Europe United is the first pan-European party, which works towards United Europe. We serve the needs of an important and fast growing group of people, the pro-Europeans. Our mission is to defend integration and ultimately, advance the establishment of United Europe.
#1
I didn't read the article, but I want to make this comment;
Once, native Americans roamed these lands within a social behavior believed by them to be just and honorable. They protected and taught their children, respected their wives and elders, and retained a family and tribal life with duty and honor. Then, strangers came to their lands. The natives assumed that their treatment of the strangers would be just like their treatment of strange native Americans. All would be well, the land was abundant. But the strangers were different and played by different rules. There were problems, and natives were sometimes killed or driven out of their lands. The native Americans did not forsee the manifestations of the strangers' actions, they attempted to be reasonable. In time they lost more and more and began to fight back, but it was far too late and the natives fought alone with stick weapons. The strangers fought in groups with firearms. Today, the natives have lost all their former honor. Today they cannot roam with the herds or live off the land. They never could have imagined how disasterous the changes. They no longer achieve the stature of their ancestors.
Now, a new stranger has come ashore. There is ample space and he seems to stay to himself. He plays the game differently. His women cover themselves and do not communicate with us. There are things about his ways that suggest future problems. Problems that manifest great changes or violence against these changes. He believes he is right and all others are wrong and must be corrected.
An old native American came into my dream and told me that I am smarter than he. He said I will see the future and I will prevent it from happening. My tribe will attempt to stop me, but I will prevail.
The problems that plague Washington DC on the issue of Iran are the same problems that haunt America overall regarding Iraq -- no clear understanding of why we as a nation are doing what we are doing where we are doing it, and absolutely no system of accountability for those who are implicated, directly through their actions or indirectly through abrogation of duties and responsibilities, in embroiling America in such senseless conflict.
In this light, the current war in Iraq and the real possibility of war with Iran becomes the responsibility of "Big Oil," the "Neo Cons," the "Military Industrial Complex," and more recently, the "Israeli Lobby." Likewise, since these power nodes also control the mainstream media, one can begin to understand why it is that the pro-war message trumps the anti-war message every step of the way.
Of course, there is much merit in all of the above arguments. There are in fact special interest groups (the so-called "power nodes") which exude influence, both in terms of influencing the legislative agenda of elected officials as well as the overall "thematic" of mainstream media, far in excess of that which is healthy in an ostensibly representative democracy. But it is wrong, and futile, to simply blame these power nodes, or the institutions they have come to so heavily influence. These power nodes did not simply appear out of nowhere. They are a product of American history and culture, a manifestation of the reality that, even more so than the processes of representative democracy, America is a product of unadulterated capitalism.
All that is good and bad about our society today stems from that basic truth. The American capitalist system exists to make money, and that money ends up concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority of Americans toil in support of this massive capital generating behemoth.
In short, America as a nation is genetically constructed in a manner that places a premium on greed. However, the DNA that drives this greed gene requires a compliant host, which we could call the American citizenry, if it is to survive. There has always been a complicated Kabuki-type dance occurring between the American corporation and the American citizen, with a Constitutionally mandated system of governance, replete with pre-programmed checks and balances, serving as puppet master in an effort to preserve a relative balance.
The American system has been in collapse for many decades now, with the rise of corporate power occurring in direct relationship with the demise of concept and reality of individual citizenship. How America as a nation reacted to the horrific events of September 11, 2001 clearly put the manifestation of this collapse on center stage. Americans for the most part remained mute and motionless as the rights of the individual were infringed on irrationally by the so-called Patriot Act. In short, the current war in Iraq, and the looming war with Iran, can be explained as a manifestation of American capitalism gone mad.
The delicate balancing act that exists between capitalism and individual rights is a pre-requisite for American national survival. Fortunately, like most biological beings, there is an internal mechanism that recognizes when a system is out of alignment, and seeks to make the appropriate adjustments in time to forestall its demise. Since America is, first and foremost, a capitalist system, it is to capitalism that one must look to for these adjustments. We got the first inklings of this very sort of attitudinal wake-up call just this week, when Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, a Republican of distinction who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for the Bush administration to "cool it" on the issue of Iran.
Trivia Question #1: What famous organization employed Scott Ritter when he initially rose to fame?
Trivia Question #2: For how many years did Iran, a country that calls the United States "The Great Satan", violate its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations under the U.N.'s nose?
#9
Wow. You can almost see Scott strapped in the chair being pumped full of speed while the Wagner blares and the Evil America slideshow gets flashed at him at about 1000 frames a millisecond...
After 9/11 I tried to come up with an effective strategy that I would implement to eliminate the Islamofascist problem. Over time I have modified this strategy as I observed what was happening in the world.
My thoughts led to three basic tactical thrusts:
1. Eliminate the financing.
Basically this strategy means taking away the oil reserves from all of the Middle East. This would require a raw implementation of power to capture and hold all oil producing real estate in the region. We would then run the production facilities and maintain the proceeds from oil sales in a separate trust for the funding of our expenses for the operation and for the further implementation of steps 2 and 3. The facilities could be returned to the native population if the rest of the strategy proves successful.
2. Eliminate the Islamofascists.
This would require the termination of anyone involved by guilt or association with those who perpetrate or incite acts of terrorism or Islamic Imperialism. The range of people to be terminated would include those who perpetrate any act, those who incite them to such acts of terrorism, and the entire families of both of the two. Up to now we have allowed our principle of guilty until proven innocent to cloud our judgment in a non-western world. A brutally enforced Napoleonic code would appear to be more appropriate.
3. Eliminate the religious seeds.
This would require the development of a reformed pacifist Islam developed by Islamic scholars (if such a thing is possible) and the forceful conversion of every Muslim to the new creed. Failing this then the forced conversion to some other religion that promotes peaceful coexistence. If a pacifist Islam is created then the mosques and holy sites can remain, if not, then each and every one of them must be razed to the ground and a church/temple built in their place as the Spanish did in Mexico to the Aztec temples. The ultimate aim is the destruction of the impetus to violence that has existed for these hundreds of years.
For those doing the hand wringing that it can't be done, the History of Mexico proves them wrong.
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 09:04 ||
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#1
Brief and to the point, Danny. Well said. The bottom line is that we are fighting a global army that does not belong to any state. We need to treat them as such.
There is, in my opinion, a common misconception that we are fighting Muslims. While it's true that they fight under the banner of Islam, the enemy we fight is a global enemy consisting of communists, anti-Americans of many stripes, liberal elites using our own political system by enacting speech codes and laws that undermine our freedoms, politicians selling us out for votes and angry losers in need of a hateful cause.
Many of our enemies are our neighbors next door. And though they are more often than not, intelligent, nice, well meaning people, - the Islamists would have been defeated long ago if it were not for the enabling of our enemies from within. Many of these people are well meaning - not really doing much but providing support from their silence or foolish adherence to a belief system that prevents us from doing anything to take meaningful action.
But in the end, it will be these kind but foolish neighbors and family members, led by a destructive belief system, that will be our own undoing. If the huns are at the gates - it is these fools who are inviting them in.
These people can't be nuked, or simply eliminated. But instead the same factors that you listed need to be applied to them as well - eliminating the financing, exposing their alliances, and eliminating the "religious seeds" of their belief system of western self-hate and blame.
#2
I'm gonna go next door and off the Joneses. They're up to no good and I won't stand for it.
Unstated: Law Enforcement Model - or what?
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 12:33 Comments ||
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#3
2nd nice op piece from you.
Level headed, and most important, more likely to be applied than a "nukem all" apocalypse scenario I cannot see at all (we're not that type anymore, except if there really something HUGE that "shifts the paradigm", like Europe undergoing an obviously muslim motivated civil war with interventions by muslim neighbors, or a nuke in NYC).
Suits me, and the 2b remark about the global ennemy is quite on spot too, I think.
#4
But in the end, it will be these kind but foolish neighbors and family members, led by a destructive belief system, that will be our own undoing. If the huns are at the gates - it is these fools who are inviting them in.
That destructive belief system is a luxury afforded them by the relative safety of the societies in which they live. Without regular exposure to those that would destroy them and their way of life they have no incentive to disabuse themselves of their flawed notions. Sad though it is that suggests a direction this conflict must take before it can be truly resolved.
It's not about offing the joneses than it is about educating them and undoing the framework that is the foundation of their beliefs. Much like we say we need to correct the madrassas, we need to do the same for the hollowed halls of pc liberalism.
#6
2b - You've come a long way. :) That was a tease and you didn't let it get to you. Good.
AzCat just (surprisingly) shied away from saying CW, but you said it in another thread - and I applaud you for it.
Indeed, the most dangerous enemy lies within. No external force can actually threaten us - except perhaps economically. But from within we can be brought down because we haven't yet admitted that the same things which make us strong also make us vulnerable.
The very freedoms we fight for are turned against us in every way imaginable, the system and our institutions subverted and suborned. This will be a far tougher sell than knocking off the insane Mullahs.
How will we do it? How will we convince the Joneses to stop being willfully stupid? As AzCat said, "they have no incentive to disabuse themselves of their flawed notions". So true.
I expect a small movement will arise of its own accord when some new incredible outrage is sanctioned by the cabal of those who seek to undermine and destroy America. The Kelo decision is a fair enough example. Intuitively, 90% of Americans know it's wrong and insane. From there it will grow. Pray that there is another Washington, or at least a Simcox, among the leaders to keep it focused.
DanNY - Eliminate. Powerful word. Please clarify if you're inclined. Tons of questions... Examples: What model(s) will we use to deal internally and externally? Law Enforcement is going to fail - for the reasons 2b and I accept - subversion of the system by internal enemies. Or do you agree some internal "cleansing" must take place first?
Externally I think we'll be on our own. The Republic of Eastern Arabia could be matched by a Western Republic of Persia - as that strip of oil resources extends north through Kuwait all the way into the Caspian. Ready to do this? Resources?
I have no problem with it, just asking.
Note to you both: Dotcom is applauding you long and loud somewhere.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 13:19 Comments ||
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#7
I'm thinking the first step is to destroy our enemy, the MSM. Once we can replace them with factual reports, we can focus our society on the vial nature of Islam. We have seen it and so will the Joneses. Then, outlaw the practice of Islam in America. Jail the men, and free the women and children. For those too far gone, detention centers. Then, if time has not run out, save Europe.
One thing is for sure, we can talk until we're blue in the face, but if we take action, then some will join us, and some will attempt to block us. The latter will provide exposure, which is good. We must never forget that we act for America and Americans. Patriotism is a strong motivator.
#8
A mosque is anywhere, including a living room. Think about the magnitude of the project you contemplate when you say "razed to the ground": you've got to supervise a billion people, probably for at least half a century or so until the teachers die out. And even then, thanks to the inevitable political compromises, Muhammadanism wouldn't be completely gone. Notice how it and Greek Orthodoxy popped back up when the USSR went down.
Posted by: James ||
05/22/2006 13:46 Comments ||
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#9
taking away the oil reserves from all of the Middle East. This would require a raw implementation of power to capture and hold all oil producing real estate in the region.
Check out a map, identify how many miles of pipeline exist and how many major drilling and shipping facilities. Then look at how vulnerable the much smaller infrastructure in Iraq is and how often it has been sabotaged.
Then do the math re: numbers of soldiers, backed up say by armed UAVs, would be needed to hold that infrastructure AND KEEP IT FUNCTIONING, without a collapse of the global economy.
Not gonna happen, I don't think. It's not a bad idea, but not practical -- especially if we're talking US and maybe Aussie troops alone. and for give me, but apart from the Brits, who else would even conceivably sign on?
