#1
Happily stolen & adapted from "Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook"....
Lithuanian Kugelis
This is sort of like a scalloped potato recipe. It is vaguely related to kugel, but no way in hell is this kosher or halal. It's not diet food, either. Sorry.
1/4 lb sliced bacon, diced
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 lbs shredded hash browns, thawed (*)
1 c light cream or half and half
3 large egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 large egg whites
4 T unsalted butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Saute the bacon over medium heat until it renders its fat. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels.
Pour off all of the bacon fat except for 2 tablespoons. Add the onion and saute until deeply colored (approx 15 minutes over medium heat). Remove from heat and set aside.
In a large bowl, and I do mean a LARGE bowl, thoroughly combine the hash browns, onions, bacon, cream/half and half, and egg yolks. Season generously with salt and pepper.
In separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently fold into the potato mixture with a rubber spatula. Carefully transfer the mixture to a 13 x 9 in baking dish. Dot the top with butter.
Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, or until the top is a lovely, crispy brown color.
Serve with sour cream, applesauce or lingonberry preserves. Goes great with polska kielbasa and a fresh loaf of rye or dark wheat bread.
(*) Yes, I didn't shred the potatoes myself. Why? Because I'm a lazy Amerikanerin who got tired of shredding my fingers and ending up with grayish potatoes in my kugelis.
If, however, you want to do it old school, get yourself 3 lbs of new potatoes. Shred 'em up either by hand or in a food processor. Wash in several changes of water. Squeeze the potatoes well in a cotton or linen cloth (not terry cloth, unless you are desperate for added fiber...yuk), to remove the excess water. Then....do it one more time just to be sure. This could take a while, so pull up a chair.
Or you could just get the #$%&-ing hash browns and save some time. Believe me, no one will know the difference, and it will save you some extra laundry to boot (the kitchen towels are disgusting when you're done, and paper towels just won't cut it).
#2
Oops, hit the wrong key....forgot to add that it's a lot easier to just fry up the bacon strips and then dice them after they are cooked, but since most of youse guys on the 'burg are pretty smart you probably would have done it that way anyhow....
Crock-pot Country Pork Ribs. This is a tasty dish that can be made during the day while youre out.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 6 hours
Makes: 4 Servings
Ingredients:
1. 1 large onion, pealed, sliced and separated into rings.
2. 3 4 lbs. country-style pork ribs.
3. 1 cup each, tomato juice and vegetable juice.
4. 2 Tbsp molasses.
5. 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce.
6. 3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar.
7. 1 tsp Dijon mustard.
8. 1 tsp poultry seasoning.
9. Salt and pepper to taste.
Optional:
Replace the Tomato and vegetable juice with Clamato Juice
Preparation:
1. Place Onion rings in the bottom of the crock-pot.
2. Place the ribs on top.
3. Wisk all the remaining ingredients together.
4. Reserve 1 cup and refrigerate this cup.
5. Pour the remaining sauce over the ribs, cover the pot.
6. Cook on high for 5 6 hours. Drain ribs, keep them warm.
7. In a small sauce pan, simmer the reserved sauce for 10 minutes; serve over the cooked ribs.
Posted by: Jack Bross ||
10/17/2006 20:29 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Deviled Ham Salad Sandwich Spread
Preparation Time: 15 Minutes
Serves: 8 People
Ingredients:
2 Cups Minced or Ground Ham
2 Hard-Boiled Eggs
1 Small Onion (grated)
½ Cup Hellmans Mayonnaise (once known as Best Foods)
1 TSP Sweet Pickle Relish (or more)
1 TSP Dill Pickle Relish (or chopped dill pickle)
1-2 TSP Mustard (yellow, brown, Colmans, Dijon or Creole)
1-2 TSP Prepared Horseradish (avoid cream style versions)
¼ TSP Celery Salt
⅛-¼ TSP Cracked Black Pepper
Optional:
2 TBS Chopped Celery
1-2 TBS Minced Green Pepper
1 TBS Green Tomato Relish
1 TSP Minced Jalapeño Pepper (seeds and ribs removed)
1 Small Clove of Crushed Garlic (or powder)
Dash of Worcestershire Sauce
Dash of sweet pickle brine
Dash of dill pickle brine
Dash of white vinegar
Dash of liquid smoke
Substitute chopped bread & butter pickles for the sweet pickle relish
Preparation:
Pulp onion with grater or food processor. Mix together Mayonnaise, relish, mustard, horseradish and all other spice ingredients. Taste for correct flavor balance and spiciness. Without the ham or hard-boiled eggs the taste should be a bit strong. If garlic is added, you should not be able to notice the flavor. Run the cooked eggs through a slicing harp. Rotate ninety degrees and slice eggs with harp again to make a fine dice. Mince ham with sharp knife or grind in food processor. Slowly add the seasoned Mayonnaise mixture to the ham and eggs while tasting for flavor and checking consistency. If the mixture is runny, add a bit more Mayonnaise. If the salad is too dense, thin with a little white vinegar or pickle brine.
Spread on buttered toast or bread. Top with lettuce, sliced tomato or a paper-thin slice of onion plus extra dill pickle or mustard.
Note: This mixture can be blended into softened cream cheese to make a cheese ball for buffet parties. Shredded sharp Cheddar cheese may be added to accent the flavor.
Another useful background piece by Ion Mihai Pacepa, formerly a general in Romanian intelligence during the bad old communist days. Here are the key bits.
