Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave, but it is not so bad, there's warm water.
Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you til noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on "route marches", which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice but awful flat.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing! I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home.
I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter,
Carol After all the Nigerian scam spam, a different kind of email seemed appropriate. Reminded me of that convoy that got hit about a year or so ago and the woman from Kentucky (?) who led the counter-attack.
#1
Good recall CC. I was indeed Kentucky National Guard MPs led by two women that broke up an insurgent attack in March 2005 on a convey outside Salman Pak. Article here. Scroll down a few paragraphs for the combat details.
The declining white population would have serious consequences for the country's skills base and its tax revenue
Now why would that be....?
Methinks the spokesman is a wee smidgen racist.
Against black people.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2006 16:11 Comments ||
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#4
I was in SA last December. Every white person I spoke to was a)disgusted/mad as hell about the out of control crime, and b)trying to find some way to get out of SA. BTW, they all thought Mandela (Nelson) was a murdering Communist bastard who should have been strung up while the white government was still in power. My take is that you won't see an indigenous white population in SA by 2025. They'll all be emigrated or dead.
Posted by: mac ||
04/05/2006 18:00 Comments ||
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#5
I dunno, mac. At some point the government will probably pass some laws to prevent white flight. People take their wealth along with them; can't let that happen, can you?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2006 21:03 Comments ||
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#6
The truth of the matter is the African National Congress (ANC) could care less about the loss of whites. It is a joke to the ANC rank and file. They are using crime as a voluntary deportation strategy. The goal is a choci SA, ZIM, Kenya and Africa, plain and simple. I believe western leadership (such as it is) has recognized this for sometime and is purposefully avoiding African engagement, ie., dead-end conflicts such as Darfor and Somalia.
A letter to the editor of the Chicago Daily Herald from somebody I know...
Instead of alarm bells going off, the news item concerning the possible leasing of the 274 mile Illinois toll system to foreign investors made page 17 on the Wednesday, April 5, Dailey Herald without editorial comment. This in contrast to the news a few weeks ago concerning the leasing of American port facilities to Dubai financial control. For that error in judgment the Bush Administration was taken to task by the press and many political leaders of both parties.
Why the silence when the Democratic leadership, under the prodding of Sen. Jeff Schoenberg of Evanston, is getting a seemingly positive pass in the press, in leasing control of our vital Interstate Highway System to foreign interests who will have the power to set the toll rates for the next 75 years? An example of this folly is already a reality in the lease of the Chicago Skyway which immediately led to a doubling of the toll rates. It seems that politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, are willing to sell the soul of America for the proverbial "mess of pottage". The possibility of $3.85 billion return is too tempting for politicians of both parties for our vital highways system which is important to the economic and military security of all Americans. After all, President Eisenhauer proposed this Interstate Highway system as a necessary for the security of these United States, linking all parts of the country in a modern, convenient and well managed system. If foreign control of our ports was considered dangerous to our national security, how about control of our highways in case of future wars or national emergencies? Where is a sense of patriotism or of concern for the well being of all who helped build our highways through taxes paid in the past? What right have elected or non-elected persons of either party to lease or sell the vital infrastructures of our nation to foreign interests simply because the cash is out there and they, the political leaders, can claim during the next election campaign that they did not raise taxes?This seems to be an new disease of the politically elite. The mayor of Chicago is suggesting that perhaps Midway Airport is up for grabs. The legislatures of Indiana and Ohio are also negotiating to lease their toll ways, to the detriment of the traveling public.
One courageous answer to the problem of tollways was made by the State of Connecticut in recent years. They abolished all their tollways, put their maintenance on the state budget, raised the gas tax a few cents per gallon to cover the added cost and now the traffic runs freely. What a pleasure both for the people of Connecticut and for the motoring tourists who travel its roads. Could Illinois political leaders of both parties have such courage and such vision? One can only hope!
#1
3dc, it's all part of the plan to pay off our Nation's debt. Sell assest to furiners, then, once the debt is settled from the payments, nationalize our assets back into the fold.
#3
There may be more here than meets the eye. If leasing or subcontracting the Illinois Tollway system to fuc*ing martians solved the democratic political patronage, graft, and bureaucratic waste of the Illinois Tollway Authority I'd say go for it. It has been an absolute mess for decades.
I'm a little late in doing this, but I've been swamped and just now got the chance.
This is the letter I sent to Borders Books today:
Mr. Greg Josefowiczm
Chief Executive Officer
Borders Group, Inc.
100 Phoenix Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
Dear Mr. Josefowiczm:
As you can see by the enclosed letter, I have sent the money I would have spent at Borders to the Western Standard to assist them in their defense of free speech.
I find your decision not to carry the issue of Free Inquiry magazine which featured cartoons depicting Mohammad to be cowardly and short-sighted. Anyone can stand up for free speech when no one else objects; what counts is what we do when the going gets rough. By giving in to threats, you have shown your true character.
You have also informed any and all individuals or groups who object to some book or magazine you sell in your store how they may have it removed. Since almost every book is objectionable to someone, soon you will have nothing to sell.
As a bookseller, Borders should stand up for liberty and free speech; instead, you have chosen the shame and slavery of self-censorship.
To slightly misquote one of our Founding Fathers, Samuel Adams: If you love wealth greater than liberty, and the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go from us in peace. We seek not your counsel. Crouch down and lick the hand that threatens you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
This is the letter I sent to Western Standard today:
Western Standard Legal Defence Fund
Western Standard
205-1550 5th Street SW
Calgary, Alberta
Canada T2R 1K3
Gentlemen:
As you can see by the enclosed letter and check, I am sending you the money I would have spent at Borders Books for use in your defense of free speech.
Thank you for standing up for the freedom our U.S. Constitution guarantees us in its First Amendment. As an American, I am ashamed (but unfortunately not surprised) that Canadians and Danes are more interested in the defense of free speech than our own media, and that you seem to understand better than our media that freedom of speech includes freedom to offend. The antidote to speech that offends people is not censorship but more speech (by those offended) to counter that speech they find offensive.
The check is in U.S. dollars, which I presume will be acceptable. If a foreign check presents a problem, please let me know the best way to contribute.
Borders will never see me or my money again.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2006 12:25 ||
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#1
Well written, Barbara. I think I need to inform Mr. Josefowiczm ( =Josephson?) that I've taken my Border's-linked Visa card out of my wallet until further notice. Without the percentage of purchases kickback, my family will just as happily wallow in another bookshop.
***** For all of you in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, Joseph-Beth Booksellers has just ordered a copy of issue in question for me. I'll be there Sunday afternoon, plus whatever they stock that my bookshelves lack.
#2
Thanks, TW. I see that the italics and underlining didn't copy from the Word documents. Had to take advantage of the short lull I had, & didn't have time to check carefully before I posted.