#10
...but apart from the Brits, who else would even conceivably sign on?
Sounds like a project for a hypothetical American Foreign Legion. Pay them via oil revenues from the seized fields and it'll have the additional positive effect of removing from our books the oil supply security subsidy for which American taxpayers currently foot the bill. The sheer size of the effort might make it unworkable though.
#13
Is Mr. Ebbereth Jeans9622, in addition to taking a pot shot at the dreaded and loathed middle America, somehow threatening civil war or something? If so, I'd go with the side which has the demography and the guns... and that ain't his.
#16
Dear anonymous5089, threatening civil war is a favorite exercise of some of the regulars here. Go ahead and ask them. I wasn't the first to come up with that notion.
As to your demography question, I will suggest that the next civil war in the US won't be a solely domestic affair; you'd have pissed off Mexicans, Castro (if he's still alive, which could very well be), Chavez, other latin American nutcases, Al-Qaeda and their sponsors the Saudis, China most probably (but ever so discreetly), and Russia all too happy to make money supplying AK47s and RPGs.
Then there's the US officer corps. If it's a repeat of Civil War 1, over 50% will go to one side (stay on one side is more appropriate, as it would not be the Democrats who start the festivities.)
Let's hope we don't have to find out, yes?
Interesting. I had to pause there for a moment. What's the difference between finding out, and going down the path you're hypothesizing about? It will get us the same outcome in the end, mutually assured destruction. Either way, you will have left a mess for your daughter.
#17
That destructive belief system is a luxury afforded them by the relative safety of the societies in which they live. Without regular exposure to those that would destroy them and their way of life they have no incentive to disabuse themselves of their flawed notions. Sad though it is that suggests a direction this conflict must take before it can be truly resolved.
Ya gotta simplify that line....
Usually I just agree that peace, love universal harmony and good business are my goals too.
Then I ask: " So... How close to YOU PERSONALLY does something have to blow up before you get it ?"
#21
It didn't fly past me. Doesn't mean I agree with the poster of that comment though. You do seem to conflate differing opinions, EJ. And you continue to fail to acknowledge that many of those who do foresee a need - or the desireability, in some cases - for a serious confrontation with large numbers of Muslims come to that conclusion reluctantly and without joy.
#24
Then, outlaw the practice of Islam in America. Jail the men, and free the women and children.
Wouldnt this open a Pandoras Box with the next logical step the outlaw of additional if not all religious practice? This makes me uneasy. I would hope that I am not alone in saying this.
1. To eliminate the financing we must stop Iran. This can be done by air strike or SF teams. We must make the interest of that government more directed on survival than the spread of Islamic fascism. Second is the Soddies. We must individually strike, kill, the folks financing this and seize their assets.
2. Release the teams to eliminate the Mullas that are heading terrorist cells and inciting hate.
3. I think this block will take care of itself as they realize peaceful coexistence means survival. When the Mullas that insite hate are gone, the rest will follow in a peaceful manner.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/22/2006 15:52 Comments ||
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#26
I'm guessing madam. Dear anonymous5089, threatening civil war is a favorite exercise of some of the regulars here. Go ahead and ask them. I wasn't the first to come up with that notion
sounds like a school marm.
In case you haven't noticed - it's not 5089 that's been written off, but people like you.
#27
Piffle! I think this should replace Troll, works as a noun and a verb. Ltop this really was right on time! LOL
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/22/2006 15:58 Comments ||
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#28
bool, I have the same sort of concern you have.
One place to start at home is the hate preaching, incenting to violence, that sort of thing which is happening, often only in the Arabic side, in mosques in this country.
We know it's going on here in the US with Saudi funding. I'm pretty libertarian in my tendencies so I get antsy about laws / government agencies that can easily crack down on beliefs.
Incitement is another matter, however. And sunlight is quite a useful disinfectant. Heavily publicizing what is being preached, here and abroad, would be eye-opening for many. If that were to stiffen spines so that a clear show of resolve is made, it might - might - obviate the need for more direct confrontation.
As I've said many times over, it is my deep hope that such a need can be avoided. But I am not willing to categorically rule it out if it comes to that.
#29
wxjames pointed out the problem: the MSM won't report it straight, so the sunlight doesn't get there unless, by some twist, it fits the agenda. Such as something they can spin to blame on Bush.
EJ is here for therapy. Self esteem is a delicate thing.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 16:04 Comments ||
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#30
I think we need to start enforcing laws that deal with incitment to murder and treason. It's going to happen - no society can tolerate traitors who threaten their security. It's just a matter of if we are going to take measured steps or let things go too far - forcing people to take security into their own hands.
#31
Doesn't mean I agree with the poster of that comment though.
Wouldn't hurt to explicitly state that once in a while. Otherwise your silence may be interpreted in many different ways. Other than that, I've noticed you spend a heck of alot of effort defending and making up excuses for such comments. For example:
And you continue to fail to acknowledge that many of those who do foresee a need - or the desireability, in some cases - for a serious confrontation with large numbers of Muslims come to that conclusion reluctantly and without joy.
Come back when you are serious about discussing which of the hard options facing us should be chosen and why.
I'm astounded (but not really surprised anymore) that you think you are already at this juncture. What is happening at your neck-of-the-woods that would necessitate a confrontation with a large group of Muslims? (Confrontation is rather vague. It was extermination that I had a problem with.) Any suicide bombers in Trenton, New Jersey? Beheadings in Boston? Whatever Muslim depravity you care to read about is still only happening on a large scale in places where the literacy rate is usually below 50%. And please don't mention Europe as a counterexample. You like to paint with a broader brush than you actually have (there's a better aphorism for this but it doesn't translate well).
Afghanistan was the proper response to 9/11 and if you hadn't gotten sidetracked by Iraq, you would have been much further along.
#35
Why - no. I don't think you are behind the Muslims - I think you are right there with them. You belong to a belief system that elevates your sense of superiority by finding others to blame. Ironically it usually means that you point fingers at white, middle class Christians - those ignorant peasants who aren't as cultured and refined as you - and of course jews zionists. You are all about creating a caliphate nanny state where God the government will take care of you. You're a coward - willing to bravely stand up for anything that doesn't result in actual danger to yourself. A real rebel - as long as you don't get hurt.
I'm sure you are nice person - despite the fact that you write probably just like you talk - down your nose.
#36
Oh so the muslims are only killing the stupid people in other countries so we Americans should just shrug
Well no, you could also start rounding up Muslims in the US as a response to killing that goes on half-way around the globe. Or use neutron bombs, as one person suggested yesterday. That's the kind of over-reaction you seem to prefer.
it wouldn't hurt for you to read a bit more carefully,
#37
I don't think you are behind the Muslims - I think you are right there with them.
My, my, my. Thanks for clarifying that and many more things.
BTW, nice effort yesterday on the genocide thread. What happened today? Didn't want to give the appearance of being against your buddies here? You brave person you.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 16:48 Comments ||
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#39
When did I say nuke them, don't attribute something to me I didn't say and one Beslan over here in America and yes, you bet muslims will be rounded up.
I did say the is going to be a war that kills alot of people because people like you excuse the muslims for their atrocities
#40
Your welcome. I've been consistent in my position since the beginning. The biggest problem we face is lemmings like you. So proud as you jump off the cliff. I'm assuming you are a liberal - a proud member of a failed 20th century ideology.
#41
I did say the is going to be a war that kills alot of people because people like you excuse the muslims for their atrocities
This is getting better and better. I'll take lotp's advice and mention that surely you don't mean that all Muslims commit atrocities. Or do you? This can get so confusing at times.
Lots of good posters here. You bore me.
And to the contrary, you fascinate me. In fact, I've learned much more over these two days that I could ever have hoped for. Certainly it clarified some things for me. And I have you to thank for that.
#43
Alright Anom since you know who all the good muslims are and we don't maybe you can go around picking out all the bad ones out and the last estimate that about 10 percent of 1 billion so 10 million muslims that way only the bad ones die.
Not I. I am merely pointing out that you seem to attempt to interpret selected comments here without either acknowledging differences of opinion among those you oppose or having any sense of the characteristic stances of regular posters, when irony or exaggeration is being used intentionally or, in fact, any other aspect of the semiotics of posts.
Context, EJ, context. Regulars here read my comments in the context of a number of years of regular posts. You on the other hand miss even statements made openly in the last two days.
Context in another way, as well. It is interesting to see just how detached you have tried to make the discussion from the atrocities to which others here have been responding with anger and heat. Regulars at Rantburg know, to our dismay and growing rage, that there is a serious ethnic cleansing going on against Buddhists, by Muslims, in the southern 3 provinces of Thailand. They know that ill-paid, inoffensive, gentle Buddhist elementary school teachers have been killed in increasing numbers, in some cases by brutal and excruciatingly painful decapitation.
Regulars at Rantburg remember - if many others would prefer not to know - the young schoolgirls in Indonesia who were also killed last year, by decapitation while alive, for the horrid offense of being Christians, being female and being on their way to learn to read, write and do arithmetic. They know of similar atrocities being perpetrated in the name of Islam in Pakistan, in Africa, in Iraq.
They know too, of the rapidly accelerating practice of gangrapes of non-Muslim women and girls in the banlieus of France, in Marmo, in Copenhagen, in Norway, by young men taught, in the name of Islam, to regard all non-Muslims as filth, as pigs and dogs if they have a religion, as whores if they are female.
How comforting, how ... insulating ... it must be to view such actions - which are being replicated in dozens of countries around the world, encouraged by prominent Muslim preachers and against which few if any Muslim voices have been raised, or with any effectiveness - from the sterile tower of detached theorizing.
Your amused tone of condescension signals all anyone needs to know about your shallowness and emptiness of heart.
I think it's called the "Patented Liberal Sneer," and as affectations go, it's pretty lame.
We've seen it before, usually in people who are too cowardly to simply state their views forthrightly and be done with it-- like with this supercilious little prick.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 17:34 Comments ||
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#46
Whether the basis of the opinions here are the laundry list of anecdotal examples of Muslim aggression against all other cultures or the astonishing popularity of terrorists, terrorist organizations, and terrorist acts throughout the Muslim world I think you'll find that most who see the coming clash of civilizations see exactly that, a probable outcome given current events and attitudes throughout the Muslim world and where the Muslim world interacts with others.
For my part the issue stems from my belief that we cannot change Islam but rather must accept it on its own terms which, today and for centuries past, have been, "Submit or die." Barring the most astoundingly rapid spontaneous shift in cultural attitudes in the history of mankind I also believe we will eventually find ourselves embroiled in a shooting war with the entire Muslim world. I would like very much to believe that Islam can and will rapidly morph into a peaceful tolerant movement that can coexist with other cultures but given its history that's not the way to bet.
surely you don't mean that all Muslims commit atrocities. Or do you? This can get so confusing at times.
If course not all commit them - but the majority of them condone them with their silence. I would also say that the majority of the media also condones them with their silence.
When the IRA tossed a bomb at a catholic girls school a few years ago just about every christian denounced it as a henious act. When the muslims of Serbia were being rounded up and slaughtered we (the west) stepped in and stopped it by force of arms.
When muslims take over a school in Russia and gang-rape children and bayonett babies - nonthing is said. The media calls them 'hostage-takers' and refuses to even mention the rapes and murders - never mind that they were - to a person - Muslim extreamists. For years arab muslims have been terrorising, murdering, and commiting gang-rapes in Dafur (against black muslims - for the crime of being black) and the U.N. spends years gazing at its navel and wondering if its genocide - and MSM worries about what happened to a blonde bimbo in Aruba.