The detonation of a nuclear device by North Koreas tyrant is an apocalyptic event calling for Americas unity against one of her most indoctrinated foes. Lets exterminate our sworn enemy U.S. imperialism! reads a slogan posted inside North Korean jet cockpits, sailors cabins, and army guard posts. Instead, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called for an investigation of the Bush administrations failed North Korea policies. I once belonged to the sanctum sanctorum of the impregnable citadel of Communist nuclear intrigue, and I have hard reasons to believe that no atomic diplomacy on earth could have stopped Kim Jong Il from achieving nuclear weapons.
In my other life, as a Romanian intelligence general, I was at the beck and call of another 54 dictator involved in building nuclear weapons in a defiant bid for survival and respect, and nothing short of death was able to deter him from achieving that goal. Not even the defection of his top nuclear-weapon adviser myself.
Eleven years later, in 1989, Ceausescu was executed for genocide, and Romanias new government reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had discovered plutonium separated in a Triga nuclear reactor. The amount of plutonium found at that time was small, but the act was a clear violation of Romanias commitments made under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. According to a Canadian study, a more extensive nuclear weapons program may have been covered up.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is something we should thank Nikita Khrushchev for. He gave Soviet technology to China, which further passed it on to North Korea and Pakistan. Iosif Stalin, the father of Russias nuclear weapons, had kept them close to his chest.
Khrushchev decided to fulfill Communisms historic destiny as the gravedigger of capitalism by arming its deadly enemies with nukes. Khrushchevs nuclear-proliferation process started with Communist China in April 1955, when the new ruler in the Kremlin consented to supply Beijing a sample atomic bomb and to help with its mass production. Subsequently, the Soviet Union built all the essentials of Chinas new military nuclear industry.
A few weeks after the IIIrd Congress of the Romanian Workers party in June 1960, we were indeed treated to a new sample of Khrushchevs destructive nature. He suddenly withdrew all the Soviet advisers from China and terminated all important joint contracts and projects. According to the Chinese, Moscow pulled out 1,390 experts, tore up 343 contracts, and scrapped 257 cooperative projects in just a few weeks. Data provided by various U.S. intelligence agencies attest that by the mid-1980s China was producing at least 800 kilograms of uranium and 400 kilograms of plutonium-239 per year. The exact strength of the Chinese strategic force is still relatively unknown, but in 1996 the number of warheads was estimated at 2,500, with 140-150 more being produced each year.
Khrushchev long ago became history. Not so the Kremlins habit of secretly proliferating nuclear weapons to dictators who dream of waging war on America. There is convincing evidence showing that Moscow has helped the terrorist government of Iran to construct a 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor at Bushehr, with a uranium conversion facility able to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. There is also evidence that, at the same time, hundreds of Russian technicians have helped the government of Iran to develop the Shahab-4 missile, with a range of over 1,250 miles, which can carry a nuclear or germ warhead anywhere in the Middle East and Europe.
During his May 2006 state of the nation speech President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of a new Cold War. Russias president portrayed the United States as his countrys main adversary and pledged to increase the nuclear triad of land, sea and air-based strategic weapons. It is premature to speak of the end of the arms race, he said in his televised address to the Russian people. Moreover, it is going faster today. It is rising to a new technological level.
Pinning the blame for the current nuclear proliferation on the Bush administrations unwillingness to bribe North Koreas playboy despot is not going to solve the current nuclear crisis. Hoping that the just-approved U.N. resolution instituting sanctions on North Korea will take care of the problem is equally illusory. Persuading Putin to stop playing nuclear Armageddon might be the best way out.
Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. His book Red Horizons has been republished in 27 countries.
Posted by: john ||
10/17/2006 06:33 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Negroponte confirmed yesterday that the core was plutonium. I doubt they really have the savy to create this themselves. They were probably given the recipe by Chicoms and couldn't correctly reproduce it. I suspect Chicom "advisors" are already onsite trying to figure out which errors were made. I'm beginning to suspect more and more that any weapon used against Western gov'ts. will be made by Russkies or Chicoms. The need to demonstrate infrastructure and native capability just an elaborate cover scheme. When it really counts, they'll use a known entity.
Robert Kagan shows in his brilliant and absorbing "Dangerous Nation," the U.S. has always been an empire and a "menace," not only to its ill-governed neighbors but also to tyrants and hegemons across the world.
Americans broke with Britain not because it was an empire but because it was not imperialist enough. As Mr. Kagan notes, London gave mortal offense to the colonists through the Proclamation Line of 1763, which banned any further expansion that might come at the expense of the Indian tribes. It imposed this restriction some time before it seriously attempted to put British hands in American pockets.
Conservative powers such as Austria, Prussia and Russia, who did not welcome the emergence of an ideological and strategic competitor in the West. John Quincy Adams remarked approvingly that "the universal feeling of Europe in witnessing the gigantic growth of our population is that we shall, if united, become a very dangerous member of the society of nations." Hence Mr. Kagan's ironically approving title.
Mr. Kagan is much too subtle a writer to make direct comparisons with our own times, but they are ubiquitous in "Dangerous Nation"--hiding, as it were, in plain sight. Thus he speaks of Benjamin Franklin's plans for a "pre-emptive strike" against the French in the 1750s, by expelling them from Quebec before they could overrun the 13 colonies. There are clear echoes of Mr. Bush's Second Inaugural when Mr. Kagan writes that the Founding Fathers "believed their own fate was in some way tied to the cause of liberalism and republicanism both within and beyond their borders."