Oh, well - the words are the same. I doubt my letter will give Mr. J any heartburn, but it made me feel better. As did sending that check, which is on its way to Canada even as we speak write.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2006 15:56 Comments ||
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#3
Hate following Samuel Adams, but if political cartoons are "not allowed" then whose politics are ruling the day? This symbolism is NOT LOST on the muzzies.
Thanks for the info Barbara -- good letter, and I won't purchase from Borders either.
#4
Ms Skolaut, You may be interested in some of the response Josefowiczm sent to Charles Johnson. The whole thing is here
Now you and the other bloggers who are sitting around safe in your undisclosed locations may feel that I have a duty to carry the 46 copies of Free Inquiry magazine I'm going to sell chain-wide in the next month. You know, the one with those drawings of the Prophet (Peace be upon his raggedy ass.). You might feel I should do this in the name of being the last, best bastion of Free Speech in America. I feel your pain, but after due consideration I must respectfully instruct you all to just pound sand.
Who do you think we are up here in Ann Arbor, the 82nd Airborne?
Let's review. Embassies and other buildings set on fire. People injured and killed for months across the globe. Islamics freaking out everywhere. (Very excitable and childish culture and religion that.) All because some newspaper way up in the corner of Denmark pumps out a few drawings.
And no major US newspapers prints them. No major US media shows them. No real action from the US government other than tongue clucking. And everywhere around the world there has been no significant moment when these whack job Muslims are getting their asses roundly and dependably kicked for rioting.
Nope, there is no place outside of Afghanistan and Iraq where violent Muslims are getting their asses kicked by government or the press.
You want this shit to stop and people able to draw and publish what they want anywhere in the world at any time without being afraid of getting a bread knife in gut from some hyperventilating Islamic idiotarian with a religiously implanted mental disorder? Start getting governments that can grow a pair at home as well as overseas, and start kicking some Muslim ass whenever and wherever this crap gets started. Don't come bitching to me that Borders has to step up and take the hit.
Is it really the case that your guys expect me, after months of watching this global governmental cowardice in the face of Islamic intimidation go down, to pin a big "Kick Me" sign on the backs of every one of my employees? Dudes, I worked in the grocery business for most of my career and if I am the last line of defense here, log off and head for the mountain redoubt with a box lunch because the terrorists have won.
I can't believe that your guys expect me to step up and make my company the front line of defense against the Muslim hordes which, as far as I can see, get a free pass to do whatever they want whenever they show up in groups of like two?
Like I said, I run a bookstore not an army. You bloggers want the Muslim idiots brought under control so that Free Speech takes place everywhere and not just in the magazine section at Borders? Tell it to the Marines.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to head down to the main floor, fire that quisling who's writing tell-all email, rearrange some Korans, and check out our new window display of Glenn Reynolds' "An Army of Davids." Good book that, its just blowing out of the stores. I don't care if he did call me a coward. A man's gotta know his limitations.
Odd how small independent bookstores will carry the magazine, but a big one like Borders will not.
They have chosen the self-imposed slavery of self-censorship. That's their right. It's also my right to tell them I disagree, and to not give them any of my money.
But when self-proclaimed Christians* start threatening them if they sell anti-Christian books or magazines, what are they going to do? The camel's nose is already under the tent, and most of the American media - not just Borders - have lifted the tent flap and invited the camel inside.
*I know a real Christian wouldn't resort to violence, but that won't stop a lot of faux ones.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/05/2006 17:43 Comments ||
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#6
I want to keep my employees and customers alive is a pretty good defence.
The small booksellers are not targets.
You are certainly free to not purchase from Borders, but their decision is not without reason, either.
#9
NS - so long as Borders doesn't all the sudden get balls when it's a controversial book about Christianity...admit you're afraid of employees getting hurt and killed by Islamonuts - put a display sign in the entry way. Show some integrity all the time or quit trying to claim integrity when you publish "Piss Christ" art books
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/05/2006 19:31 Comments ||
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#10
Frank, I don't think he tried to claim any integrity at all. He's worried about his employees and customers getting home without having to stop at the hospital and making money. He was in the grocery business. He'll sell whatever you'll buy under those conditions.
#11
To Borders credit, they didn't hide behind some weasily PC crap about 'respect' like 98% of the MSM. They came straight out and said, we won't carry the magazine because we are afraid of what will happen if we do.
Don't make it right, but as the man said, we are running a business here.
#12
NB: Joseph-Beth called me back. They do stock Free Inquiry, and are holding one of this issue, and will hold one of the next one for me. I feel loved... and triumphant!
And the sales girl agree with me that none of the Muslims we know are the kind of people who go around knifing those who disagree with them, and were we Muslim, we'd be highly insulted if a corporation feared that we would.
#13
The muzzies won't pull the crap here, that they try to pull around the rest of the globe, cuz' we gots policemen with guns. That's pretty much it. They know they won't get away with it like they do elsewhere.
I can understand the business owner's sentiments--he's responsible to his employees and he DOESN'T carry a gun to back up his freedom of speech as store policy, so conceivably, any back up would be after the fact. He's not willing to risk that.
The only problem is when you admit fear, the muzzies really like it.
Don't think I can blame him, though. I wouldn't want some stupid-ass Islamofacist coming in with an attitude (and a suicide belt). Guess if he was a shop owner with no employees it might be different. Hope so.
WASHINGTON: Irans nuclear weapons ambitions will be history by the time US President George W Bush leaves office, said a report published here. Veteran foreign correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing for the United Press International, quotes a prominent neo-con with good White House and Department of Defence contacts, as the source of the assertion. Asked what would the US do if sanctions did not make Iran turn away from its nuclear target, the source replied, B-2s. Two of them could do the job in a single strike against multiple targets.
De Borchgrave writes in an amused vein, So we looked up B-2s. The US Air Force only has 21 of them. Perhaps price had something to do with it. They came in at $2.2 billion a copy. But they can carry enough ordnance to make Iranians nostalgic for the Shah and his role as the free worlds gendarme in charge of the Wests oil supplies in the Gulf. These stealthy bombers have one major drawback in the Persian magic carpet mode. They can only attack 16 targets simultaneously; one short of the 17 underground nuclear facilities pinned red on Mossads target-rich PowerPoint presentations to the political leadership. Presumably, thats why two B-2s would be required.
De Borchgrave points out that most of Irans secret nuclear installations are not only underground, but also close to population centres. The first pictures of a B-2 raid would be dead women and children on al-Jazeera television newscasts, now as globally ubiquitous as CNN and FOX. The collateral damage would then rival Abu Ghraibs devastating impact on Americas good name. The perceived American indifference over the loss of Arab lives would now be seen as spreading to another Muslim country, he writes. The neo-con informant told the correspondent that there is absolutely no way Bush will accommodate to an Iranian nuke or two, the way he blinked first with North Korea. Bush uncompromising view of the Iranian nuclear danger and his determination to prevent it by force of two B-2s if necessary is as solid as his resolve to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, he said.