I'm sorry but if an ignorant villager in Dafur, or a schoolgirl in Indonesia, or a catholic schoolgirl in Ireland or a little boy in Beslin or a schoolteacher in Thailand or some poor smuck in Iraq or a rape-victim in Iran is killed or harmed *I* care about it. I don't judge people by their 'social standings' or their GPA or what school they attended or if they are black or white or brown or pink or yellow with green pokadots. I do however judge them by their character and their acts.
Yes - that sounds kind of stupid and tripe. So what?
#49
"I would like very much to believe that Islam can and will rapidly morph into a peaceful tolerant movement that can coexist with other cultures but given its history that's not the way to bet."
Until the last couple of months my attitude was, "let's see if what we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan makes a difference."
But frankly, it doesn't look very much like it has had any positive effect at all-- and I would have expected to see one by now. Instead, it looks more like the entire ummah is building up a head of steam to go off on a rip-roaring jihad toot of millenial proportions.
Slaughtering schoolteachers in Thailand. Calling for the beheading of cartoonists. Suicide bombings all over the place-- still. Ahmamadnutjob threatening to annihilate Israel. And America and Britain still too timid to expell even those plainly bent on mayhem.
Where will it lead? I shudder.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/22/2006 18:05 Comments ||
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#50
So far as I can figure, EJ thinks that Afghanistan was the proper response to 9/11 and that nothing more should be done to eliminate terrorism. I can only assume this because It does not say anything about doing anything. All it does is attempt to pick everyone else apart.
EJ I have been reading your posts and have concluded that you are an intelligent person who is ignorant because you refuse to give due consideration to the facts at hand.
You are afraid to face them, because you lack the will to even suggest that something should be done that isn't teaching or hugging.
You EJ, are a loser. You were born a loser to a loser family in a loser nation. As a youth it was not your fault, but it has long past time to take responsibilty. You are now a loser by your own choice. Wake up and die right. Loser.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/22/2006 18:08 Comments ||
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#51
Not I.
Oh yes you, and you do it very well. I'll give you that.
when irony or exaggeration is being used intentionally
Oh so that's all that was? Exaggeration? My bad then.
There's no requirement on my part, or any other reader who walks in for the first time, to know the histories, experiences, credentials, etc of all the people who post here, whether they've been commenting for decades, or five minutes. I go by what is said at the given moment. And besides, I don't believe context would change anything in this matter. You seem to believe that it would somehow mitigate such statements, when that is not so. Not in this serious matter anyway. A well-meaning Muslim reading this would hardly care about context.
It is interesting to see just how detached you have tried to make the discussion from the atrocities to which others here have been responding with anger and heat.
I find it equally interesting that you seem to able to make the leap from the one or few, to the many, and you seem equally at ease with defending comments that place blame on all Muslims. That's a notion I am not comfortable with, because as it has been made clear here many times, I might be in the crosshairs as well.
I chose to narrow my focus to the over-the-top reaction (which I think it is) of some of the comments here. I am not oblivious to the atrocities that go on every day all over the planet. My response to them is much more tempered however.
encouraged by prominent Muslim preachers and against which few if any Muslim voices have been raised, or with any effectiveness
Most likely true. But I hope this isn't some new standard you are introducing - to be effective - in an attempt to lower the threshold for yourself.
Your amused tone of condescension signals all anyone needs to know about your shallowness and emptiness of heart.
You are equally adept at this condescension thing, see comment #23. You and others hold no moral high ground here. As to the emptiness of heart, I'll leave that to a more objective judge.
#52
If you want to know what EJ thinks, just turn on the news, pick up an issue of Time or NYT or any other outlet of popular culture and they will all tell you exactly what she thinks....word for word.
That's why I love rantburg. Orignal thought from orignal people rather than the constant mind crushingly boring droning repetition of unoriginal thought.
Azcat, you might as well have said, "For my part the issue stems from my belief that we cannot change liberalism but rather must accept it on its own terms which, today and for centuries past, have been, "Submit or die."
It's all one in the same. Submit to one means - you submit - to the other it means I'll submit. Kind of a kinky S&M game for dysfuntional losers.
#55
I don't mind an occasional descending voice, but I have to wonder whether these leftists have ever viewed the site 'thereligionofpeace.com' or do they simply believe 'all that's fit to print' in the MSM ? I good mind could be lost, poisoned into useless jello digesting too much MSM.
When the real fighting starts, we will have to house our muslim captives with our lefties. It will be a cleansing fer sure.
If our hearts were empty, there'd be smoking holes where there's now Afghanistan's 1st escalator and Iraq's hope.
I understand they just had a trade fair there which was successful.
One would think since Iraq's (supposedly) going to hell in a handbasket, they wouldn't come, but they did.
You don't get us, but we do get you. Always did, which is why our ancestors chose to face horrible voyages, unknown wilderness, coyote, bear, snake, extreme temperatures, etc. instead of staying among civilization.
#58
I may part company with you there 2b. I do still believe that the majority of the political left is well-intentioned, ignorant, misguided, foolish, short-sighted, and a host of other things but generally well-meaning.
The difference between Islam and the political left is that as rhetoric turns to violence and violence escalates and spreads most on the political left will eventually put down their utopian fantasies and deal with the hard realities of the moment, in other words most on the left can change their perspective. Centuries of history call into doubt Islam's ability to do likewise.
#62
EJ thinks that Afghanistan was the proper response to 9/11 and that nothing more should be done to eliminate terrorism.
Terror should be fought and terrorists should be hunted down.
I can only assume this because It does not say anything about doing anything.
There's no requirement on my part to provide specific solutions. There are far more intelligent people than me who should be tasked with that job. However I don't have to sit idly by, or defend solutions (whether by silence or not) that are obviously asinine, not to mention revolting to the core of my being.
Secondly, and more to the point, I deeply believe that we are not yet at the juncture where we have to defend ourselves by going on the offensive against all Muslims. And going against all Muslims is what you are talking about here, isn't it?
I have been reading your posts and have concluded that you are an intelligent person who is ignorant
Well which is it? Pick one or the other.
You are afraid to face them, because you lack the will to even suggest that something should be done that isn't teaching or hugging.
I am a Christian, Roman Catholic specifically, who believes in giving people the benefit of the doubt. All people. I have far too many logs stuck in my eye to start holding others to a higher standard. I am not a pacifist however, and firmly believe in measured intervention when injustices exist in this world.
You EJ, are a loser....Wake up and die right. Loser.
Whether or not I am a loser remains to be seen. It's pretty haughty of you to make that assumption. As a parting shot, let me remind you that you could end up winning every battle and still lose the war. Cheers.
#63
I think the left will come around to, but they always seem to wait till the last minute and unfortunately alot of people die in the process.
I'm not so certain that waiting until late in the game to employ overwhelming force isn't one of the characteristics that separates civilization from barbarism.
#67
Most Americans who watched #175(?) hit the South Tower knew what end game was.
What you take issue w/is it's being discussed out loud - which is an American trait.
What you should really take issue w/is that the other side has done nothing to stop it and the EUSSR is helping it along.
Europe has had numerous opportunities from Charles Martel on to end it, but you didn't - you only stopped it for awhile.
Once again, we have to fix your mistakes which we've been doing a lot these past 100 years at great cost to everyone.
I don't know if you truly appreciate how tired we're getting of fixing your mistakes. And some are giving serious consideration whether or not we should continue.
But first, once again, Europe can show us the right way on how to fix them. And again there'll be clean up in Aisle 3.
#74
Better correct than alive. You showed us stupid Americans how to be correct when after killing 58 people on subways and busses, the murderers bodies were shipped back to Pakistan for a hero's funeral. Congratulations on the unforgettable education you gave us ignorant Americans with that episode.
Pity the football stadium bombing was broken up. A 10,000 lb bomb in centerfield should collapse the lungs of the 80,000 fans. Can you imagine the Pakistani hero's funeral for killing 80,000 of the hated infidels? A procession not seen since the days of Babar.
Care for ricin with your tea?
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2006 20:29 Comments ||
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#75
--There are far more intelligent people than me who should be tasked with that job.--
Another difference between Europeans and Americans.
We aren't you, never have been, never will be.
When you made the comment about coming after you next, you were projecting cos that's what you'd do.
#77
I am a Christian, Roman Catholic specifically, who believes in giving people the benefit of the doubt.
How many times, where is your "Reality Check" set? What level of filth do you tolerate before realising the idea of "Turn the other cheek" simply makes the mass murderers behave worse?
W@hen you do turn the cheel, and your own loved ones are murdered, raped?
When you realize that they really do mean to destroy the Catholic Faith to the last crying baby?
What is "Enough"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/22/2006 21:36 Comments ||
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#78
Ants are trying to take over my house. Today my cat was toying with an ant on the kitchen floor. I could have let her play with it for a while. Instead, I squished it. I could never be a moderator.
#79
From #6: DanNY - Eliminate. Powerful word. Please clarify if you're inclined. Tons of questions... Examples: What model(s) will we use to deal internally and externally? Law Enforcement is going to fail - for the reasons 2b and I accept - subversion of the system by internal enemies. Or do you agree some internal "cleansing" must take place first?
I think a law placing internal Islamist related crimes into a special category of espionage/subversion to be tried in military courts would suit the purpose. Civil courts are worse than useless for this type of prosecution. Of course a manadatory sunset clause should be built in to ensure the law is not abused after its primary function is completed. I do not believe internal 'cleansing' is necessary or desireable. I think the majority of Americans at this point see the need for draconian action to break the current stalemate (for lack of a better term) in our approach to Islam. Let the barking moonbats bray all they wish, they will eventually be ignored as the isolationists were after pearl harbor.
The extent of military action required is somewhat daunting but doable. Since we will then have the oil proceeds to finance the operation we could hire mercenaries (as in countries) to run specific areas. As to sabotage, it may have some effect but not likely enough to cause serious shortages. Being in control of production we can set the price of the oil low enough and consistent enough to avert the price shocks we have been experiencing. Evacuate the areas that need to be secured. Drill more of our own reserves. All of this will help.
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 21:52 Comments ||
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#80
Too much reliance on mercenaries has a pernicious effect. c.f. the Romans, for just one example.
I understand why we have 'contractors' in Iraq right now, but it's not a trend I want to encourage too very much in general. I look at the next 10-15+ years, see the breakup of lots of geopolitical structures and then think about mercenary armies building up ... Italy for centuries comes to mind, the direct background behind today's Mafia, those mercenary armies ...
I was referring to hiring countries as in say, India to run an area with their forces being funded/subsidized by the oil revenues. I did not mean building mercenary armies.
One of the major issues would be how to start a process like this rolling since an incremental approach won't work.
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 22:45 Comments ||
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You're one to talk. All this energy expended attacking me, yet...
I will admit - I was shocked by my own reversal of outlook - and realized that I am now truly an advocate of outright genocide of the global Islamic population - as an unfortunate, yet necessary preemptive action - Lone Ranger
Destroy the madrasses, with the Muslim children inside. Past time to go Viking on these barbaric throw-backs...Ten years ago I never would have thought it possible that I would advocate the extermination of an entire group of people. - Manolo
Anyone defending these statements is sick. No different then the islamofascists. Why should I care then, whether you win? You and Ahmadinejad deserve each other. God help us all.
I have been absent for most of todays discussions but have read them with interest this evening. However, nowhere have I seen you provide an idealistic or otherwise solution to the situation. What would you do if it were in your power to act? You can assume that you have no great powers of persuasion or force than the rest of us mere mortals. The world wonders...