The question of whether Latin America was "ready" for representative government, which so vexed 19th-century Americans, is surely intended to remind us of the debates today over whether the Middle East is suited to democracy. And Mr. Kagan's handling of the Spanish-American War of 1898 reads like an extended analogy to the NATO intervention in Kosovo a century later--great powers must sometimes intervene in nonvital zones, to lessen suffering and contain oppressive regimes.
Interestingly, some of the most bitter opponents of this tradition have been Southerners. They had seen American moral crusading and "nation building" in action during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Mr. Kagan reminds us, and they did not like it one bit. It is no accident, surely, that Sen. William Fulbright, whose critique of the "arrogance" of American power in the 1960s was one of the shibboleths of the antiwar movement, should have come from Arkansas. No surprise either that Sen. Robert Byrd's fulminations against the Iraq war should come from a man who was once a proud citizen of the segregated South.
But they may want to think before they strike. As it happens, Democrats have special reason to look forward to the 20th-century sequel, for Mr. Kagan's narrative of American power is, in many ways, the story of their own party. Soon enough, the torch will pass to Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and, if we think of NATO's belated Balkan intervention, even Bill Clinton. There should be something in this project for almost everyone.
Joel Kotkin also has an article, 400,000,000, on the WSJ editorial page today behind the subscriber curtain. In it he notes, I summarize and quote:
The U. S. is the only leading industrial power with a growing population. Taken together, our greatest enemies of the 20th Century, Germany, Japan and Russia are projected to have 130 million fewer people than we do.
While America will age, it will remain one of, if not, the most youthful developed country in the world. In populations where fewer people have children and more of the population is older and elderly there is less likely to be concerned about future generations, and less likely to act about like adults whose primary concerns center on the fate of their offspring and their offsprin's offspring.
Some fear majority minority populations in the U. S. that willdilute the American melting pot work ethic. But few migrate to the U. S. to recreate the conditions they fled in Mexico, Iran, China or Cuba. (We're going to America because we're Americans. We were just born in the wrong place. - Peter Schramm)
As Tocqueville noted over 170 years afo, America has flourished not because of geniuses in Washington, but due to its Constitution, fertile land mass, egalitarianism, entrepreneurship unique spriitual vitality and attachment to local community and family. (I would add appreciation for education and innovation to that list) This combination of factors has always made us different from othe countries.
These factors do much to explain why we have reached the 300 million milestone at a time when most of our primary competitors are either stagnating or shrinking.
If we continue to use our immigration policies to skim the cream from foreign countries through meritocratic immigration policies, it is interesting to contemplate what America's position in the world could be after it's second 200 years have elapsed.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2006 9:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Unfortunately, educated high-value immigrants are not as likely to be balkanized in little victim-ghettos, therefore, less likely to vote Democrat. Ergo the efforts to support the flood of illegals with periodic amnesty/citizenship offers
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/17/2006 9:49 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The most dangerous words ever composed in the English language (and the second-most dangerous passage ever)--"dangerous" to the established order, that is--are found in the Declaration:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/17/2006 10:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil - for I am the biggest, baddest, meanest motherfucker in the valley.
-- Special Forces Prayer, Vietnam
For what reason should we not last another 200 years? Only one. The American People turn their back on their birthright. Do you really think that will happen? If we survived Civil War and the Great Depression to what internal rot will we now succumb?
No nation has been so flexible and able to create, adapt and master change as is the U. S. No nation has ever been so attractive to all mankind. There is more reason to believe the U. S. will in 200 years still be around in substantially its current constitutional form than any other country in the world. That's why we have the world's oldest government in place now.
And if we do not succumb to internal rot, what foreign power or combination thereof will be able to conquer us militarily in the next 50 years? Certainly we may choose to accept defeats as we did in Vietnam. But that does not amount to being conquered. And if past economic, demographic and technical trends continue, which is a very reasonable assumption, our military advantage over the rest of the world will also continue to grow.
While the repulsive nature of those we choose to govern us may lead one to have doubts about our ability to survive, that doubt reflects a misunderstanding of where the true leadership of the nation lies. Politicians are not truly the strength or leadership of our nation. It was the genius of our founders to make that leadership all the people. And it is exactly that leadership that mkae the U. S. indefatigable.
If you want to posit that we may not last, you'll have to explain why, how it will happen. And it is also this strength that makes us so dangerous to all the other nations that have the their strength and leadership resting on the narrow, precarious base of kings, dictators, and ayatollahs.
Relax and get some sunglasses, Bobby. The point of these articles and all the other evidence you see when you look at history broadly is that while it won't be without problems, the future of America is so bright you're gonna need those shades.
Sometimes get a bit gloomy, and if you're in DC, look outside! (Dark and dreary, with steady rain)
Your 'skimming the cream' is the way I've looked on earlier immigration; but the 'flood of illegals with periodic amnesty/citizenship offers' is not so encouraging. Many are willing and able to work hard and seek the American Dream, but it sure looks like some come in to be fed and cared for. Half-empty/half-full?
Difficult time, what with the election coming up, and all.
Still, we Americans seem to be a bit ahead of those suffering from immigration problems in Europe; I hope their example will help educate some of the locals. We shall get an inkling on November 7, when the polls (and pollsters!) close and the pundits begin 'calling' elections.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2006 11:44 Comments ||
Top||
#9
NS... I have always looked great in avaitor shades so your message is truely positive....
#13
#3 - Just for the sake of quibbling, the most dangerous passage was originally written in Koine Greek (Κοινὴ Ἑλληνική), the other dominant language of the Roman Empire. It is one of the sources of the principle that each person is endowed with certain inalienable Rights.