According to de Borchgrave, This is also the British assessment of Bushs intentions against Iran, a power whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map. Today (April 3, 2006), senior British officials met with defence and intelligence chiefs to assess the consequences of air strikes against Iran - as well as European and global repercussions. Neo-cons are unfazed by the fact that Iran is an ancient civilisation of 70 million people with retaliatory assets that range from a choke-hold on the worlds most important oil route in the Strait of Hormuz, to an anti-US Shiite coalition in Iraq with two private militias, funded and armed by Iran, to terrorist groups throughout the Middle East that have a global reach. Iran is also a power that not only resisted an Iraqi invasion, but fought Saddam Husseins legions to a standstill in an eight-year-war of attrition that killed about 1 million soldiers on both sides. If, as Bush has indicated, US troops were still in Iraq in 2009 under the next president, Tehran, in retaliatory animus, would pull out all the stops to ensure a Vietnam-like send-off for remaining US forces in Iraq. For the time being, Tehran is delighted to keep US troops in Iraq as protective cover for Iran as it consolidates its influence throughout 60 percent of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/05/2006 00:03 ||
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#1
Arnaud spends most of his time practicing being amused in a mirror and the echo chamber of his chosen ilk, instead of understanding the ramifications, the weapons, or the inconvenient facts that elude his chattering class.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/05/2006 1:15 Comments ||
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#3
Don't forget the Iranians have said they have no qualms resorting to launching or suppor new terror attacks against the USA, or Amer interests wherever in the world the same may be, in retaliation for any US attack or invasion of Iran, more popularly known as VOTE FOR HILLARY, for that kinder, anti-arrogant, anti-Fascist, Motherly Amer Holocaust, Socialism and future OWG.
#4
De Borchgrave: If, as Bush has indicated, US troops were still in Iraq in 2009 under the next president, Tehran, in retaliatory animus, would pull out all the stops to ensure a Vietnam-like send-off for remaining US forces in Iraq.
What Vietnam-like sendoff? We withdrew after beating the shit out of the North Vietnamese Army. They were done. Unfortunately, we also cut off military aid to the South Vietnamese even as the Soviets ramped up their shipments of Migs, tanks and artillery to North Vietnam - which the North Vietnamese used to rebuild. And that is what they used to overrun South Vietnam three years after we got out.
#5
De Borchgrave: "The perceived American indifference over the loss of Arab lives would now be seen as spreading to another Muslim country"
Last time I checked the Arabs and Persians did not like it when you confused them with eachother.
That "2 B-2" story has been repeated a few times. Hopefully it is true. However, it is unfair to claim the administration is unaware of the downsides of strikes, even successful ones. These include yet more Iranian backed terror, collateral damage, alienation of an Iranian populace that might otherwise like us and the potential for them to make a move on the Straits.
#7
so what I'm reading in this is..... we can take out Iran's nuclear facilities with only 2 B2's, blah, blah, neocon, blah, blah, George Bush is willing to do it.
This whole war reminds me of that scene from Indiana Jones with the fancy sword fighter.
#8
I wonder if this is yet more "preparing the ground" by the liberal media so that if the war doesn't turn out to be easy they can trot this thing out and say "those darn neocons were arrogant and lied to us again..."
Posted by: Phil ||
04/05/2006 9:06 Comments ||
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#9
they'd say that anyway even if we took out there goverment within 3 weeks with only 100 odd loses, sound familier?
#10
2 would be fine, if everything went well, if all bombs hit targets, if one didn't develop engine problems, etc.
That is why the Air Force would send in at least 6. 3 per target. Just in case.
Normal targets in bombing operations are targeted by 2 bombs. Lead plane primary is second plane secondary and visa versa.
In a high risk operation with standoff weapons, at least 3 per target is nessisary for the target to be considered "destroyed" since dodging flak, missiles and radar makes it slightly difficult to aim, even with a JDAM.
#12
don't worry about dodging flak at 60 odd thousand feet, remember the B-2 goes very high, way way higer them most anti aircraft missles in fact - but you have to not only see it you have to track it - tracking it to get a firing solution is the near impossible part.Rumours also the B2 has a system of counter measures that spoof radar by sending back a signal thats out of phase or something - but essentially it means if a radar did spot it - the B2 knows its been spotted within a fraction of a second it confuses the enemy radar set by 'Active cancellation' (think thats what is called) interestingly the Fwench are supposesed to have incorperated a working active cancellation system for thier Rafale aircraft. Really though the B2s launch phase is the bad bit - i mean you take off from Whiteman and i bet you some Iranian agent will be straight on the blower to the Iranian's. Need to lift off from Deigo Garcia or somewhere like that so as to not give the signal that there. I think the 20 odd B-2s that are operational would be able to provide us with a very good operational tempo for the first week before bringing in the B1's and standoff strikes from B-52's. But as for the B-2 i don't think they have a hope in hell of seeing let alone shooting one down, I think the B-2 can also take around 180+ SDB's also thats perfect for striking defenses around these nuke plants - i dont care how many AA systems they have they ain't gonna stop a massed attack using all those SDB's or alternitvly load up the B-2 with 80 500lb jdams and watch a whole complex go boom in the space of a minuite. B-1 could be the significant player though also, much under rated i think and even in a high threat enviorment a very good bomber - far better then B-52 which is just a flying truck really. Gonna be very interesting for the planners out there working out any air tasking order thats for sure.
#13
'Also it is believed that the Northrop Grumman ZSR-63 defensive aids equipment installed on B-2 bombers may be using active cancellation' found by a quick google search about active cancellation, ruskies too may have got this working too for thier latest future fighter jet apparently.
#16
Phase 1 - Take out every naval and airforce asset in Iran that we can hit. Also use massive bombardment to destroy any road or railway that connects the hump of Iran with the Shia Arab/Kurd/ and Baluchi regions (which would basically mean they may have to fight to get to their own borders). Also hit any nuclear asset we can with minimal casualties.
Phase 2 - Use propoganda and diplomacy as we hope for an uprising and for assets to become visible.
Phase 3 - Repeat as necessary with targets getting increasingly riskier regarding civilian casualties.
#19
indeed shock and awe did work fantastically, anyone who thinks otherwise shouyld go read up the history books and see that what was accomplished was something that no other war has every accomplished so quickly by any measure of historical standards. 3 fckin weeks to anhilate a military, move your forces into the neemys capital city and remove its Dictator and his Baathist cronies. Name me another conflict as successful and i'll give you a tenner. I challenge you to find me a defeat as swift and total as that my leftie friend :)
#21
lol ok you win - which just further proves my point i guess - Russia fought in vain for a years and all they got was badly bruised and beaten from it, it serves to show just how good coalition forces are i guess :)
Please read this excellent and extremely topical short story about Islam and the future by award winning science fiction writer Dan Simmons. Some of you may remember him as the author of the topnotch Hyperion series, while others may have perused his recent Ilium/Olympus duology. My favorite Dan Simmons quote (from Olympus): Three thousand years of civilization and all that Islam ever managed to create was self-replicating, time-traveling, Jew-hunting killer robots.