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 23:14 Comments ||
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#85
What would you do if it were in your power to act?
This type of argument isn't even clever anymore, and it's along the same lines as "prove to me that God exists".
I can tell you what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't replace one evil with another. How's that?
#86
I'll tell you what I do find clever though: that you used the phrase Final Solution as part of the title of your enlightened piece. Tell me, are you going to continue borrowing phraseology from those times? Is this something that has become acceptable in your mind?
One who can only criticize is unimportant (in the American Indian sense) to argue with.
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 23:33 Comments ||
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#88
I'd consider it a virtue to criticize maniacal hatred, and speak against it when no one else will. If only so that it stays on the record, that someone did.
#90
"I'd consider it a virtue to criticize maniacal hatred, and speak against it when no one else will. If only so that it stays on the record, that someone did."
Well then partner a few good words against the maniacal hatred that killed close to three thousand people in my city would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 23:50 Comments ||
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#91
I didn't see myself giveng support to any particular point rather pointing out your blindness and lack of morals.
As a Cathloic you should be trying to save the poor children being parted out live for Osama's profit.
To ignore the littlest among us is to deny your professed faith in Jesus. Children were #1 with him.
"Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for to such belong the kingdom of heaven."
"If any among you should harm even a hair on these little ones heads......"
Perhaps you fit better with:
"A camel can fit through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven"
And these bible quotes from this secular human who only a few times a year graces his Lutheran Church.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/23/2006 0:04 Comments ||
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#97
But DanNY - that would be .. like... taking a stand for something. EJ can't do that! Besides they Islamist might take offense.
EJ is full of shit - and it smells worse then my son's diaper. He would'nt do anything - just sit and whine about how unfair it is and how much it intrudes on *his* life. He is the one who would stand around and watch while a woman was beheaded in front of him and he had the power to stop it. And then bitch when someone takes out a gun and blows the beheader away. "Oh my! Did you have to kill him? I mean couldn't you have shot his hand or something? That poor man! You MONSTE! YOU MURDERER!!".
The thing is, who do Americans care about more: other Americans or terrorist?
It seems that terrorist receive more sympathy from some journalist than our own soldiers!
I read an article on the ABC news website describing, Harsh interrogation techniques that America has used to get information from the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
ABC received their information about the torture from CIA officials who didnt want to give their names. They believed, as I do, that the public should know what is being done to these prisoners. Fair enough.
Now lets compare notes: A prisoner from Gitmo told ABC, "They would not let you rest, day or night. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Don't sleep. Don't lie on the floor,"
Or
In my notes I have: Daniel Pearls head being sawed off and then being placed on his dead body. Remember now, Daniel was a reporter, not a solider.
I read on the ABC website, The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album.
I dont know how to compete with that. Except for that unfortunate accident about 5 years back when those planes crashed into the World Trade Center buildings. Listening to Eminem, or the wholesale slaughter of 2,800 people? Hmm close call.
Theres a list of tortures that the CIA offcials told ABC about. I am glad to be able to read this information and you should be, also. Because, I thought that we were doing things such as, Chinese water torture or the slices bamboo up the fingernails trick. But, let me name a few of the tortures which you can see for yourself on the ABC website.
In the Attention Grab, The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him. The Belly Slap is a hard open-handed slap to the stomach which is intended to cause pain. The long standing technique is exactly what it sounds like. The prisoner stands for long periods of time exceeding 40 hours. In another technique, the prisoner is made to stand in a cell naked where the temperature is kept around 50 degrees. While he is chilling out, they douse him with cold water.
Once more. Compare those tortures with having your head, not sliced off quickly but, sawed off! I have seen it and there is nothing to say. To hear and see Daniel Pearl, a man I had never meant nor ever would meet, screaming with all of his might for his captors to stop to see a man murdered brutally; murdered by cowards who would not even reveal their faces, before your very eyes Let me ask you this: If someone gave you a choice of dieing by the appropriate method, which includes (1) saw, (1) neck and the meeting of the two objects with the result being decapitation, approved of by so many people who just want to see the president out of office, or, you had to stand up for 60 hours. What would you choose?
I understand completely that Americans doesnt want to lower themselves by committing such acts. However, this world is a global community. Mohamed Atta could have been born is America and lived his life working as a fireman in Utah. Ziad Jarrahi, another 9/11 hijacker, could have been moved to America and started a success restaurant chain. We are neither above nor below anyone on this planet. We are all humans. By acting as if, We are Americans and since we are better than the rest of the world, we would not possibly commit the crimes that the terrorist are committing, we will end up killing ourselves! What do you think a military interrogator should do to get information from the prisoners he is interrogating? Offer him banana pudding? By simply asking him to tell you what his motives are? And what if the prisoner says, I dont want to tell you! What then? The interrogator still has officers and soldiers fighting and dieing in the field! It is absolutely ridiculous that we have Americans fighting on the side of the terrorist! Calling these terrorist such things as freedom fighters when they purposefully keep women subjugated.
The English Empire was the greatest empire the world had ever seen. But, during the Revolutionary war, England played by the rules because the rules they made always worked and made them great. America didnt have to play by any rules; we were a newly formed nation. America defeated the greatest military power in the world simply because England was unwilling to try a new approach. Liberal women of America, does the thought of men forcing you into submission and forcing you to believe as they do, is that a desirable trait in a man?
If they were out of uniform and not obviously identifed as part of the enemy then it is not - according to the Geneva Conventions. They can be summarily shot dead - they are not protected. They are illegal combatants.
They should be shot on the spot where they're found.
After all, we want to follow the Geneva Conventions, don't we?
That's what the UN and world claim they want, right?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2006 17:25 Comments ||
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#9
Are Terrorist Being Tortured?
Who Cares? Shoot em with bullets coated in pork grease, dump bodies in ditches lined with pig offal. Did I forget anything? Oh, yeah! Last meal, pork sammitches with pig lard dressing.
#10
Its NOT Socialism or Communism, but "anti-Fascism" i.e. anti-Rightist SOCIALISM; its NOT "the International Proletariat Revolution", but "the UNO", the "World Community", and how America must obey = respect the same. Universal Anti-Capitalist, anti-Materialist, Property-less, Global/International, Individual-centric Utopia = UNIVERSAL GOVERNMENTISM, REGULATORY CENTRALISM, and TOTALITARIANISM/ABSOLUTISM - you know, Laissez faire Libertarianism!?
Blue Security was a company in California that defended against unwanted Internet advertising, not international terrorists, yet its fate tells us something very scary about the workings of politics in such matters.
To fight the never-ending flow of spam, as such junk (and often obscene) mail is called, Blue Security sent out 522,000 messages to each spammer. This consisted of the equivalent of one complaint from each of the company's clients that the senders of such annoying and useless messages stop bothering them.
Then, however, one Russian-based company escalated the war. It used special programs to take over huge numbers of computers all over the world -- without the knowledge of their unsuspecting owners -- to send even more spam messages that blocked Blue Security's site.
The Russian company then issued a warning that sounded like something yelled from an 18th-century pirate ship to a freighter it intended to plunder. If Blue Security did not close down, the computer terrorists would deluge all of its customers with attacks of viruses designed to destroy their computers. Blue Security raised the white flag and went out of business.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Holland, the government announced that it was taking away citizenship from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, undoubtedly one of the most courageous people in the world. Ali was a Somali-born member of parliament who championed the rights of Muslim women. She has been the target of so many death threats from radical Islamists that she has lived in what amounts to protective custody by Holland's government during the last four years.
Fears for her safety are not exaggerated. Since she announced that she no longer considers herself a Muslim, this is equivalent to a death sentence under Islamic law. Moreover, a Dutch filmmaker who worked with her on a film about the mistreatment of women in the Muslim community was killed by an Islamist immigrant terrorist on a street in Amsterdam.
Ali is accused of lying on her application for asylum 14 years ago when she wrote that she was fleeing a forced marriage in war-torn Somalia. She continues to insist that the part about the marriage was true. Ali admits to lying about her previous location, since she had been living with her family -- who were legitimate political refugees -- in Kenya.
Nominally, she is being prosecuted by an immigration ministry that is trying to enforce its rules more toughly. Yet what could be more ironic than throwing out the one immigrant to Holland who has worked hardest and most effectively to ensure that immigrants are moderate, law-abiding and ready to adjust to Dutch norms? Meanwhile, many immigrants preaching hatred and extremism -- and with less of a claim to political asylum -- remain in Holland.
One can only suspect that the real reason is that Ali is losing her Dutch citizenship because she worked too hard for her cause. The desire of radical Islamists to murder her, preferably after torture, forces the Dutch government to spend resources and take risks to keep her alive. Perhaps this action is in itself a gesture of appeasement to extremists, trying to ward them off by waving one's hands in surrender. To its credit, the British government never looked for some loophole to kick out the author Salman Rushdie, who for years was the target of Iranian-inspired assassination attempts.
Indeed, some of Ali's neighbors sued her in court saying that her presence in the area was both a security problem and a nuisance for them. She lost the case and has to move out of her apartment. Now she must move out of Holland altogether, her existence apparently having become a security problem and nuisance for the entire country.
What do the Blue Security and Ayaan Hirsi Ali cases have in common? If free societies are incapable -- or, even worse, unwilling -- of defending their people against terrorists and pirates, this fact does not bode well for the future of freedom. Moreover, it is rather obvious that those who will be first and most intensively targeted are precisely the people who are fighting hardest against the terrorists.
If those defending the frontiers of liberty, be it against computer pirates or Islamist terrorists, are allowed to fall, then precisely who is going to be willing to defend the rest of us?
#2
bad guys abound
cruel, nasty, brutish, and short
Posted by: bk ||
05/22/2006 12:04 Comments ||
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#3
I've been doing essentialy the same thing.
I keep all the "Nigerian Scam" letters I get in a file, and whenever I get another, I send that one about 50 replies a day, one exact copy each of the last letters as they came in, when I run out of filed letters (220 currently) I either have no response from that person at all ever again, or more likely around the 4th day they block my E-address so I can't flood them anymore.
Works for me, very few even attempt a reply.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/22/2006 21:50 Comments ||
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The ideological conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has left room for the Taliban.
By Tarique Niazi for The Jamestown Foundation (22/05/06)
The bilateral relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains frozen and is governed by the two countries' geopolitical rivalries, which have unwittingly helped Taliban militancy in the region. As a result, both states are in danger of "Talibanization" (Dawn, 27 April). The immediate challenges that face Afghanistan and Pakistan have to do with four factors: (a) cross-border infiltration; (b) a territorial dispute centering on the Durand Line; (c) India's growing influence with Kabul; and (d) Pakistan's Afghan policy, which is opposed by all factions in Afghanistan including Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Pashtun nationalists and even the Taliban (Dawn, 13 November 2005).
Infiltration into Afghanistan
Frustrated by Islamabad's tepid response to his repeated calls for disabling the Taliban's operational bases in Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai turned to personal diplomacy. On 15-17 February, he made a three-day visit to Islamabad to seek its cooperation in ending terrorist violence. He conveyed to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf his deep concern over the recent spike in lethal violence in southern Afghanistan (Dawn, 16 February). In 2005, Afghanistan watched 1,700 people die in insurgent violence. In the three months since December 2005, 70 people, predominantly members of the security forces, were killed in suicide bombings. In March, Taliban leader Mullah Omar vowed that "with the beginning of summer, Afghan soil will turn red for the crusaders and their puppets, and the occupiers will face an unpredictable wave of Afghan resistance" (The News, 17 March).