Corruption: There's a big difference in how the parties handle misconduct within their ranks: Republicans accept blame and oust wrongdoers; Democrats wait until the public forgets, then call the culprit a hero.
We're sure disgraced former Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass., wouldn't mind the timing of his death last weekend being described as . . . Dickensian. Coming weeks before elections in which a GOP sex scandal threatens a Democratic takeover of the House, Studds' death due to a blood clot might be expected to be a painful embarrassment for Democrats. Quite the contrary.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said of this man censured by his colleagues from both parties in 1983 for having sex with an underage congressional male page:
"Gerry's leadership changed Massachusetts forever and we'll never forget him."
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called Studds, 69, "a committed environmentalist who worked hard to demonstrate that the cause of working people and the cause of the environment go hand in hand with the right leadership."
At the same time, Democrats hypocritically insist the GOP be voted out because Mark Foley talked to pages over the Web about the kinds of things Studds actually did with a page. Foley resigned his Florida congressional seat at once; Studds defiantly stayed more than a decade after being censured. Studds' "husband" justified it, saying, "He gave people of his generation, of my generation, of future generations, the courage to do whatever they wanted to do."
Doing whatever you want, and getting away with it, seems to be the liberal Democrat mantra. An FBI affidavit says that Rep. William Jefferson accepted a $100,000 bribe last year that he was apparently going to use to pay off a high-ranking Nigerian government official, with $90,000 of the cash found hidden in his freezer at home. Louisiana's state Democratic party committee no stranger to corruption even voted on Saturday to deny Jefferson its endorsement for re-election.
Yet he remains a member of Congress, with no Democratic leader calling for his expulsion, or even for disciplinary action.
There continues to be an avalanche of press attention on Foley. But where are all the Bob Woodward wannabes when it comes to Democrats' sleaze? The big TV, newspaper and magazine media outlets don't seem to have bothered to send any of their investigative reporting talent to Africa to look into the Jefferson affair. They're obviously too busy examining every piece of minutiae regarding Foley, not to mention Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The same media neglect involves Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va. He is being investigated by the FBI regarding nonprofit groups he allegedly help set up with $150 million in pork-barrel spending and business relationships with the administrators of the organizations.
And the granddaddy of them all? Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's Las Vegas land deal with a longtime friend, a casino lawyer with mob connections, landed him $1.1 million. Now that it's been revealed that Reid apparently violated Senate rules by not mentioning the deal in his Senate financial disclosure documents, he's entered into discussions with the Senate Ethics Committee. So where are the media big guns? If this were the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, they would be screaming.
If the media are allowed to, they will kill these scandals with neglect, to be forgotten the way the Studds outrage was. What is at stake isn't just public awareness, but control of Congress.
A lawyer who passed messages to terrorists gets off light.
It was a case of radical chic and the radical sheik. Yesterday in New York, Lynne Stewart, a self-styled "civil rights" attorney whose past clients include the Black Panthers and Weather Underground, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for illegally passing messages between her imprisoned client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and his followers in Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the terrorist group responsible for killing 62 mostly European and Japanese tourists in Luxor in 1997. Some of those tourists were beheaded; others were disemboweled. The Sheik was also involved in planning terror attacks in New York, for which he is serving a life sentence.
In an age when courts routinely impose five-year prison terms for drug offenders, and life sentences on former CEOs, 28 months may not seem an appropriate sentence for a terrorist accomplice, especially when the government sought 30 years. Ms. Stewart certainly had the sympathy of the judge, John Koeltl, who praised her as a champion of "the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular." She herself seems to have had few misgivings about her actions: "The government's characterization of me and what occurred is inaccurate and untrue," she told the judge. "It takes unfair advantage of the climate of urgency and hysteria that followed 9/11."
In similar circumstances--albeit with a different defendant--a case could be made for leniency. Ms. Stewart is 67 and recovering from breast cancer. But remorse is also a prerequisite for mercy, and Ms. Stewart shows none, either for her crime or for the arc of a career which flows too naturally from championing the "liberation" movements of the 1960s to the Islamists of the present day. What her clients have in common is that they loathe America.
Now she basks in the pity and praise of her fellow radical travelers, who haven't seemed to spare much thought for the victims of Luxor. It says everything about her, and about them.
#1
There was no case for leniency. LS's actions were corruption at the level of the courts, similar to a judge or juror taking a bribe to fix a case. All such acts undermine national cohesion and confidence in a unique manner, and deserve the most severe punishment. Judge John Koeltl deserves to be impeached for his statement and his sentence.
WaPo Editorial. h/t LGF Reform Run Amok The U.N.'s new Human Rights Council makes the old one look good. Hard to believe, no? Believe it. A major piece of the United Nations reform promised by Secretary General Kofi Annan was a new Human Rights Council. The idea was to replace the Commission on Human Rights, which had been hijacked by rogue states such as Libya and Sudan, with a body that could refocus attention on serious human rights violations around the world -- and in so doing remove what Mr. Annan said was "the shadow" cast by the old organization on "the United Nations system as a whole."
When the Human Rights Council was approved by the General Assembly in March, we were among the skeptics who doubted that it would be much of a change, mainly because the membership rules still allowed for the election of human rights violators. As it turned out, we were wrong: The council, which completed its second formal session last week in Geneva, has turned out to be far worse than its predecessor -- not just a "shadow" but a travesty that the United Nations can ill afford.