April 2006 Message from Dan
Greetings Readers, Friends, and Other Visitors:
The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Years Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a Time Traveler come back to talk to me about the future.
NEWS
Message from Dan
Past Messages
Being a sometimes science-fiction writer but not a fool, I said, Prove it.
Do you remember Replay? he said.
My finger hovered over the final 1 in my dialing. The 1987 novel? I said. By Ken Grimwood?
The stranger Time Traveler, psychotic, home invader, whatever he was nodded.
I hesitated. The novel by Grimwood had won the World Fantasy Award a year or two after my first-novel, Song of Kali, had. Grimwoods book was about a guy who woke up one morning to find himself snapped back decades in his life, from the late 1980s to himself as a college student in 1963, and thus getting the chance to relive to replay that life again, only this time acting upon what hed already learned the hard way. In the book, the character, who was to experience suffer several Replays, learned that there were other people from his time who were also Replaying their lives in the past, their bodies younger but their memories intact. Id greatly enjoyed the book, thought it deserved the award, and had been sad to hear that Grimwood had died . . . when? . . . in 2003.
So, I thought, I might have a grizzled nut case in my study this New Years Eve, but if he was a reader and a fan of Replay, he was probably just a sci-fi fan grizzled nut case, and therefore probably harmless. Possibly. Maybe.
I kept my finger poised over the final 1 in 911.
What does that book have to do with you illegally entering my home and study? I asked.
The stranger smiled almost sadly I thought. You asked me to prove that Im a Time Traveler, he said softly. Do you remember how Grimwoods character in Replay went hunting for others in the 1960s who had traveled back in time from the late 1980s?
I did remember now. Id thought it clever at the time. The guy in Replay, once he suspected others were also replaying into the past, had taken out personal ads in major city newspapers around the country. The ads were concise. Do you remember Three Mile Island, Challenger, Watergate, Reaganomics? If so, contact me at . . .
Before I could say anything else on this New Years Eve of 2004, a few hours before 2005 began, the stranger said, Terri Schiavo, Katrina, New Orleans under water, Ninth Ward, Ray Nagin, Superdome, Judge John Roberts, White Sox sweep the Astros in four to win the World Series, Pope Benedict XVI, Scooter Libby.
Wait, wait! I said, scrambling for a pen and then scrambling even faster to write. Ray who? Pope who? Scooter who?
Youll recognize it all when you hear it all again, said the stranger. Ill see you in a year and well have our conversation.
Wait! I repeated. What was that middle apart . . . Ray Nugin? Judge who? John Roberts? Who is . . . But when I looked up he was gone.
White Sox win the Series? I muttered into the silence. Fat chance.
#
I was waiting for him on New Years Eve 2005. I didnt see him enter. I looked up from the book I was fitfully reading and he was standing in the shadows again. I didnt dial 911 this time, nor demand any more proof. I waved him to the leather wingchair and said, Would you like something to drink?
Scotch, he said. Single malt if you have it.
I did.
Our conversation ran over two hours, but the following is the gist of it. Im a novelist by trade. I remember conversations pretty well. (Not as perfectly as Truman Capote was said to be able to recall long conversations word for word, but pretty well.)
The Time Traveler wouldnt tell me what year in the future he was from. Not even the decade or century. But the gray cord trousers and blue-gray wool tunic top he was wearing didnt look very far-future science-fictiony or military, no Star Trekky boots or insignia, just wellworn clothes that looked like something a guy who worked with his hands a lot would wear. Construction maybe.
I know you cant tell me details about the future because of time travel paradoxes, I began. I hadnt spent a lifetime reading and then writing SF for nothing.
Oh, bugger time travel paradoxes, said the Time Traveler. They dont exist. I could tell you anything I want to and it wont change anything. I just choose not to tell you some things.
I frowned at this. Time travel paradoxes dont exist? But surely if I go back in time and kill my grandfather before he meets my grandmother . . .
The Time Traveler laughed and sipped his Scotch. Would you want to kill your grandfather? he said. Or anyone else?
Well . . .Hitler maybe, I said weakly.
The Traveler smiled, but more ironically this time. Good luck, he said. But dont count on succeeding.
I shook my head. But surely anything you tell me now about the future will change the future, I said.
I gave you a raft of facts about your future a year ago as my bona fides, said the Time Traveler. Did it change anything? Did you save New Orleans from drowning?
I won $50 betting on the White Sox in October, I admitted.
The Time Traveler only shook his head. Quod erat demonstrandum, he said softly. I could tell you that the Mississippi River flows generally south. Would your knowing about it change its course or flow or flooding?
I thought about this. Finally I said, Why did you come back? Why do you want to talk to me? What do you want me to do?
I came back for my own purposes, said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I dont want you to do a goddamned thing. Theres nothing you can do. But relax . . . were not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I dont even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.
I tried to relax. What do you want to talk about? I said.
The Century War, said the Time Traveler.
I blinked and tried to remember some history. You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .
I mean the Century War with Islam, interrupted the Time Traveler. Your future. Everyones. He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.
You mean the War on Terrorism, I said.
I mean the Long War with Islam, he said. The Century War. And its not over yet where I come from. Not close to being over.
You cant have a war with Islam, I said. You cant go to war against a religion. Radical Islam, maybe. Jihadism. Some extremists. But not a . . . the . . . religion itself. The vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceloving people who wish us no harm. I mean . . . I mean . . . the very word Islam means Peace.
So you kept telling yourselves, said the Time Traveler. His voice was very low but there was a strange and almost frightening edge to it. But the peace in Islam means Submission. Youll find that out soon enough
Great, I was thinking. Of all the time travelers in all the gin joints in all the world, I get this racist, xenophobic, right-wing asshole.
You were a philosophy major or minor at that podunk little college you went to long ago, said the Time Traveler. Do you remember what Category Error is?
It rang a bell. But I was too irritated at hearing my alma mater being called a podunk little college to be able to concentrate fully.
Ill tell you what it is, said the Time Traveler. In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means.
I waited. Finally I said firmly, You cant go to war with a religion. Or, I mean . . . sure, you could . . . the Crusades and all that . . . but it would be wrong.
The Time Traveler sipped his Scotch and looked at me. He said, Let me give you an analogy . . .
God, I hated and distrusted analogies. I said nothing.
Lets imagine, said the Time Traveler, that on December eighth, Nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.
Thats absurd, I said.
Is it? asked the Time Traveler. The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.
Thats just stupid, I said. If Id ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasnt now. He was obviously a mental defective.The planes, the Japanese planes, I said, were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasnt aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If wed declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, wed never have . . .
I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability or fear of defining it correctly.
The Time Traveler was smiling at me from the shadows. It was a small, thin, cold smile holding no humor in it, I was sure -- but still a smile of sorts. It seemed more sad than gloating as my sudden silence stretched on.
What do you know about Syracuse? he asked suddenly.
I blinked again. Syracuse, New York? I said at last.