President Karzai believes that the Taliban have their bases in Pakistan, where even their leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden have found safe haven (Dawn, 26 February). In his one-on-one meeting with Musharraf on February 15, Karzai shared with him "verifiable" intelligence about 150 key Taliban suspects who are based in Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta (Dawn, 26 February). Pakistan's security agencies, however, found Afghan intelligence "unreliable".
Infiltration into the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)
Like Afghanistan, Pakistan is battling a violent insurgency in its northwestern and southwestern provinces. The situation in Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, has spiraled out of Islamabad's control. On 17 February, Tolo, an independent Afghan television news channel, aired grisly scenes of men in South Waziristan holding up three severed heads to a crowd chanting, "Long Live Osama bin Laden. Long Live Mullah Omar" (Dawn, 18 April). It also showed half a dozen corpses chained to a vehicle and being dragged, while a uniformed Pakistan military officer drives past.
The Taliban have so far executed 150 pro-government tribal chiefs without getting punished for their crimes (Daily Times, 18 April). Similarly, the losses in life of government troops have grown five times more than those of U.S. troops in Afghanistan (Dawn, 21 April). Between January 2003 and April 2006, 600 Pakistani soldiers were killed, while 200 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since 2001 (The Nation, 29 April).
Yet, critics say, the military operation in Waziristan has not yielded one single terrorist dead or alive since 2003 (Nawa-i-Waqt, 11 March). Most terrorists have rather been arrested in Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Gujrat.
Islamabad, however, has claimed for the past three years that these operations have been a success. Pakistan's most pro-Afghan and pro-Karzai Pashtun leader, Asfandyar Wali Khan, blames the ISI (Pakistan's intelligence agency) for orchestrating military operations in Waziristan to deflect attention from its "guests" elsewhere. Mehmood Khan Achackzai, another prominent pro-Afghan and pro-Karzai Pashtun leader from Balochistan, calls the military operation in Waziristan a "genocide of Pashtuns," which he wants ceased immediately. Despite the military operation, Waziristan, which the Taliban has declared as its "Islamic Emirate," has steadily slid into anarchy. Stunned by their sweeping reach, Musharraf publicly announced on 26 April his plan to pull out troops from North and South Waziristan (Dawn, 27 April). Despite this unenviable performance, the United States continues to offer Pakistan US$840 million a year in military aid for its operations in Waziristan (Dawn, 21 April).
Infiltration into Southwestern Pakistan: Balochistan
Similarly, Pakistan is battling an even fiercer insurgency in Balochistan, which it blames on Afghanistan. During his recent visit to Islamabad, Pakistan shared intelligence with President Karzai on "weapons smuggling into Balochistan" (China Brief, 2 March). Pakistan also raised the matter at the Tripartite Commission's meeting in Kabul on 25 February.
In addition, Pakistani intelligence officials claim to have proof of India's involvement in Balochistan, which is accused of funding and arming the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) (Khabrain, 25 February). In April, Pakistan banned the BLA as a "terrorist" organization. The United States has not yet agreed to Pakistan's assessment of the BLA. Most recently, Pakistan claimed to have seized weapons worth 500 million rupees (around US$8.3 million), which were shipped from Kabul for subversion in Balochistan (The Nation, 12 February).
Pakistan wants Afghanistan to have India close its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar, each of which borders the NWFP (also known as Pakhtunkhaw) and Balochistan. President Karzai, however, disagrees that his country's scaled-back relations with New Delhi will make Pakistan safe. Responding to charges that Afghanistan is behind the Baloch insurgency, he said: "We will never support an insurgency in Balochistan or allow the use of our soil for terrorist activities" (Dawn, 18 February). Pakistan is not convinced, however. As a precaution and at great financial cost, it already has deployed 90,000 troops along the Durand Line since the fall of the Taliban (Nawa-i-Waqt, 13 September 2005). In addition, 70,000 members of Pakistan's Frontier Corps are deployed in the border areas.
Fencing the Durand Line
To bolster cross-border security, Pakistan has proposed to fence the 2,300-kilometer Durand Line. Karzai off-handedly rejected the proposal, saying that "barbed wire is a symbol of hatred, not friendship and hence it cannot stop terrorism" (Dawn, 18 February). Earlier, speaking at the National Defense College on 16 February, he said: "fencing is separation" of the "inseparable" people living on each side of Durand Line (The Nation, 17 February). Pakistan has long been toying with the idea of fencing. In September 2005, Musharraf shared the idea with President Bush, who publicly endorsed it. Karzai's rejection of fencing further confounds the issue of the undefined border between the two countries.
Since it was drawn in 1893, the Durand Line has been a tentative marker between Afghanistan and British Raj, which divided Baloch and Pashtun tribal areas on both sides. Afghanistan gave the British Raj its southern territories in Balochistan and the NWFP on a 100-year lease, which expired in 1993. Pakistan has since been pressing Kabul to accept the Durand Line as an international border. Kabul, however, is unwilling to cede its historical claim to the territories it calls "South Pashtunistan" (Dawn, 13 November 2005). Even the Pakistan-backed Taliban government (1996-2001) refused to accept the Durand Line as an "international border". It was this unsolved border dispute that led Afghanistan to oppose Pakistan's entry into the United Nations in 1948, which sowed the first seed of a long-festering disagreement that continues to haunt both countries to this day.
The India factor
To Pakistan's dismay, however, Afghanistan, with the help of India, crossed the Durand Line into South Asia as the eighth member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Pakistan fears that Afghanistan will use SAARC to raise "the bogey of South Pashtunistan" (Dawn, 13 November 2005). More importantly, Pakistan is concerned about India's increasing influence with Kabul, especially its ruling Northern Alliance. A recent Indian move to deploy 300 members of its special operations forces at its consulate in Kandahar has further unnerved Islamabad (WebIndia123.com). Musharraf, during his meeting with Karzai on 15 February, reportedly broached this matter with serious concern.
With or without Afghanistan's help, India is, nevertheless, well on its way to flanking Pakistan's western border and penetrating Central Asia with its economic allure and military muscle. It has already completed the construction of its first-ever foreign military base in Tajikistan to the west of Pakistan (Nawa-i-Waqt, 6 March). It is also building a port at Chahbahar in Iran, Pakistan's southwestern neighbor, that will be connected through a road link to Afghanistan and then to Central Asia. Pakistan, which has problematic relations with all three statesAfghanistan, Iran and Tajikistanviews their triangular axis as an Indian attempt to encircle it at its western border.
Pakistan's Afghan policy
Pakistan's Afghan policy is not helping matters either. It continues to be based on the ethnic subordination of Afghanistan (Nawa-i-Waqt, 17 April). Although Pakistan likes to see Pashtuns get their due share in Afghanistan's governance, it rejects their "ethnic nationalism", compared to the Taliban's "Islamic nationalism" (The International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, vol. 42(2), pp. 267-293). Pakistan is apprehensive that Pashtun ethnic nationalism will infect Pakistani Pashtuns, whom Islamabad continues to keep de-politicized and thus theologized (The International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, vol. 42(2), pp. 267-293). It bars Pashtun nationalist parties, such as the NWFP-based Awami National Party (ANP) led by Asfandyar Wali Khan, and the Balochistan-based Pashtunkhawa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) led by Mehmood Khan Achakzai, from entering tribal areas of Balochistan and the NWFP, while the Taliban and their militant allies are free to establish an "Islamic Emirate" there.
Conclusions
Not until the "Talibanization" of Afghanistan and Pakistan has been addressed can geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations take center stage. It is, therefore, imperative for Afghanistan and Pakistan to concentrate on stemming cross-border infiltration, which will require the redeployment of Pakistani troops from the tribal areas of the NWFP and Balochistan to joint patrolling the Durand Line. Pakistan should replace its military operation in the NWFP and Balochistan with a political process, allowing Pakistan's mainstream political parties as well as Pashtun nationalists to defuse the ticking bomb of religious fanaticism there. More importantly, Pakistan's Afghan policy needs a makeover from the current ethnic subordination of Afghanistan and the demeaning of Pashtun nationalism, to the affirmation of Afghan nationalism and Pashtun ethnic pride to counter the Taliban's "religious nationalism".
This article originally appeared in Terrorism Monitor, published by The Jamestown Foundation in Washington, DC., at (www.Jamestown.org). The Jamestown Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan organization supported by tax-deductible contributions from corporations, foundations, and individuals.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/22/2006 11:29 ||
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From Jewish World Review online.
By Caroline B. Glick
You have to give them credit. The Palestinians outdid themselves this week. In the framework of the maelstrom over the presumed financial crisis of the Hamas-led PA, the supposedly "moderate" Fatah organization, led by supposedly "moderate" PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, decided to threaten America and Europe.
In a leaflet published by Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Gaza, the group announced, "We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries." They went on to threaten, "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad." On Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, the announcement was greeted by many with contempt and anger. This, of course, is a remarkable combination the week before a scheduled vote on legislation that would bar all direct and indirect US assistance to the PA. Typical Paleo logic. Threaten and p*ss off the people handing you the money. Will work wonders for your P.R. campaign.
Since 1994, the PA has always been supposedly on the brink of a financial and humanitarian catastrophe. But what is interesting about the current financial crisis is Abbas's behavior. In a departure from his normal diffidence, this week Fatah leader Abbas did not try to soften the impression that his underlings sought to make on the West. Rather, he strengthened it. So when does a crisis become a chronic condition? Six months. The sympathy barrel has done run out.
In a speech before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Abbas warned that if the EU did not renew its underwriting of the PA's budget "there will be an explosion of anger, and this would lead to a chaotic situation of which we cannot foresee the results." Translated into regular English, Abbas told his European audience: "Your money or your life." Explosion of anger, ya say? Barbara Scolaut, please pass the popcorn.
Yet even as he was directly blackmailing the Europeans, Abbas didn't forget his manners. Like a professional, and in a style that befits Yasser Arafat's deputy of some 40 years, Abbas provided his victims with the opportunity to feel good about giving in to his threats. If you give me your protection money, he said, you will be able to wrap yourselves in the robes of the saviors of the poor, popular Palestinian people by preventing a "humanitarian disaster." Get rid of "humanitarian" and you got the situation pegged: just a plane olde "disaster."
And so, from the editorial board of Ha'aretz to the continental press, all the enlightened humanitarians now express their deep concern for the fate of the PA's 165,000 employees who have not received salaries for nearly two whole months. Human rights organizations from the UN to Amnesty International have expressed their deep-seated fears for the fate of the poor Palestinians who haven't been paid. Let them pay the Paleos. There was plenty of money from the Oil-for-Palaces program. Or go ask Suha. Don't ask us.
The thing of it is that for all of their shrieks and whines, there has never been a group of more self-sufficient people on the verge of a humanitarian disaster than the Palestinians. They're swimming in money. If the PA suffers from a "humanitarian disaster" it will be wholly and completely self-induced. Since its establishment in 1994, the PA has received more aid per capita than any other group of people in the world has ever received more than the victims of genocide in Sudan or Rwanda, more that the victims of the tsunami in Asia, more than the Iraqis or the Afghans more than anyone.
As the researcher Arlene Kushner pointed out in an article published this week by Ynet those miserable unpaid PA employees include some 4,000 Palestinian terrorists who Abbas placed on the PA payroll. Terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons get $4 million a month. Several million more go to paying the families of dead terrorists. Kushner quoted former PA and Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan admitting that of the $10 billion in international aid that the Palestinians have received over the past 12 years, some $5 billion has gone missing. the $5 billion is sleeping with the 'fishes.
