SOCIALISM IS COMMUNIST SOCIALISM, I have no doubts Hillary and the Dems are waiting for new devastating terror attacks to occur ags America, Dubya, and GOP-dominated Washington, the US Congress and US Govt., thus justifying stronger and stronger, more militarized and centralized, aka COMMUNIST-STYLE, Govt- and National-State Controls.
"FASCISM" per se is gen considered by most academics/intelligentsia as an AUTHORITARIAN IDEOLOGY - any US-specific, CASUALTY-INTENSIVE [CIVILIAN] terror attack(s), espec where there are high civilian casualties + many domestic Political casualties, will be argued as requiring SUPER/EXTRA-AUTHORITARIAN NATION-WIDE MEASURES, which fits right up Communism's alley as an ideology of despotic, ultra-LeftConservative, Super-Regulatory ideo. Eight years of Clintonism absolutely justified Leftism-Socialism once, before, and forever, and SSSSSSSSSSSSHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, ultra-Left Communism also, as far as the power-mad Lefties are concerned, and regardless of defect or delusion. You can see it already on the programs of Amerikan SSR/USR Stae BUreau known as HOLLYWOOD AND BIG TV - with their "Reality Shows" and Commercials hinting or depicting ALTERNATE LIFESTYLES: Gay-Lesbian, wife/hubby-swapping, Group Sex, conspiring women, illegitimate birthrights, etc. THE LEFT'S MESSAGE IS NOT "TOLERANCE" OR "DIVERSITY", BUT THAT NO ONE CAN BE TRUSTED FOR ANYTHING, ERGO SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH, THE NEED FOR GOVT-CONTROLLED REGULATION AND MORE REGULATION, BIGGER BIG GOVT., and ultim TO PAY MORE TAXES TO THE STATE. NEVER MIND WHAT THE REP SAYS - THE THREAT TO AMERICA IS "CREEPING SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM", i.e. STATE REGULATION AND CENTRALISM, AND ITS NOT A "NEVENDUM" CAUSE THE LEFTIES ARE GIVING AMERICA UNTIL 2015-2020 TO ACCEPT SOCIALISM AND SWO/CWO! AFTER 2015-2020, THEY RESERVE THE RIGHT TO USE FORCE AND VIOLENCE EN MASSE TO [MILITARILY]DESTROY AMERICA FOREVER! WE ARE IN WW3, WE ARE IN COMMUNISM'S "FINAL CONFLICT" - BY PEACE OR WAR, AMERICA IS INTENDED TO LOSE, NEVER TO RISE AGAIN! THE FAILED/ANGRY LEFT WILL NOT ACCEPT AMERICA NOT WAGING WAR FOR GLOBAL EMPIRE - IFF AMERICA DOES NOT ATTACK, AMERICA WILL BE ATTACKED: Now you know why belligerent IRAN and NORTH KOREA: Iran = Norkies, etc. = 300K-500K US troops to invade and occupy, at risk of nuclearized, PC, "People's War" = Martial Law America = Socialist-Commie America; New 9-11's = only Communist, NOT "Fascist" domestic Regulation, and OWG, can save America from itself and new attacks. THE COMMIES AND CHICOMS HAVE NO QUALMS DESTROYING THE WORLD VIA NUKE WAR IF IT MEANS THEIR POWER - DO YOU AMERICANS OF THE CLINTONS' FUTURE USSA, A SOCIALIST SUBSIDIARY-SSR OF THE FUTURE OWG???
Posted by JosephMendiola 2005-08-14 22:17||   2005-08-14 22:17|| Front Page Top

#26 Thats right..
Posted by Uleregum Hupains2323 2005-08-14 23:11||   2005-08-14 23:11|| Front Page Top

23:51 Snoth Glavise7365
23:42 Redneck Jim
23:11 Uleregum Hupains2323
23:07 Uleregum Hupains2323
23:01 Captain America
22:55 Captain America
22:53 JosephMendiola
22:50 Red Dog
22:49 .com
22:45 Frank G
22:44 OldSpook
22:42 Frank G
22:32 xbalanke
22:24 Frank G
22:17 Sock Puppet 0’ Doom
22:17 JosephMendiola
22:15 Nelson Muntz
22:14 gromgoru
22:10 2b
22:10 gromgoru
22:09 muck4doo
22:03 2b
21:57 trailing wife
21:56 Bobby









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com