He shook his head slowly. Thucydides Syracuse, he said softly. Syracuse circa 415 B.C. The Syracuse Athens invaded.
It was . . . part of the Peloponnesian War, I ventured.
He waited for more but I had no more to give. I loved history, but lets admit it . . . that was ancient history. Still, I felt that I should have been able to tell him,or at least remember, why Syracuse was important in the Peloponnesian War or why they fought there or who fought exactly or who had won or . . . something. I hated feeling like a dull student around this scarred old man.
The war between Athens and its allies and Sparta and its allies a war for nothing less than hegemony over the entire known world at that time began in 431 B.C., said the Time Traveler. After seventeen years of almost constant fighting, with no clear or permanent advantage for either side, Athens under the leadership of Alcibiades at the time decided to widen the war by conquering Sicily, the Great Greece they called it, an area full of colonies and the key to maritime commerce at the time the way the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf is today.
I hate being lectured to at the best of times, but something about the tone and timber of the Time Travelers voice soft, deep, rasping, perhaps thickened a bit by the whiskey made this sound more like a story being told around a campfire. Or perhaps a bit like one of Garrison Keillors Lake Wobegon stories on Prairie Home Companion. I settled deeper into my chair and listened.
Syracuse wasnt a direct enemy of the Athenians, continued the Time Traveler, but it was quarreling with a local Athenian colony and the democracy of Athens used that as an excuse to launch a major expedition against it. It was a big deal Athens sent 136 triremes, the best fighting ships in the world then and landed 5,000 soldiers right under the citys walls.
The Athenians had enjoyed so much military success in recent years, including their invasion of Melos, that Thucydides wrote So thoroughly had the present prosperity persuaded the Athenians that nothing could withstand them, and that they could achieve what was possible and what was impracticable alike, with means ample or inadequate it mattered not. The reason for this was their general extraordinary success, which made them confuse their strengths with their hopes.
Oh, hell, I said, this is going to be a lecture about Iraq, isnt it? Look . . . I voted for John Kerry last year and . . .
Listen to me, the Time Traveler said softly. It was not a request. There was steel in that soft, rasping voice. Nicias, the Athenian general who ended up leading the invasion, warned against it in 415 B.C. He said We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and that he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this to find everything hostile to him. Nicias, along with the Athenian poet and general Demosthenes, would see their armies destroyed at Syracuse and then they would both be captured and put to death by the Syracusans. Sparta won big in that two-year debacle for Athens. The war went on for seven more years, but Athens never recovered from that overreaching at Syracuse, and in the end . . . Sparta destroyed it. Conquered the Athenian empire and its allies, destroyed Athens democracy, ruined the entire balance of power and Greek hegemony over the known world at the time . . . ruined everything. All because of a miscalculation about Syracuse.
I sighed. I was sick of Iraq. Everyone was sick of Iraq on New Years Eve, 2005, both Bush supporters and Bush haters. It was just an ugly mess. They just had an election, I said. The Iraqi people. They dipped their fingers in purple ink and . . .
Yes yes, interrupted the Time Traveler as if recalling something further back in time, and much less important, than Athens versus Syracuse. The free elections. Purple fingers. Democracy in the Mid-East. The Palestinians are voting as well. You will see in the coming year what will become of all that.
The Time Traveler drank some Scotch, closed his eyes for a second, and said, Sun Tzu writes The side that knows when to fight and when not to will take the victory. There are roadways not to be traveled, armies not to be attacked, walled cities not to be assaulted.
All right, goddammit, I said irritably. Your points made. So we shouldnt have invaded Iraq in this . . . what did you call it? This Long War with Islam, this Century War. Were all beginning to realize that here by the end of 2005.
The Time Traveler shook his head. Youve understood nothing Ive said. Nothing. Athens failed in Syracuse and doomed their democracy not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they werent ruthless enough. They had grown soft since their slaughter of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, the enslavement of every woman and girl there. The democratic Athenians, in regards to Syracuse, thought that once engaged they could win without absolute commitment to winning, claim victory without being as ruthless and merciless as their Spartan and Syracusan enemies. The Athenians, once defeat loomed, turned against their own generals and political leaders and their official soothsayers. If General Nicias or Demosthenes had survived their captivity and returned home, the people who sent them off with parades and strewn flower petals in their path would have ripped them limb from limb. They blamed their own leaders like a sun-maddened dog ripping and chewing at its own belly.
I thought about this. I had no idea what the hell he was saying or how it related to the future.
You came back in time to lecture me about Thucydides? I said. Athens? Syracuse? Sun-Tzu? No offense, Mr. Time Traveler, but who gives a damn?
The Time Traveler rose so quickly that I flinched back in my chair, but he only refilled his Scotch. This time he refilled my glass as well. You probably should give a damn he said softly. In 2006, youll be ripping and tearing at yourselves so fiercely that your nation the only one on Earth actually fighting against resurgent caliphate Islam in this long struggle over the very future of civilization will become so preoccupied with criticizing yourselves and trying to gain short-term political advantage, that youll all forget that theres actually a war for your survival going on. Twenty-five years from now, every man or woman in America who wishes to vote will be required to read Thucydides on this matter. And others as well. And there are tests. If you dont know some history, you dont vote . . . much less run for office. Americas vacation from knowing history ends very soon now . . . for you, I mean. And for those few others left alive in the world who are allowed to vote.
Youre shitting me, I said.
I am shitting you not, said the Time Traveler.
Those few others left alive who are allowed to vote? I said, the words just now striking me like hardthrown stones. What the hell are you talking about? Has our government taken away all our civil liberties in this awful future of yours?
He laughed then and this time it was a deep, hearty, truly amused laugh. Oh, yes, he said when the laughter abated a bit. He actually wiped away tears from his one good eye. I had almost forgotten about your fears of your, our . . . civil liberties . . . being abridged by our own government back in these last stupidity-allowed years of 2005 and 2006 and 2007 . Where exactly do you see this repression coming from?
Well . . . I said. I hate it when I start a sentence with well, especially in an argument. Well, the Patriot Act. Bush authorizing spying on Americans . . . international phonecalls and such. Uh . . . I think mosques in the States are under FBI surveillance. I mean, they want to look up what library books were reading, for Gods sake. Big Brother. 1984. You know.
The Time Traveler laughed again, but with more edge this time. Yes, I know, he said. We all know . . . up there in the future which some of you will survive to see as free people. Civil liberties. In 2006 you still fear yourselves and your own institutions first, out of old habit. A not unworthy if fatally misguided and terminally masochistic paranoia. I will tell you right now, and this is not a prediction but a history lesson, some of your grandchildren will live in dhimmitude.
Zimmi . . . what? I said.
He spelled it out. What had sounded like a z was the dh. Id never heard the word and I told him so.