Abbas, who politely warns against "explosions," himself controls up to $1b. that he prefers not to use to save his people from that "humanitarian disaster" he's so bent out of shape about. As Kushner reminds us, in 2002, Salam Fayyad, who then served as the PA's finance minister, set up the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) in an attempt to prevent Arafat from absconding with all the PA's money. At least $700 million should still be deposited in the PIF which had been valued at $1 billion in recent months. The PIF probably went poof. I am sure that they have a yellow-brick-road of a paper trail, heh.
Abbas, who bemoans the poor Palestinian doctors and teachers that have not received their March salaries, decided last summer against the expressed warnings of the International Monetary Fund to give significant pay increases to the PA's employees. Civil servants were given raises of some 15-20 percent and militia members were given raises of 30%-40%. Kushner notes that at the time of Arafat's death in November 2004, his grieving widow Suha refused to unplug his respirator until Abbas and the PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei agreed to her demands for a significant cut of her husband's personal wealth which was assessed at some $3.1 billion Apparently it hasn't occurred to anyone that Arafat might have liked to use that money to avert a "humanitarian disaster" among his beloved people. No, everyone realized that the Arafish did not give a rat's behind about them, compared to the $3.1 billion.
EVEN WITHOUT Kushner's data, the Palestinians themselves demonstrated this week their contempt for the West and its "humanitarians" who concern themselves with the Palestinians' dire financial straits. On Wednesday, the PA deployed its newest 3,000-man militia. The militia, comprised mainly of Hamas terror operatives and operatives from the Popular Resistance Committees made up of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah terrorists, made its first appearance in Gaza. Its troops were all decked out in new uniforms and shiny rifles.
Perhaps all 3,000 are volunteers. Perhaps the men paid for their own uniforms and weapons. If there are Palestinian patients dying because their hospitals can't afford to maintain dialysis equipment, maybe the PA should be asking the new Hamas militia for a loan or a contribution.
If the deployment of its newest army weren't enough to send a clear signal of its sentiments to its deeply concerned donors, the Hamas-led PA appointed Popular Resistance Committees commander Jamal Abu Samadana to command the new force. Samadana also commanded the terror attack against US Embassy personnel in Gaza in October 2003.
While the Palestinians' supporters in Europe and Israel still refuse to acknowledge what the Palestinians are clearly signaling with their newest armed force, Arafat's former paymaster Fuad Shubaki, now in Israeli custody, openly admits that under Arafat the PA siphoned off millions of dollars from the tax revenues that Israel transferred to it and millions more in international assistance to fund terrorist cells and operations. S.O.P. Nothing new for Paleos.
These Israeli leftists and Europeans unabashedly describe themselves as humanitarians and urge the payment of salaries of people whose job it is to kill them. For their part, the Palestinians couldn't be any clearer. As a spokesman for Fatah's Abu Rish brigades (also commanded by Abu Samadana) put it this week, if the money doesn't start flowing again, the Palestinians will open a "new intifada," which will be a "merciless intifada that will destroy everything."
PERHAPS THE most distinguishing group characteristic of the Palestinians is the fact that no matter what they do or say, they never have to pay a price for the choices they make. In spite of their blackmail, threats and corruption, their war for the annihilation of Israel, and perhaps above all, their mocking contempt for the collective honor of Israel and the West, the Palestinians' victims line up to support them in their "just struggle against the illegal Zionist occupation." That's all they got in the playbook. the rest of the world is reaching Paleo Fatigue, which is why the money is drying up. Hell, even the Saudis realize that giving money to Paleos is like putting it into a burn barrel.
This fact was made breathtakingly clear at the end of April when, in a move that can be likened to a metaphorical rape of the concept of "international law," Amnesty International published a statement defining as a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention the US, Israeli and EU decision to abide by their laws (and international law forbidding aid to terror organizations) and end assistance to the Hamas-led PA. Not surprisingly, Amnesty cited no clause in the Convention that supports the preposterous claim that the contracting parties to the convention are obligated or even permitted to fund terrorist organizations. What is notable here is that Amnesty has determined a new standard that claims that taking steps to force the PA to be responsible for its actions is an offense against the law of nations. Ignore AI. All the terrorists do.
Not to be outdone by Amnesty, the EU is fervently brainstorming to find a way to finance the Hamas-led PA's budget in spite of the fact that its own laws prohibit financing Hamas. In the wake of Abbas's "explosion" speech, the EU's External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said, "We are well aware of the urgency of the situation in the Palestinian territories. We have to get the parameters right and then we have to get the donors and the partners to accept what we will set up." For its part, what most concerns the World Bank these days is that the US and Israel might place sanctions on companies or agencies that continue to do business with the PA. Because of this, the bank is demanding that Israel and the US provide "explicit assurances" that they will not impose sanctions on such companies or agencies.
In truth, as far as Israel is concerned the World Bank and the EU have little to worry about. In the aftermath of last week's meeting of the so-called Quartet, where it was agreed that the EU would formulate a way to bypass European and US laws prohibiting the transfer of monies to Hamas, both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz announced varying degrees of willingness to resume tax revenue transfers to the PA in some form of "humanitarian assistance," to the PA. This is a huge mistake. We are back to enabling Paleo terrorism and criminal activity. This is....insane.
Although on Sunday the government did not vote to resume such financial transfers that amount to some $50 million per month, members of Congress have reported that Israeli officials were encouraging them to water down their draft legislation that will place a total ban on direct and indirect assistance to the PA. These Israeli government officials maintain that Israel is interested in the transfer of "humanitarian aid," in the hopes of averting that much feared "humanitarian disaster." Many members of Congress and senators who have received such entreaties from Israeli officials and been urged to support Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem are puzzled by what they view as an Israeli attempt to finance and surrender to Hamas. In a lecture last week in New York sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America, former IDF chief of general staff Lt.'Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon explained that Israel suffers from a weak national leadership. In his words, "We don't need Chamberlains, we need Churchills." Ya'alon further explained that Israelis had been manipulated by Palestinian lies that have caused us "to ignore reality."
As the members of Congress listen to Olmert address them next Wednesday; and as they vote on the proposed ban on aid to the Hamas-led PA, they would do well to keep Ya'alon's message in mind and not fall into the same trap. Better send letters to Congress---now.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2006 16:03 ||
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It has been 13 years since the Oslo "peace process" began. During this time, Israel has given away over half the disputed territories. Despite these concessions, Israel got nothing in return except a terror war launched in 2000 by Palestinians, who murdered and maimed thousands of people, and now the election of the Hamas terror group.
Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas have refused to honor their written commitments to Oslo and the "road map" to peace. They haven't prevented terror or arrested terrorists. Worst, the Palestinian regime continues to promote hatred against Jews in their schools, TV, radio, newspapers, speeches, mosques and government children's camps. They even name schools, streets and sports teams after suicide bombers.
But this Palestinian hatred goes beyond Israel and Jews. Hamas, strongly allied with Iran, has issued news releases saying, "Americans are the enemies of the Palestinian people ... (and) are a target for future attacks." Hamas leader Khaled Mash'al warned, "We say to this West ... (by) Allah, you will be defeated." Recent leaflets by Abbas' Fatah group said, "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries (United States and others), here and abroad." It is clear that the Hamas/Palestinian Authority are part of the global terror war against the West.
More land and other concessions will only encourage more terror. Whenever Israel has removed roadblocks and checkpoints monitoring potential suicide killers, only more terrorism has occurred. When Israel gave away more land in Gaza last fall, only more missile attacks and smuggling of arms occurred, in addition to Iran and al-Qaeda moving their forces there. The same will happen in a Hamas-occupied West Bank, possibly destabilizing the region.
Such concessions will make heroes of Hamas, emboldening them and achieving nothing. It is a fiction that Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs just want their own state. Their words, writings and polls show they want to destroy all of Israel and work with other radical Muslims to Islamicize the world.
The United States and Israel must work to undermine Hamas, not prop them up. Hamas must learn their agenda will go backwards, not forward. No U.S. money for Hamas, and no more one-sided concessions. We must end terror states, not create them.
Morton A. Klein is national president of Zionist Organization of America.
#1
The URL home page is in Russian. Dude, you may be considered a security risk. I wonder how many Lenovos will have the Chinese version of this bonus feature.
Posted by: john ||
05/22/2006 21:02 Comments ||
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#3
Oh, well. As someone recently wrote:
"NSA is now funding research not only in cryptography, but in all areas of advanced mathematics. If you'd like a circular describing these new research opportunities, just pick up your phone, call your mother, and ask for one."
The appalling and uncivilised attack on two Narathiwat teachers can go neither unremarked nor unpunished. Both the instigators of the kidnappings and those who carried out the barbaric assault deserve the harshest penalty prescribed by law. Police already have arrested a key suspect, and it is hoped that they will follow up this shocking violence most vigorously. There is no room, and must be no tolerance in southern communities or anywhere in Thailand for what occurred.
The kidnapping and beating of Sirinat Thawornsuk and Julin Kampormoon began while the two women were performing their difficult and sometimes thankless job of teaching youngsters at Gujingruepo in Rangae district. This is one of the most dangerous regions in Thailand, designated as a "red zone" by security agencies because of insurgency activity. Ms Sirinat and Ms Julin are among hundreds of dedicated teachers who strive to give children in the South the opportunity all young Thais deserve.
Late on Friday morning, in a different area and on a different mission, police arrested two suspected insurgents for questioning in the murder of two Marines last February. According to later investigations, the wife of one of the arrested men instigated a plan to invade the school, take teachers hostage and bargain their lives for the release of the suspected extremists. A mob of villagers went into the school, demanded that Buddhist teachers identify themselves, and kidnapped Ms Sirinat and Ms Julin.
To back up the criminal demands, men in the mob bound the teachers and took them into an adjoining room. With sticks and fists, they beat the women. Yesterday, the life of one teacher was still hanging by a thread in a hospital intensive care unit. Villagers attempted to bargain the lives of the teachers with security forces.
To their credit, police took the hostages away from the mob by force. Narathiwat Governor Pracha Therat refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, and promised that photos and video taken by security forces would be used at the trials of those involved. On Saturday, police arrested the first suspect and alleged instigator, Karima Masah Leh, 25, wife of one of the accused murderers.
It is as shocking as it is inexcusable that a mob could be incited to single out, kidnap and then brutally assault entirely innocent women teachers. No excuse or apology ever could justify such action. The women teachers played no role whatsoever in any violence or in the arrest of Mrs Karima's husband. Villagers who could take such an atrocity right into the schools of their own children need to be dealt with firmly, to the extent of the law. Among other measures, qualified authorities should determine if such men and women are fit parents.
No one doubts the militants have turned the deep South into a dangerous and violent region. But the decision by a handful of insurgent leaders to attack Buddhists, beat women to death and directly endanger their own children cannot be justified. Communities and their religious leaders must condemn kidnapping of innocent people, attacks on schools and planned endangerment of bystanders.
The kidnappings in the South have got out of control since villagers detained, tied and beat to death two Marines last September. That violence was also in Rangae district. Since then, insurgent activists have led a number of kidnappings which were bound to result in tragedy. Indeed, men and women instigators want to encourage murders and attacks on innocent people in order to provoke authorities into further violence. Too often, of course, security forces answer with excessive force.
The kidnapping and beating of the teachers should be a turning point. Authorities must protect schools better. Community leaders have done a poor job. Muslim and Buddhist clerics seem to have failed to impart the teachings of their religion. Islam specifically forbids both kidnapping, and putting innocents in peril, let alone beatings.