For all its faults, the previous U.N. commission occasionally discussed and condemned the regimes most responsible for human rights crimes, such as those in Belarus and Burma. China used to feel compelled to burnish its record before the annual meeting. The new council, in contrast, has so far taken action on only one country, which has dominated the debate at both of its regular meetings and been the sole subject of two extraordinary sessions: Israel.
Western human rights groups sought to focus the council's attention on Darfur, where genocide is occurring, and on Uzbekistan, where a dictator refuses to allow the investigation of a massacre by his security forces. Their efforts have been in vain. Instead, the council has treated itself to report after report on the alleged crimes of the Jewish state; in all, there were six official "rapporteurs" on that subject in the latest session alone. One, Jean Ziegler, is supposed to report on "the right to food." But he, too, delivered a diatribe on Israeli "crimes" in Lebanon.
This ludicrous diplomatic lynch mob has been directed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which accounts for 17 governments on the 47-member council and counts on the support of like-minded dictatorships such as Cuba and China. Council rules allow an extraordinary session to be called at the behest of just one-third of the membership, making it easy for the Islamic association to orchestrate anti-Israel spectacles. Several Muslim governments that boast of a new commitment to democracy and human rights -- including Jordan and Morocco -- have readily joined in this willful sabotage of those values.
Human rights groups that supported the creation of the council, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, admit to being appalled by the outcome; they nevertheless argue that the panel should be given time to right itself. That could happen, they say, if the democratic members of the council organize and work with the same cohesion as the "unfree" states. They also suggest that the United States, which refused to join the council, reconsider.
Perhaps that strategy would work -- though once again, we're skeptical. If there is no turnaround, the council's performance ought to invite consideration of the measure that was applied to the U.N. cultural organization, UNESCO, when it ran amok in the 1980s: a cutoff of U.S. funding. If this ill-formed body is to become an exclusive forum for anti-Zionist rants, the principal victim will be not Israel but the United Nations.
It is no secret that U.S. policymakers have lowered their expectations of what a future Iraq will resemble. President Bushs hoped-for shining beacon of freedom, which would infuse its authoritarian neighbors with democracy, has been downgraded. James A. Baker III, cochair of a forthcoming report on Iraq, says the United States would be lucky to see a state emerge that is merely representative, not democratic. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is less charitable in his criticism. The idea that Iraq would somehow become a democracy and example that would transform the region was a pathetic neoconservative fantasy from the start, he writes in a new CSIS report. Yet neither Baker nor Cordesman says all hope is lost.
Quite a wide range of options are available to the Bush administration. None of them guarantee victorymore precisely, they try to minimize the effects of defeatand all are fraught with risk. According to the New York Sun, leaked accounts of Bakers commission on Iraqwhose official report is not due before Decembersuggest the White House has two main options. The first is to focus on establishing security in Baghdad while striking political accommodation with Iraqi insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped, reports the Sun. The second option calls for the phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq but leaves open the difficult question of where and when these soldiers should be deployed.
Cordesman divides his options into the almost good, the bad, and the ugly. He suggests conditioning military and civilian aid packages on political effectiveness in Baghdad, particularly within Iraqs ministries of defense and interior. He says efforts to disband militias should coincide with aid programs to provide their members with jobs. Putting tens of thousands of young Iraqi men into the streets has already been a disaster once, after the collapse of the Iraqi Army, he writes. Cordesman says President Bush must defuse fears and conspiracy theories, by making clear that the United States has no ambitions for a lasting presence in Iraq or ambitions relating to Iraqi oil. One way to do this, he says, is to transfer security duties to an international body like the United Nations, although Security Council authorization of a blue-helmeted mission to Iraq would be difficult. A recent CFR symposium weighed different options for leaving Iraq as well as the impact of the incursion upon U.S. policymaking.
Bush reiterated to reporters this month that defeat, which ostensibly means a pullout of U.S. forces before Iraq is secure, would prompt the terrorists [to] take control of Iraq and establish a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America. Yet CFR President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb argues in TIME that events may be sliding in that direction and we need to shrink the fallout. Meanwhile, Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute looks at the larger implications of concluding the war short of outright victory. If the United States gets driven from Iraq, the soul-searching necessary to combat Islamic extremism will also suffer a rout, he writes in the Weekly Standard.
Finally, Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution tells CFR.orgs Bernard Gwertzman the Bush administration has proven unwilling to make changes aside from incremental ones that have mostly come in the form of too little, too late. President Bush disputes such charges. We're constantly changing tactics to achieve a strategic goal, he told reporters.
#1
We can't 'win' this war anyway, so the idea is to cut our losses and run away in such a fashion that no one notices.
The newest version of 'cut-and-run'.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2006 9:26 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Bobby, think long run. Here we are 30 years on. Who really won the Vietnam war? Sure the communist clique is still in power but does anyone doubt that it will ultimately be replaced by a capitalist one and that the people who will have suffered are Vietnamese? I bet few Vietnam vets have any doubts about the righteousness of their noble efforts.
We will win this war in the long run. The Iraqis and Islamists had the choice of losing the nice way or the ugly way. Looks like they're choosing ugly. Sure, it'll be a problem for us but that won't be nearly the problem it will for them.
#3
...Something I'm not understanding, and I apologize if I'm missing the obvious somewhere. Was pre-invasion Iraq really THIS out of control beneath the surface, or were these guys just standing by if Saddam went down, or did they all come in after the invasion?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/17/2006 12:16 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Mike, not to this extent. Saddam adeptly & ruthlessly pitted tribes against each other and those that supported him ultimately received much prestige and more access to the state coffers. He also waged a war of terror on the kurds and the southern shia.