Then get off your ass and Google it, said the Time Traveler, his one working eye glinting with something like fury. Dhimmitude. You can also look up the word dhimmi, because thats what two of your three grandchildren will be called. Dhimmis. Dhimmitude is the system of separate and subordinate laws and rules they will live under. Look up the word sharia while youre Googling dhimmi, because that is the only law they will answer to as dhimmis, the only justice they can hope for . . . they and tens and hundreds of millions more now who are worried in your time about invisible abridgements of their civil liberties by their oppressive American and European democratically elected governments.
He audibly sneered this last part. I wondered now if the fury I sensed in him was a result of his madness, or if the reverse were true.
Where will my grandchildren suffer this dhimmitude? I asked. My mouth was suddenly so dry I could barely speak.
Eurabia, said the Time Traveler.
Theres no such place, I said.
He gave me his one-eyed stare. My stomach suddenly lurched and I wished Id drunk no Scotch. Words, I said.
The Time Traveler raised one scar-slashed eyebrow.
Last year you gave me words about 2005, I said. The kind of words Ken Grimwoods replayers in time would have put in the newspaper to find each other. Give me more now. Or, better yet, just fucking tell me what youre talking about. You said it wouldnt matter. You said that my knowing wont change anything, any more than I can change the direction the Mississippi is flowing . So tell me, God damn it!
He began by giving me words. Even while I was scribbling them down, I was thinking of reading Id been doing recently about the joy with which the Victorian Englishmen and 19th Century Europeans and Americans greeted the arrival of the 20th Century. The toasts, especially among the intellectual elite, on New Years Eve 1899 had been about the coming glories of technology liberating them, of the imminent Second Enlightenment in human understanding, of the certainty of a just one-world government, of the end of war for all time.
Instead, what words would a time traveler or poor Replay victim put in his London Times or Berliner Zeitung or New York Times on January 1, 1900, to find his fellow travelers displaced in time? Auschwitz, I was sure, and Hiroshima and Trinity Site and Holocaust and Hitler and Stalin and . . .
The clock in my study chimed midnight.
Jesus God. Did I want to hear such words about 2006 and the rest of the 21st Century from the Time Traveler?
Ahmadenijad, he said softly. Natanz. Arak. Bushehr. Ishafan. Bonab. Ramsar.
Those words dont mean a damned thing to me, I said as I scribbled them down phonetically. Where are they? What are they?
Youll know soon enough, said the Time Traveler.
Are you talking about . . . what? . . . the next fifteen or twenty years? I said.
Im talking about the next fifteen or twenty months from your now, he said softly. Do you want more words?
I didnt. But I couldnt speak just then.
General Seyed Reza Pardis, intoned the Time Traveler. Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three. Tel Aviv. Baghdad International Airport, Al Salem U.S. airbase in Kuwait, Camp Dawhah U.S. Army base in Kuwait, al Seeb U.S. airbase in Oman, al Udeid U.S. Army and Air Force base in Qatar. Haifa. Beir-Shiva. Dimona.
Oh, fuck, I said. Oh, Jesus. I had no clue as to who or what Shehab One, Two, or Three might be, but the context and litany alone made me want to throw up.
This is just the beginning, said the Time Traveler.
Wasnt the beginning on September 11, 2001? I managed through numb lips.
The one-eyed scarred man shook his head. Historians in my time know that it began on June 5, 1968, he said. But it hasnt really begun for you yet. For any of you.
I thought What on earth happened on the fifth of June, 1968? Im old enough to remember. I was in college then. Working that summer and . . . Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedys assassination. Now on to Chicago and the nomination! Sirhan Sirhan. Was the Time Traveler trying to give me some kind of half-assed Oliver-Stone-JFK-movie garbled up conspiracy theory?
What . . . I began.
Galveston, interrupted the Time Traveler. The Space Needle. Bank of America Plaza in Dallas. Renaissance Tower in Dallas. Bank One Center in Dallas. The Indianapolis 500 one hour and twenty-three minutes into the race. The Bell South Building in Atlanta. The TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco . . .
Stop, I said. Just stop.
The Golden Gate Bridge, persisted the Time Traveler. The Guggenheim in Bilbao. The New Reichstag in Berlin. Albert Hall. Saint Pauls Cathedral . . .
Shut the fuck up! I shouted. All these places cant disappear in the rest of this century, your goddamned Century War or not! I dont believe it.
I didnt say in the rest of your century, said the Time Traveler, his torn voice almost a whisper now. Im talking about your next fifteen years. And Ive barely begun.
Youre nuts, I said. Youre not from the future. You escaped from some asylum.
The Time Traveler nodded. Thats more true than you know, he said. I come from a place and time where your grandchildren and hundreds of millions of other dhimmi are compelled to write pbuh after the Prophets name. They wear gold crosses and gold Stars of David sewn onto their clothing. The Nazis didnt invent the wearing of the Star of David . . . the marking and setting apart of the Jews in society. Muslims did that centuries ago in they lands they conquered, European and otherwise. They will refine it and update it, not toward the more merciful, in the lands they occupy through the decades ahead of you.
Youre crazy, I cried, standing. My hands were balled into fists. Islam is a religion . . . a religion of peace . . . not our enemy. We cant be at war with a religion. Thats obscene.
Have you read the Quran and learned your Sunnah? asked the Time Traveler. It would behoove you to do so. Dhimmi means protection. And your children and grandchildren will be protected . . . like cattle.
To hell with you, I said.
Your dhimmi poll tax will be called jizya, said the Time Traveler. His voice suddenly sounded very weary.Your land tax for being an infidel, even for fellow People of the Book Christians and Jews will be called kharaz. Both of these taxes will be in addition to your mandatory alms the zakat. The punishment for failure to pay, or for paying late, a punishment meted out by your local qadi, religious judge, is death by stoning or beheading.
I folded my arms and looked away from the Time Traveler.
Under sharia which will be the universal law of Eurabia, persisted the Time Traveler, the value of a dhimmis life, the value of your grandchildren, is one half the value of a Muslims life. Jews and Christians are worth one-third of a Muslim. Indian Parsees are worth one-fifteenth. In a court of the Eurabian Caliphate or the Global Khalifate, if a Muslim murders a dhimmi, any infidel, he must pay a blood money fine not to exceed one thousand euros. No Muslim will ever be jailed or sentenced to death for the murder of any dhimmi or any number of dhimmis. If the murders were done under the auspices of Universal Compulsive Jihad, which will be sanctioned by sharia as of 2019 Common Era, all blood money fines are waived.
Go away, I said. Go back to wherever you came from.
I come from here, said the Time Traveler. From not so far from here.
Bullshit, I said.
Your enemies have gathered and struck and continue to strike and you, the innocents of 2006 and beyond, fight among yourselves, chew and rip at your own bellies, blame your brothers and yourselves and your institutions of the Enlightenment law, tolerance, science, democracy even while your enemies grow stronger.
How are we supposed to know who our enemies are? I turned and growled at him. The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.
Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you, said the Time Traveler. Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You havent figured that out yet the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.
He stood and set the Scotch glass back in its place on my sideboard. How, we wonder in my time, he said softly, can you ignore the better part of a billion people who say aloud that they are willing to kill your children . . . or condone and celebrate the killing of them? And ignore them as they act on what they say? We do not understand you.