Southerners have long said Buddhists and Muslims live peacefully side by side. But the insurgents have managed to instigate violent, murderous rage. Leaders throughout the South must act quickly to restore civilised behaviour. Security forces must quickly arrest those responsible for the atrocity against the two innocent teachers.
#1
Islam specifically forbids both kidnapping, and putting innocents in peril, let alone beatings. Get outta here. Islam is the religion of the snake. It speaks with two tongues. Wake up, already.
Symposium with: former director of the CIA James Woolsey, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, Kenneth R. Timmerman Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.
Excerpt:
If Iran used the 2,500 centrifuges they have acknowledged importing from the A.Q. Khan network in the 1990s, they could already have enough nuclear weapons material for 20-25 bombs. To believe that they do not have that weapons material, you must believe their official story: that they spent in excess of $600 million on the black market to purchase that equipment, risked international condemnation, and then kept the centrifuges in crates in a warehouse for eight years without ever touching them.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2006 07:59 ||
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#1
An old military axiom:
He who hesitates is lost.
Just saying...
Posted by: DanNY ||
05/22/2006 9:17 Comments ||
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#2
If there was ever an argument for exercising our first strike option this one has to be the textbook example. That or it will become the example of what we should have done.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/22/2006 12:18 Comments ||
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#3
That or it will become the example of what we should have done.
Hope not, but it may be so, unfortunately. It's up to you hegemons, I guess.
#5
In today's political climate I don't see Congress authorizing a strike of any overt kind on Iran. Is there some path Bush can take to attack WITHOUT Congressional authorization? I don't know of one, and kind of doubt there should be one. This is not to say such a strike is the wrong move, just that the American soil has to be fertilized first, and that, unfortunately, has to start with the MSM. (Note I do NOT preclude some kind of covert or deniable action.)
#6
C2CAM.com radio show had a guest named Col. John Alexander, whom despite the overt = public media lack of overwhelming info, was inclined to believe that IRAN does have nukes of a yet undetermined quantity, and that Iran as a sponsor of International terror is a de facto threat to the USA whether it has nukes or not. Alexander indic that nukes must be tightly controlled/
managed no matter whom has them, but that given the lifestyles of terrorists it is far easier, inexpensive, and MORE DESTRUCTIVE FOR RADICAL ISLAM, etal. TO USE ASYMMETRIC BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL WARFARE DEVICES THAN NUKES PER SE. One caller informed ALexander of his belief that AL QAEDA has a nuke or nukes, as based on his sources/research, and recalled to ALexander that of four men whom were caught by the Feds trying to procure "Dirty Plutonium" for an alleged nuclearized "dirty bomb" attack on NYC.
The United Nations held 'World Press Freedom Day 2006' earlier this month. I don't know why. Maybe the UN realised that so many of its member states stifled press and other freedoms they needed encouragement to do better. If so, the day was a wretched failure.
It began promisingly. At a meeting in Westminster, Roger Koeppel, editor-in-chief of the centre-right German paper Die Welt, gave a classic defence of freedom of expression. He had done what no British editor dared do and printed the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. He received the customary death threats, but didn't regret it, because 'it is essential to protect freedom of expression because of all the pain we have invested to keep our liberal, secular society'.
Dr Maleeha Lodhi, the Pakistani High Commissioner to Britain, opposed him. She denounced 'the tendency in the West to say, "We insult our own, so we can insult yours, too." Well, no. We do have a problem with that and we demand respect'. Her 'demand' for censorship was a faithful reflection of her masters' policy. The Pakistani military dictatorship not only has blasphemy laws, but also forces journalists to resign, arrests them and holds them in solitary confinement. The monitoring agency Freedom House succinctly describes the Pakistani media as 'not free', and they aren't.
So, on the one hand, we had an editor from a liberal democracy saying: 'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it' and, on the other, the servant of a military junta that says: 'We may disagree with what you say and if we do, we will send you to prison.' What division could be more natural?
Yet once you got closer, the contrast between liberal democracy and military dictatorship was nowhere near as stark. As Dr Lhodi made her argument that respect could be 'demanded' rather than earned, she cited with approval articles by Simon Jenkins, a columnist for the liberal-conservative Sunday Times and liberal-left Guardian
If she had researched further, she would have found support from Europeans with far more power. Next week, the Council of Europe is holding hearings on whether freedom of expression should include the right to offend religions. It is already clear that the tide is with the supporters of suppression.
Meanwhile, Franco Frattini, the EU's Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, has already banned the use of the phrase 'Islamic terrorism' to describe Islamic terrorism. 'You cannot use the term "Islamic terrorism",' he insisted. 'People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion.'
I was brought up as a democratic socialist and abhorred the crimes committed in the name of the left. But I would always agree that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were inspired by a version of socialism, just as the most liberal American Christian would accept that fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics are inspired by a version of Christianity.
Yet the EU wishes to deny that political Islam inspires terrorists to blow up everything from mosques in Baghdad to tube trains in London, even when Islamist terrorists say explicitly that it does. You should always pay your enemies the compliment of taking them seriously. The EU can't understand what its enemies are saying, because it won't call them by their right name.
Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society, is going to the Council of Europe this week to uphold the battered cause of freedom of speech. He has files full of policy papers from religious groups agitating for the EU or UN to impose a universal blasphemy law. It won't work for the same reason that New Labour's incitement to religious hatred law hasn't worked. A law that protects all religions is self-contradictory, as each religion is blasphemous in the eyes of its rivals.
None the less, we should worry about how illiberal 'liberal' Europe is becoming. It's not only Islam that is provoking censorship. Bans on Holocaust denial have spread across the Continent. In France, it is an offence to question any genocide, including the Turkish genocide of the Armenians, while in Belgium, the country's highest court denied Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party, state funding and forced it to disband after finding it guilty of racism.
The point here is not to argue in favour of Holocaust deniers or Flemish rightists, any more than it is to argue in favour of incitement of religious hatred, except when the religious are hateful. What matters is that the supposedly liberal states of Europe are showing an indecent eagerness to reach for their lawyers. Their contempt for plain speaking, as much as the refusal of the European Commission to accept the 'no' votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the European Constitution, shows their waning faith in liberal democracy. A backlash from Europeans who believe they have the right to speak their minds and have their votes respected strikes me as inevitable.
#1
The argument should be changed to "Does Islam inspire terror or does it demand terror?"
This opens the door to addressing Islam not as a unified religion, which is isn't, but by its sects, and are they violent or non-violent.
Moslems then have a choice in how to present themselves. They may belong to a non-violent sect which accepts universal principals of non-violence, or they may belong to a sect that advocates, approves of, or accepts violence.
No longer is calling themselves "Moslem" an acceptable definition for the non-violent. They cannot stay in the same building as the violent, yet protest when the JDAM hits the building. Nor can they condone or excuse violence by those with whom they claim religious kinship.
They must either state that their sect is non-violent when they identify themselves, and roundly and completely condemn the violent sects, or they are complicit in violence and cannot pretend otherwise.
Once this is done, then the western world may say to the non-violent sects that they are welcome in the west, and that they may sit at our table and share with us our modernity, our prosperity, and our peace.
Conversely, we may then say to the violent sects that they are no longer welcome in our world, that they are outcasts, uncivilized and brutal, and that they deserve neither respect nor consideration.
They are not our equals, they are our inferiors, as wild beasts in the field. And thus if they cannot make themselves behave, then they will be contained in cages or destroyed. We can no more tolerate their mischiefs than we could tolerate a family of babboons ravaging our house.
But again our emphasis must be on elevating those that are non-violent, yet demanding that with that respect, they cease fraternizing with those that seek only violence, destruction and vandalism.
Mad about high gas prices? How about driving your car with coal? Two scientists at Columbia University say liquid fuels derived from coal may free the world from its addiction to expensive oil.
Most experts agree that the age of oil, amid dwindling resources and spiraling prices, will be over soon. There are different ways out of that dependence, one being the process of turning solid coal into liquid fuels.
The United States, thanks to huge domestic coal resources, could satisfy its energy needs for the entire 21st century with liquid fuels derived from coal, at less than $30 a barrel, Klaus Lackner and Jeffrey Sachs, energy experts at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in New York, have said in their new paper.
"(With widespread use of coal liquefication) the long term price of liquid hydrocarbon fuels may be lower than it is today, even allowing for pessimistic forecasts for oil and gas reserves," the authors write. "Even with the most conservative assumptions about learning curves," they write, it is safe to assume that synthetic fuel derived from coal will cost "below $30 per barrel."
The most common way to convert coal into liquid fuels is the Fischer-Tropsch process, named after two German scientists who developed the technique in 1925.
To create the fuel, coal is mixed with oxygen and steam at high temperature and pressure to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The second step, called Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, uses a catalyst to transform the gas into liquid synthetic crude, which is further refined. Along the way, mercury, sulfur, ammonia and other compounds are extracted and can be sold on the commodities market, according to Scientific American.
The only company in the world to use the coal liquefication process is Sasol in South Africa at a price between $35 and $50 a barrel. It produces a variety of synthetic petroleum products, including most of the country's diesel fuel.
While other techniques, such as coal gasification and gas-to-liquids are still cheaper, Lackner and Sachs believe the process could be employed on a large scale by the world's coal powers, mainly the United States and China, who together own 40 percent of global coal reserves, according to an estimate by British Petroleum.
The scientists argue that one key advantage of the Fischer-Tropsch process is that it also allows for lignites and other low-grade coals, which exist in much greater supply than high-level coals, to be turned into synthetic fuels.
In Germany, where high-grade coal is in short supply but low-grade brown coal is available in vast quantities (about 230 years at current rates of production), the technique could have a real impact, they write.
What gives Lackner and Sachs headaches, however, are the increased emissions of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels into the atmosphere.
They believe that human-induced climate change such as global warming can be avoided through a global effort to capture and sequester carbon dioxide below ground. Such a program of geological carbon sequestration, they estimate, would cost less than 1 percent of gross world product by 2050, albeit research and development as well as investments started soon.
Thus, Lackner and Sachs say "the single most urgent step" is for the United States and Europe to work together with China and India (whose energy demands will surge over the next years) to perfect clean coal technologies and reduce emissions to a minimum; they also push for more stringent efficiency standards with automobiles, including introducing hybrid cars.
That is "far beyond what any nation is ready to embrace in the near future," William Pizer, energy expert at Resources for the Future, a Washington-based research organization, writes in his critique of the paper, after praising its more general findings.
#1
SO: These guys _really do_ have something that'll work to replace oil, at a low price. It's just unacceptable to them because of CO2 emissions.
SO, everyone goes back to petroleum, which also has the same CO2 emissions problems.
They're looking at an alternative fuel technology that could work and adding additional criteria to it that the primary source it would be replacing doesn't meet either, and then declaring that it means it won't work.
The biggest enemies alternative fuels have aren't the conspiratorial oil companies. It's the advocates of the fuels themselves.
Posted by: Phil ||
05/22/2006 2:00 Comments ||
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#2
There is a lot more coal out there than the published reserves show. Here in Western Australia there are vast coalfields that have never produced a ton of coal, cos there's no demand.
#4
"Most experts agree that the age of oil, amid dwindling resources and spiraling prices, will be over soon."
The spiraling prices bit is true, for now. The rest is pure 100% rubbish. No actual "expert" would say this. There is a LOT of oil. There is NOT a lot of refining capacity. Even if the West reduced consumption, the slack would be taken up by others - at least for the forseeable future - though the spiralling bit would definitely soften up considerably.
I certainly favor reducing dependency on unreliable sources of energy - life must go on. But it will not reduce funding to the Bad Boys. We'll have to take it away from them in SA and Iraq if we want that outcome.