Other then that, I heard he did offer universal health care.
#5
Mike, there has always been some sort of inter/intra-religious warefare, smuggling, Blood-feuds, kidnappings, extortion, black markets, thievery, etc. going on in this region. Sadaam just either emptied or leveled the towns when a particular area got out of hand (sort of like the Romans did). The Marine in our family tells of the locals saying things like "there used to be a town there, but Sadaam took it away".
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/17/2006 15:04 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Re NS #2 - Yes I know we won the Viet Nam war, because General Giap (is reported to have) said so. You know. Fred and Sea and Doc White prolly know. Giving credit to all the other intelligent Rantburg Regulars, and we are still in a definite minority.
How long before the history books will give an accurate picture of that war?
How long before the public will understand the Iraq war, or the war on terror, or the war on Islamic Crusaders?
Yeah, so - as I admitted elsewhere today - I feel a bit gloomy, even after posting some positive articles from the Centcom site...
While waiting with a co-worker today, I explained to him how the war was over, since the media had resorted to tallying multiple days to get the death toll high enough to be 'interesting'. I mighta madea point.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2006 15:21 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Two items:
1. Just prior to the invasion Saddam released 100,000 hardened criminals. Just imagine if we released the equivalent amount based on our population: 1.2 million. What would be happening in our streets if we were rebuilding our Police and Army at the same time?
2. Killing each other is a way of life in the Middle East. Could it have anything to do with the "Religion of Peace"? At least the Kurds are not Arabs, they have that going for them!
#8
There wuz criminals in the pre-war Saddamist paradise? Does Murtha know?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2006 15:32 Comments ||
Top||
#9
The Iraqis are unlikely to risk their lives if they know the US is willing to risk theirs. So the US needs to step aside to force them into the breach.
I would build a series of bases to seal the borders and do phased withdrawals into those bases. Infiltration will drop. US casualties will drop. And if the Sunni don't stop the terrorists in their midst the Sunni will soon drop. Then the problem is solved.
I dont recall seeing this posted here so thought I would share it. This is one of the four teenage girls the religion of peace and tolerence 'ministered' to....
Never forget.
Posted to Persecuted Infidels in Indonesia so I placed it in Opinion.
The only survivor of a machete attack by radical Muslims on four Christian high school girls successfully has had surgery on her massive injury, and officials with Voice of the Martyrs say they are working on additional treatments for her. Noviana Malewa and three of her friends were walking on a school path Oct 29, 2005, when they were assaulted by jihadists wielding machetes. Three of the girls were decapitated and Noviana suffered a massive slash that ran from her cheek to her neck.
After being under police protection for several months, there were negotiations so she could be moved from her hiding place to the location of her hospitalization, according to an announcement from VOM yesterday. She recently underwent surgery in Surabaya, Indonesia, to address a number of complications from the injury, as well as the scarring, officials said. She had suffered from an involuntary tick in her eye, and another near her mouth, because of the deep cut.
She also had severe nerve damage and a dislocated jaw, and deals with severe and sudden pain as well as the emotional trauma of having survived such a gruesome attack, officials said. Scar tissue is being treated.
VOMedical said it was pleased to be able to help so far, and will continue to provide what help will be useful. "She must daily massage her face to stimulate nerve growth and expose her scarring to infra-red beam treatment for five minutes," VOM said. "Neuro-medicine therapy and skin salves must also be administrated on a daily basis."
Help from a plastic surgeon reduced the scarring, which boosted her morale, officials said.
VOM sources in Indonesia said the attack happened as the four girls were walking through a cocoa plantation on their way to a private Christian high school in Posa Kota subdistrict. Noviana, now 16, and Theresia Morangke, 15, Yarni Sambue, 15, and Alfita Poliwo, 17, were ambushed by six masked Islamic terrorists, who decapitated the three. Noviana survived because the sword slash did not make a direct connection and she ran away bleeding.
Authorities reported the heads of the three girls were found in bags on the steps of a church and along a road, carrying a message, "We will murder 100 more Christian teenagers and their heads will be presented as presents."
The Pakistan Christian Post reported that Noviana recalled streaming with blood. "All I could do was pray to Jesus for his help,' she said.
The report said Muslim-Christian violence killed almost 1000 people on Sulawesi between 2000 and 2002, and a peace agreement has not halted the bombings, shootings and other attacks on Christians near Poso. Added by the poster at Persecuted Infidels in Indonesia:
And we still wait for the assailants to be tried and convicted for the barbaric beheadings of the three schoolgirls. Please pray for the successful rehabilitation of Noviana's wound and that she will be safe from any other attacks.
#1
IIRC, the only news agency which covered this girl's recovery was WND, thanks to their association to Voice of the Martyrs, back in september or so. I've just been to a blog which promote boycott of indonesia; apparently, there's a slow-mo but quite real ethnic epuration of christians in mixed areas, with the threat of the army-backed laskars over the heads of christians areas which might feel like going independnent.
If he asked RBers, he'd have to find a new 'gotcha'.
For the past several months, Ive been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?
A gotcha question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I dont think its out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, Im not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Whos on what side today, and what does each want?
After all, wouldnt British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
A complete collapse in Iraq could provide a haven for Al Qaeda operatives within striking distance of Israel, even Europe. And the nature of the threat from Iran, a potential nuclear power with protégés in the Gulf states, northern Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, is entirely different from that of Al Qaeda. It seems silly to have to argue that officials responsible for counterterrorism should be able to recognize opportunities for pitting these rivals against each other.