I still had not turned to face him, but was looking over my shoulder at him.
The world, as it turns out, continued the Time Traveler, is not nearly so complex a place as your liberal and gentle minds sought to make it.
I did not respond.
Thucydides taught us more than twenty-four hundred years ago counting back from your time that all mens behavior is guided by phobos, kerdos, and doxa, said the Time Traveler. Fear, self-interest, and honor.
I pretended I did not hear.
Plato saw human behavior as a chariot pulled by precisely those three powerful and headstrong horses, first tugged this way, then pulled that way, continued the Time Traveler. Phobos, kerdos, doxa. Fear, self-interest, honor. Which of these guides the chariot of your nation and your allies in Europe and your surprisingly fragile civilization now, O Man of 2006?
I stared at the bookcase instead of the man and willed him gone, wishing him away like a sleepy boy willing away the boogeyman under his bed.
Which combination of those three traits -- phobos, kerdos, doxa -- will save or doom your world? asked the Time Traveler. Which might bring you back from this vacation from history from historys responsibilities and historys burdens that you have all so generously gifted yourselves with? You peaceloving Europeans. You civil-liberties loving Americans? You Athenian invertebrates with your love of your own exalted sensibilities and your willingness to enter into a global war for civilizational survival even while you are too timid, too fearful . . . too decent . . . to match the ruthlessness of your enemies.
I closed my eyes but that did not stop his voice.
At least understand that such decency goes away quickly when you are burying your children and your grandchildren, rasped the Time Traveler. Or watching them suffer in slavery. Ruthlessness deferred against totalitarian aggression only makes the later need for ruthlessness more terrible. Thousands of years of history and war should have taught you that. Did you fools learning nothing from living through the charnel house that was the 20th Century?
Id had enough. I opened my eyes, turned, reached into the top left drawer of my desk, and pulled out the .38 revolver that I had owned for twenty-three years and fired only twice, at firing ranges, shortly after it was given to me as a gift.
I aimed it at the Time Traveler. Get out, I said.
He showed no reaction. Do you want more than words? he asked softly. I will give you more than words. I give you eight million Jews dead in Israel incinerated and many more dead Jews in Eurabia and around the world. I give you the continent of Europe cast back more than five hundred years into sad pools of warring civilizations.
Get out, I repeated, aiming the revolver higher.
I give you an Asian world in chaos, a Pacific rim ruled by China after the vacuum of Americas withdrawal this nations full resources devoted to fighting, and possibly losing, the Century War a South America and Mexico lost to corruption and appeasement, a resurgent Russian Empire that has reclaimed its old dominated republics and more, and a Canada split into three hateful nations.
I cocked the pistol. The click sounded very loud in the small room.
We were speaking about ruthlessness, said the Time Traveler. If you fail to understand it at first, you learn it quickly enough in a war like the one you are allowing to come. Would you like to hear the litany of Islamic shrines and cities that will blossom in nuclear retaliatory fire in the decades to come?
Get out, I said for a final time. Im ruthless enough to shoot you, and by God I will if you dont get out of here.
The Time Traveler nodded. As you wish. But you should hear two last words, two last names . . .religious judge Ubar ibn al-Khattab and rector-imam Ismail Nawahda of New Al-Azhar University in London, part of the 200,000-man Golden Mosque of the New Islamic Khalifate in Eurabia.
What are those names to me or me to them? I asked. My finger was on the trigger of the cocked .38.
These religious officials were on the Islamic Tribunal that sentenced two dhimmis to death by stoning and beheading, said the Time Traveler. The dhimmis were your two grandsons, Thomas and Daniel.
What was . . . will be . . . their crime? I was able to ask after a long minute. My tongue felt like a strip of rough cotton.
They dated two Muslim women Thomas while he was in London on business, Daniel while visiting his aging mother, your daughter, in Canada without first converting to Islam. That part of sharia, Islamic law, is called hudud, and we know quite a bit about it in my time. Your grandsons didnt know the young women were Muslim since they both were dressed in modern garb - -thus violating their own societys ironclad rule of Hijab modesty. The girls, I hear, also died, but those were not sharia sentences. Not hudud. Their brothers and fathers murdered them. Honor killings . . . I think youve already heard the phrase by 2006.
If I were to shoot him, I had to do it now. My hand was shaking more fiercely every second.
Of course, the odds against one sharia court in London sentencing both your grandsons to death for crimes committed as far apart as London and Quebec City is too much of a coincidence to believe in, continued the Time Traveler. As is the fact that they would both be introduced to Muslim girls, without knowing they were Muslim, and go on a single dinner date with them at the same time, in cities so far apart. And Thomas was married. I know he thought he was having a business dinner with a client.
What . . . I began, my arm holding the pistol shaking as if palsied.
The Time Traveler laughed a final time. All of your grandsons names were on lists. You wrote something . . . will soon write something . . . that will put your name, and all your descendents names, on their list. Including your only surviving grandson.
I opened my mouth but did not speak.
According to their own writings, which we all know well in my day, continued the Time Traveler, Hadith Malik 511:1588 The last statement that Muhammad made was: "O Lord, perish the Jews and Christians. They made churches of the graves of their prophets. There shall be no two faiths in Arabia. And there are not. All infidels Christians, Jews, secularists -- have been executed, converted, or driven out. Israel is cinders. Eurabia and the New Khalifate is growing, absorbing what was left of the old, weak cultures there that once dreamt of a European Union. The Century War is not near over. Two of your three grandsons are now dead. Your remaining grandson still fights, as does one of your surviving granddaughters. Two of your three living granddaughters now live under sharia within the aegis of New Khalifate. They are women of the veil.
I lowered the pistol.
Enjoy these last days and months and years of your slumber, Grandfather, said the scarred old man. Your wake-up call is coming soon.
The Time Traveler said three last words and was gone.
I put the pistol away realizing too late that it had never been loaded and sat down to write this. I could not. I waited these three months to try again.
Oh, Lord, I wish that some person on business from Porlock would wake me from this dream.
It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the the Time Travelers last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.
Three words.
Sincerely,
(Note: Books commented on in this essay include The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing edited by John Keegan, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P. Huntington, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History by Lee Harris, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbit, and Replay by Ken Grimwood.)
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How are we supposed to know who our enemies are? I turned and growled at him. The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.
Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you, said the Time Traveler. Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You havent figured that out yet the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.
He stood and set the Scotch glass back in its place on my sideboard. How, we wonder in my time, he said softly, can you ignore the better part of a billion people who say aloud that they are willing to kill your children . . . or condone and celebrate the killing of them? And ignore them as they act on what they say? We do not understand you.
Use the Google cache.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2006 21:40 Comments ||
Top||
#4
To put it bluntly, Simmons is going to have problems getting anything published (except possibly by Baen) unless he disavows this story.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2006 21:50 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I liked it. And as far as getting published is concerned there are new channels opening up for author. For anyone who is interested in self-publishing I recommend www.lulu.com.