This energy crunch will, eventually, force us to do what we would not do otherwise. In the end, that's a very good thing. Personally, I consider petroleum to be far too valuable to be merely burned as fuel in commuter vehicles.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 3:01 Comments ||
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#5
The Eastern coalfields in NSW/QLD can satisfy Chinese demand and they already have the infrastructure. Here the coal is mostly in unpopulated areas that don't even have roads.
If you look at a map of world coal reserves, you will find they are concentrated in developed or industrializing countries that's becuase people have looked for coal there. There are large areas of the world where no one has bothered to look because the world has abundant cheap to mine coal.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 3:06 Comments ||
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#7
well you can use ethanol/methanol in cars right now without any expensive process being built.
You just need to modify the engines due to the corrosive nature of the fuel.
And producing it is a closed-carbon cycle. You make it from waste products from sugar production. CSR have built their first methanol plant in Queensland and generating power from it.
Farm equipment used to run on it and several cars have been designed to run on it, i've posted their links on rantburg before.
why muck about with this?
Sure, burn coal in electricity generators but use ethanol/methanol in cars because it is simpler.
#8
This is soemthing we shoudl be doing nearly immediately. Diesel hybrids woudl probablywork very well - diesel engines work well under steady loads, and the diesel-electric hybrid woudl seem to be a natural one.
After all, the Germans used their liquified coal-derived petroleum to run their diesel-eletric submarines and other war efforts (like Panzer engines) over 60 years ago in the middle of a war with half thier stuff being bombed to hell and gone.
Why have we not bothered? Open up the coastal reas for gas exploration, and start building the petrochemical converion plants for coal right now. We do that, and push for tax breaks for diesel-electric hybrids, we could drop a huge amount of our need for imported petroleum (diesel has many sources, including biodiesel).
Back in the 70's during the oil shortage and price run-up a number of American corporations got into synfuels and made major investments to process oil shale. When the price came back down, they got absolutely hammered and had to terminate their operations, with significant losses. They learned their lesson and stayed well away during the following decades.
I think US corporations would try again if we were to put a tariff on imported oil to keep the price above $50 / barrel, and made it difficult for Congress to cancel the tariff.
In the long term a carbon-balanced energy cycle is needed. Nuclear fission and later fusion energy can be used to generate hydrogen to run vehicles, or to charge batteries. Cellulostic biofuels could also be economic if the technology could be developed.
All these things are market driven. If the price of oil is stabilized at a relatively high level, attractive alternatives will appear.
#11
Good luck with that tariff thing. Look at the Donk-generated MSM-fanned faux-outrage over oil company profits.
Don't want it, folks? Don't buy it. You've been on notice since '73, so your guzzler is your problem.
Posted by: random styling ||
05/22/2006 11:00 Comments ||
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#12
Trees eat carbon dioxide for lunch, producing nice clean oxygen and a very lush garden. Teach the poor Islamic widows of the world nursery and gardening skills, send them seedlings, supplying them with sustenance for their families and even control erosion and absorb the rainfall. Replenishing the destroyed rainforests that caused much of the enviros bellyaches in the first place is just another benefit of new approaches to the energy crisis.
From the Washington Times: "The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment."
Well, I think that's the kind of moderate compromise "comprehensive immigration reform" package all Americans can support, don't you?
Some mean-spirited extremist House Republicans had proposed that illegal aliens should only receive 75 percent of the benefits to which they're illegally entitled for having broken the law.
On the other hand, President Bush had proposed that illegal aliens should also be able to collect Social Security benefits for any work they'd done in Mexico (assuming, for the purposes of argument, there is any work to be done in Mexico).
On the other other hand, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had added earmarks to the bill proposing that the family of Mohamed Atta should be entitled to receive survivor benefits plus an American Airlines pilot's pension based on past illegal employment flying jets over the northeast corridor on Tuesday mornings in late 2001.
Fortunately, the world's greatest deliberative body was able to agree on this sensible moderate compromise.
Meanwhile, from the Associated Press:
"Mexico warned Tuesday it would file lawsuits in U.S. courts if National Guard troops detain migrants on the border."
On what basis? Posse Comitatus? It's unconstitutional to use the U.S. military against foreign nationals before they've had a chance to break into the country and become fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community?
Or is Mexico taking legal action on the broader grounds that in America it's now illegal to enforce the law? Which, given that Senate bill, is a not unreasonable supposition.
Whatever. Under the new "comprehensive immigration reform" bill (Posse Como Estas?), a posse of National Guardsmen will be stationed in the Arizona desert but only as Wal-Mart greeters to escort members of the Illegal-American community to the nearest Social Security office to register for benefits backdated to 1973.
Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, in a quintessentially McCainiac contribution to the debate, angrily denied that the Senate legislation was an "amnesty." "Call it a banana if you want to," he told his fellow world's greatest deliberators. "To call the process that we require under this legislation amnesty frankly distorts the debate and it's an unfair interpretation of it."
He has a point. Technically, an "amnesty" only involves pardoning a person for a crime rather than, as this moderate compromise legislation does, pardoning him for a crime and also giving him a cash bonus for committing it. In fact, having skimmed my Webster's, I can't seem to find a word that does cover what the Senate is proposing, it having never previously occurred to any other society in the course of human history. Whether or not, as McCain says, we should call it a singular banana, it's certainly plural bananas.
The senator raises an interesting point. In Confucius' Analects, there's a moment when Zi-lu swings by and says, "Sir, the Prince of Wei is waiting for you to conduct his state affairs. What would you do first?" And Confucius say, "It must be the rectification of characters." By "characters," he doesn't mean lovable characters like Arlen Specter and Trent Lott, but "characters" in the Chinese-language sense -- i.e., words. Confucius means that, if the words you're using aren't correct, it becomes impossible to conduct public policy. If you're misusing language, your legislation will be false -- or, as Confucius puts it, your "tortures and penalties will not be just right." When the "torture and penalty" for breaking U.S. law over many years is that you get a big check from the U.S. government, that would seem to be an almost parodic confirmation of Confucius' point.
This is not an "immigration" issue. "Immigration" is when you go into a U.S. government office and there's a hundred people filling in paperwork to live in America, and there are a couple of Slovaks, couple of Bangladeshis, couple of New Zealanders, couple of Botswanans, couple of this, couple of that. Assimilation is not in doubt because, if you're a lonely Slovak in Des Moines, it's extremely difficult to stay unassimilated.
This is not an "illegal immigration" issue. That's when one of the Slovaks or Botswanans gets tired of waiting in line for 12 years and comes in anyway, and lives and works here and doesn't pay any taxes, so the money he earns gets sluiced around the neighborhood supermarket and gas station and topless bar and the rest of the local economy, instead of being given to Trent and Arlen and Co. to toss into the great sucking maw of the federal budget.
But a "worker class" drawn overwhelmingly from a neighboring jurisdiction with another language and ancient claims on your territory and whose people now send so much money back home in the form of "remittances" that it's Mexico's largest source of foreign income (bigger than oil or tourism) is not "immigration" at all, but a vast experiment in societal transformation. Indeed, given the international track record of bilingual societies and neighboring jurisdictions with territorial claims, it's not much of an experiment so much as a safe bet on political instability.
By some counts, up to 5 percent of the U.S. population is now "undocumented." Why? In part because American business is so over-regulated that there is a compelling economic logic to the employment of illegals. In essence, a chunk of the American economy has seceded from the Union. But, even if you succeeded in re-annexing it, a large-scale "guest worker" class entirely drawn from one particular demographic has been a recipe for disaster everywhere it's been tried. Fiji, for example, comprises native Fijians and ethnic Indians brought in as indentured workers by the British. If memory serves, currently 46.2 percent are native Fijians and 48.6 percent are Indo-Fijians. In 1987, the first Indian-majority government came to power. A month later, Col. Sitiveni Rabuka staged the first of his two coups.
Don't worry, I'm not predicting any coups just yet. But, even in relatively peaceful bicultural societies, politics becomes tribal: loyalists vs. nationalists in Northern Ireland, separatists vs. federalists in Quebec.
Sometimes the differences are huge -- as between, say, anything-goes pothead bisexual Dutch swingers and anti-gay anti-drugs anti-prostitution Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands. But sometimes the differences can be comparatively modest and still destabilizing. Pointing out that America has a young fast-growing Hispanic population and an aging non-Hispanic population, the Washington Post's Bob Samuelson wrote that "we face a future of unnecessarily heightened political and economic conflict."
The key words are "unnecessarily heightened." In Europe, the political class sowed the seeds of massive social upheaval for the most short-sighted of reasons. If America's political class wants to do the same, it could at least have the integrity to discuss the issue in honest terms.
In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.
In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:
Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."
Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."
Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.
Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."
Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.
Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.
But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."
So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.
The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who've never met a culture or religion they didn't like with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.
In the California course on world religions, Christianity is not presented equally. It's covered in just two days and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples. In contrast, Islam gets a pass from critical review. Even jihad is presented as an "internal personal struggle to do one's best to resist temptation," and not holy war.
The ed consultant's name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she's not a Christian scholar. She's a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington." He found that for years Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. Her husband still teaches there.
So what? By infiltrating our public school system, the Saudis hope to make Islam more widely accepted while converting impressionable American youth to their radical cause. Recall that John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," was a product of the California school system. What's next, field trips to Mecca?
This case is critical not just to our culture but our national security. It should be brought before the Supreme Court, which has outlawed prayer in school. Let's see what it says about practicing Islam in class. It will be a good test for the bench's two new conservative justices.
#1
Of course you can't just be a 'muslim for 2 weeks'. According to the Koran you can *never* leave Islam. Those who leave are under penalty of *death*.
I wonder of they teach that little tidbit to Johnny before they have him profess Islam? Somehow I doubt it.
What happens if a student refuses? Does he get expelled? A failing grade?
(Oh, and you can bet the Media will totally ignore this entire story...)
#7
The 9th circut needs a little lead poisoning.
Leftists are scum and want only to bring down America, my beloved country. If and when all the leftists are killed, I will shed no tears. In fact, the drinks are on me.
#9
And why conservatives should vote Republican this year, even if it means holding your nose while you do it.
Posted by: voting this year ||
05/22/2006 8:55 Comments ||
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#10
File under "Why Senators Matter" These idiots are just sock puppets for DiFi, Babs, Patsy and all the other flakes that get elected in that circuit. They block reasonable nominees and push for this kind of wacko. Caliphornia gets the government it deserves.
#11
"Caliphornia gets the government it deserves."
Yeah? Well unfortunately, and ALL TO OFTEN, what starts (trends: legislative & popular) in California has a tendency to spread to the rest of the country.
Also, believe it or not, MOST of California is Conservative. However, gerrymandered districts and high population concentrations in LA and the Bay Area make California a Democratic stronghold.
#12
Nimble, I'm sure you would agree this is not a California issue, but a national one. A liberal Federal Appeals Court does damage to the whole country. We ALL get the government we deserve.
#13
So, according to the 9th Circus, kids optionally saying "One nation, under God" is establishment of religion, but requiring kids to say "Allahu Akbar" isn't.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/22/2006 11:15 Comments ||
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#14
But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."
thay teech teh girls they gotter get their clitees chopped? theirs otherz kulchers thatn fun to imitait owt there.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The United Nations held 'World Press Freedom Day 2006' earlier this month. I don't know why. Maybe the UN realised that so many of its member states stifled press and other freedoms they needed encouragement to do better. If so, the day was a wretched failure.
From the Washington Times: "The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment."