But so far, most American officials Ive interviewed dont have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?
My curiosity about our policymakers grasp of Islams two major branches was piqued in 2005, when Jon Stewart and other TV comedians made hash out of depositions, taken in a whistleblower case, in which top F.B.I. officials drew blanks when asked basic questions about Islam. One of the bemused officials was Gary Bald, then the bureaus counterterrorism chief. Such expertise, Mr. Bald maintained, wasnt as important as being a good manager.
A few months later, I asked the F.B.I.s spokesman, John Miller, about Mr. Balds comments. A leader needs to drive the organization forward, Mr. Miller told me. If he is the executive in a counterterrorism operation in the post-9/11 world, he does not need to memorize the collected statements of Osama bin Laden, or be able to read Urdu to be effective. ... Playing Islamic Trivial Pursuit was a cheap shot for the lawyers and a cheaper shot for the journalist. Its just a gimmick.
Of course, I hadnt asked about reading Urdu or Mr. bin Ladens writings.
A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureaus new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. Yes, sure, its right to know the difference, he said. Its important to know who your targets are.
That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following, he said. And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.
O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. Iran and Hezbollah, I prompted. Which are they?
He took a stab: Sunni.
Wrong.
Al Qaeda? Sunni.
Right.
AND to his credit, Mr. Hulon, a distinguished agent who is up nights worrying about Al Qaeda while we safely sleep, did at least know that the vicious struggle between Islams Abel and Cain was driving Iraq into civil war. But then we pay him to know things like that, the same as some members of Congress.
Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.
Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite? I asked him a few weeks ago.
Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: Ones in one location, anothers in another location. No, to be honest with you, I dont know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.
To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. Now that youve explained it to me, he replied, what occurs to me is that it makes what were doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.
Representative Jo Ann Davis, a Virginia Republican who heads a House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the C.I.A.s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information, was similarly dumbfounded when I asked her if she knew the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
Do I? she asked me. A look of concentration came over her face. You know, I should. She took a stab at it: Its a difference in their fundamental religious beliefs. The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa. But I think its the Sunnis whore more radical than the Shia.
Did she know which branch Al Qaedas leaders follow?
Al Qaeda is the one thats most radical, so I think theyre Sunni, she replied. I may be wrong, but I think thats right.
Did she think that it was important, I asked, for members of Congress charged with oversight of the intelligence agencies, to know the answer to such questions, so they can cut through officials puffery when they came up to the Hill?
Oh, I think its very important, said Ms. Davis, because Al Qaedas whole reason for being is based on their beliefs. And youve got to understand, and to know your enemy.
Its not all so grimly humorous. Some agency officials and members of Congress have easily handled my gotcha question. But as I keep asking it around Capitol Hill and the agencies, I get more and more blank stares. Too many officials in charge of the war on terrorism just dont care to learn much, if anything, about the enemy were fighting. And thats enough to keep anybody up at night. If only the NYT was in charge of, well, everything.
#1
A more important question is, can the NYT tell its ass from a hole in the ground?
(That would be a resounding NO for all you trolls out there; the rest of us already know the answer.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/17/2006 14:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I nice comeback for our intrepid asshat reporter would be:
Which of the two wear both black and white turbans? What does it signify?
I notice he didn't ask the Frustrated Savior of the World, Dickie Clark. Ol' Dickie can tell with a glance which are which. The Sunnis have that crazed-killer look. The Shia look shifty and no-account.
#4
Yep, f*ck the NYT & their editorial page. However, I always do give credit where it's due, even to assholes I despise like most msm journo-weenies. We are in a war and our reps, intel bubbas, and law dogs better damn well start educating themselves on the divisions in Iraq and how it affects us. Especially basic shit like is Iraq a majority sunni or shiite country. Heck, we've only been there over three years now, you figured some of these jokers could take 10 min's and figure out why the klingers are shooting each other up and whose buttering their bread.
I'll take islamic history 101 for a $100 Alex.
BTW - I think Jon Stewart is sometimes funny but is usually an oversimplifying ass-clown. Unfortunately a lot of our idiots in congress give him a target rich environment in which to work.
#7
Unfortunately some of the folks in government service who do know the difference lack the imagination to see that Sunni and Shia can sometimes cooperate on terrorism just as secular dictators can sponsor religious terrorism. They also seem to have difficulty appreciating the impact of ethnicity (Kurd, Arab, Persian, etc) and its interplay with religious differences. Then, after 20+ years of confusing themselves, eachother and the elected officials they advise, they leak self-serving, inaccurate classified information, sign a book contract and retire to the chat show and lecture circuit.
In some ways we're better off with the officials who, lacking a nuanced understanding, just see enemies of the country and therefore targets.
#9
The two of them remind me a a setion of the Return of the King book (omitted in the movie) where Frodo and Sam are in Mordor and find a couple of Orcs tracking them - bickering and fighting among themselves until the little one takes off and the larger one follows. Sam mentioned that the Orcs seem to love fighting among themselves and Frodo points out that if they had known they (hobbits) were there they would have droped any hatred and fighting until they (hobbits) were dead "For they hate us far more then they hate each other...".
Of course the NYT probably couldn't tell the different between an Orc, Man, Dwarf, or Elf since 'all cultures are the same'....
#11
Careerists that got their positons under Clinton due to connection and got promoted due to ass covering.