Knowing there are lots of military contacts here, I'm sure some our guys and gals would be pleased to receive a copy of this
Greetings From Rancho Mirage
By Ben Stein
Published 4/5/2006 2:29:42 AM
Tuesday
Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guard, Reservists, in Iraq, in the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan, in the area near Afghanistan, in any base anywhere in the world, and your families:
Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the cojones in the whole world right now and should be damned happy with yourselves and damned proud of who you are. It was a dazzlingly hot day here in Rancho Mirage today. I did small errands like going to the bank to pay my mortgage, finding a new bed at a price I can afford, practicing driving with my new 5 wood, paying bills for about two hours.
I spoke for a long time to a woman who is going through a nasty child custody fight. I got e-mails from a woman who was fired today from her job for not paying attention. I read about multi-billion-dollar mergers in Europe, Asia, and the Mideast. I noticed how overweight I am, for the millionth time.
In other words, I did a lot of nothing. Like every other American who is not in the armed forces family, I basically just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in my trivial, self-important, meaningless way.
Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because all he did was count his money.
And, friends in the armed forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with what you do every day, every minute, every second.
Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about "meaning" in life. For her, "meaning" is dieting and then having her photo on the cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world record for egomania ).This is not "meaning."
Meaning is doing for others. Meaning is risking your life for others. Meaning is putting your bodies and families' peace of mind on the line to defeat some of the most evil, sick killers the world has ever known. Meaning is leaving the comfort of home to fight to make sure that there still will be a home for your family and for your nation and for free men and women everywhere.
Look, soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Coast Guardsmen, there are eight billion people in this world. The whole fate of this world turns on what you people, 1.4 million, more or less, do every day. The fate of mankind depends on what about 2/100 of one percent of the people in this world do every day -- and you are those people. And joining you is every policeman, fireman, and EMT in the country, also holding back the tide of chaos.
Do you know how important you are? Do you know how indispensable you are? Do you know how humbly grateful any of us who has a head on his shoulders is to you?
Do you know that if you never do another thing in your lives, you will always still be heroes? That we could live without Hollywood or Wall Street or the NFL, but we cannot live for a week without you?
We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you every moment.
And Oprah Winfrey, if she were a size two, would not have one millionth of your importance, and all of the Wall Street billionaires will never mean what the least of you do, and if Barry Bonds hit ninety home runs it would not mean as much as you going on one patrol or driving one truck to the Baghdad airport.
You are everything to us, as we go through our little days, and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent man and woman on the planet.
That's who you are and what you mean. I hope you know that.
#4
This is very nice, thanks Ben. He is now on my "Must Buy" video list, no matter if I ever watch it or not. As far as I'm concerned support works both ways. I will never allow products that support/promote folks like Susan Sarandon or Sean Penn into my house. But for people like Ben and Bruce Willis I will buy two.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/05/2006 16:00 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Why's he getting down so much on Oprah? Did I miss something?
#6
He's not getting down on "O"...just pointing out that her "I am the center of universe, and all the planets and stars align around me" egocentric view of how everyone should feel about themselves is really a just a case of "bad gas" compared to the rock solid resolve of our armed forces.
I join Ben in thanking them for their service every chance I get.
Interesting discussion at Slashdot on an young girl at MIT who was told by the RIAA to DROP OUT OF SCHOOL to pay their fines for downloading music.
There are some major issues that need discussion here.
1) Entertainment being part of the culture - the insanely long copyrights (currently 130 years) deny legal access to culture to the in-mature young. (sort of like hold drugs in front of addicts then arrested them when they use them. Entrapment
2) Peer presure is exterme in the college enviornments... I remember be shocked when the oldest was in UCLA. Each floor had its SHARING SERVERS and everybody new when the latest booty was there. - Again, we need to revist what all these laws mean in a criminal and social sense. Are all High School and College Students to be declared DEFACTO criminals just like the justice systems assume ALL DRIVERS ARE SPEEDERS? Should the whole nation be declared criminal of something and put in jail.
3) What does it say about Business when they are putting the nation's FUTURE (in this case a young woman from MIT who can contribute to both Firms and the Nation out of the talented workforce for downloading a $1 song?) Short sighted comes to mind.
4) It reminds me of the the RIAA trying to put soldiers in Jail as they went off to fight the Iraq war. AMAZING comes to mind. Also, small minds in LA!
5) This criminalzation of life reached another stage in a LA suburb a few weeks ago when they banned smoking tabacco outside with a $1,000 fine. The fine for smoking Mary Jane was a factor of 10 or 20 less! What gives?
Anyway... we need to discuss appropriate fines and sentences for everything and behaivors of big business and big government in trying to make living life illegal and MAKING TAX PAYERS (not big biz) pay to convict and jail all these folks.
BTW... I am surprised that immature young people have not taken revenge on the RIAA and MPAA. It says something about them when compared to the Riots in France or the Car Swarms in the MidEast. That being they are basicly good kids.... we need a way to change behaivors of both them, society and business without wasting their lives!
/end rant
You may flame away on principle but think about the waste. Drug users and killers are not treated as bad as we are starting to treat people who commit more minor infractions.
#1
1) Entertainment being part of the culture - the insanely long copyrights (currently 130 years) deny legal access to culture to the in-mature young. (sort of like hold drugs in front of addicts then arrested them when they use them. Entrapment
Because, of course, there is no entertainment that isn't generated by the RIAA and MPAA.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/05/2006 12:35 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Excuse my spelling. I am really mad about this stuff. My spelling gets bad when I am mad.
#3
Back in the mid-90s, the boys in the executive suites of the entertainment industry did liberally dust both sides of the aisles of Congress with gold. In return they got a massive extension on the copyright period. All at the same time they continue to cook the books on accounting. They still charge music artist for 'breakage' in their write offs. Ever seen an AOL or Earthlink CD damaged in the mail? As far as I'm concerned the entire lot needs to have RICO dropped on them cause it'll take the executives' treasury rather than the business'. No prisoners taken. Oh, and demand of your quaking Pub representative concerned about November to repeal the G*D* Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.
#4
The RIAA thinks you should buy separate copies of music on CD's and for your portable (MP3) music players. Converting CD's to MP3's for personal use is apparently unfair. I think the RIAA and their pals in the movie industry (MPAA) are a bunch of [language inappropriate even for Rantberg deleted].
See, I'm like a murderer, see, I'm like a murderer
And I could rip you limb from limb
And I could rip you limb from limb
Great big thing crawlin' all over me
Great big thing crawlin' all over me
See, I'm like a murderer, I kill what I eat
See, I'm like a, I'm a hunter-gatherer, see, I kill what I eat
See, I'm a steelworker, I kill what I eat
See, I'm, I'm a bricklayer, I kill what I eat
See, I'm a, I'm a murderer, I kill what I eat
See, I'm a, I'm a hunter-gatherer, I kill what I eat
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
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