Thats why we have "policy makeers' at the top of the intel food chain that are abosulte f*ckwits and why product is so damn poor - being mealymouthed instead of direct is an asset for them even though its detrimental to the naiton (c.f. Department of State for similar behavior of being repeatedly wrong and rewarded for it)
#16
Seriously, our counterterrorism efforts could be much improved. The following quote is from a blog entry written by a GI's significant other about his training prior to be sent to Afghanistan.
When S went to Ft. Hood for his "train-up" in December {2004}, he was "briefed" after a month of non-training (he and his Ranger buddies worked out on their own; the national guard leadership had no interest in anything other than eating chicken at Popeye's) by a soldier who had just returned from Iraq. When S and his friend questioned this, asking why they weren't being briefed by a soldier who had served in Afghanistan, the briefer said "What's the difference? They're all in the Middle East." S pointed out that no, Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East, it's in Asia, and then the briefer said incredulously, "Well they're all Arabs, aren't they?!" No surprise, then, that S was the only soldier in his entire group who had studied any Dari at all. In fact, he was the only one who knew Afghans spoke Dari, not Farsi, not Arabic. He was stuck in Ft. Hood for nearly two agonizing months.
#18
Dari is a dialect of Farsi as is Pashtun. Same root language, differences a bit more pronounced than Moroccan vs Egyptian vs Iraqi Arabic.
And as a matter of fact Afghanis do speak Farsi in the western regions, and various tribla dialects all over the place, and do speak a smattering of Arabic, albeit Koranic.
So that Ranger needs to stop squaring other people's shit away and talk to some real operators.
But he does have a valid point over all - a lot of the leadership doenst know the enemy worth a damn, and that will hamper them in knowing what to do to handle and leverage the areas of operation.
Posted by: Indiana Jones ||
10/17/2006 22:48 Comments ||
Top||
#19
The difference is that in the US management worships at the Peter Principle. Promote the biggest idiot way beyond his level. With the side effect of electing the biggest morons..
Thats why we need to have random set of registered voters to vote for rather then a volunteer set. The random one is superior.
How Islamist Terror Spread Its Tentacles Worlwide
The dragons are no longer on the edge of the map: That's the lesson of 9/11.
When you look at it that way, the biggest globalization success story of recent years is not McDonald's or Microsoft but Islamism. The Saudis took what was not so long ago a severe but peripheral strain of Islam - practiced by Bedouins in the middle of a desert miles from anywhere - and successfully exported it to Jakarta and Singapore and Alma-Ata and Grozny and Sarajevo and Lyons and Bergen and Manchester and Ottawa and Dearborn and Falls Church. It was a strictly local virus, but the bird flew the coop.
And now, instead of the quaintly parochial terrorist movements of yore, we have the first globalized insurgency.
As a bleary Dean Martin liked to say, in mock bewilderment, at the start of his stage act: "How did all these people get in my room?" How did all these jihadists get rooms in Miami and Portland and Montreal? How did we come to breed suicide bombers not just in Gaza but in Yorkshire?
In the globalized pre-9/11 world, we in the West thought in terms of nations - the Americans, the French, the Chinese - and, insofar as we considered transnational groups, were obsessed mostly with race. Religion wasn't really on the radar.
So an insurgency that lurks within a religion automatically has a global network. And you don't need "deep cover": You can hang your shingle on Main Street and we won't even notice it. And when we do - as we did on 9/11 - we still won't do anything about it, because, well, it's a religion, and modern man is disinclined to go after any faith except perhaps his own.
But Islam is not just a religion. Those lefties who bemoan what America is doing to provoke "the Muslim world" would go bananas if any Western politician started referring to "the Christian world." When such sensitive guardians of the separation of church and state endorse the first formulation but not the second, they implicitly accept that Islam has a political sovereignty too. Thus, it's not merely that there's a global jihad lurking within this religion, but that the religion itself is a political project - and, in fact, an imperial project - in a way that modern Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are not.
Furthermore, this particular religion is historically a somewhat bloodthirsty faith, in which whatever's your bag violence-wise can almost certainly be justified. (Yes, Christianity has had its blood drenched moments, but the Spanish Inquisition, still a byword for theocratic violence, killed fewer people in a century and a half than the jihad does in a typical year.)
So we have a global terrorist movement, insulated within a global political project, insulated within a severely self-segregating religion whose adherents are the fastest-growing demographic in the developed world. The jihad thus has a very potent brand inside a highly dispersed and very decentralized network much more efficient than anything the CIA can muster. And these fellows can hide in plain sight.
Not long after 9/11, I said, just as an aside, that these days whenever something goofy turns up on the news chances are it involves some fellow called Mohammad.
A plane flies into the World Trade Center? Mohammad Atta.
A sniper starts killing gas station customers around Washington, D.C.? John Allen Muhammad.
A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri.
A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet.
A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed.
A British subject self-detonates in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammad Hanif.
A terrorist cell bombs the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed.
A gang rapist preys on the women of Sydney, Australia? Mohammad Skaf.
A group of Dearborn, Mich., men charged with cigarette racketeering in order to fund Hezbollah? Fadi Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, Mohammad Fawzi Zeidan and Imad Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud.
A Canadian terror cell is arrested for plotting to bomb Ottawa and behead the prime minister? Mohammad Dirie, Amin Mohamed Durrani and Yasim Abdi Mohamed.
Sophisticates object that very few of the Mohammads on the list above are formal agents of al Qaeda. But so what? There are no "card-carrying members" of this enemy: That's what makes them an ever-bigger threat: You don't need to plant sleepers. If you've got a big pool of manpower and a big idea that's just out there all the time - 24/7, flickering away invitingly like a neon sign in the Western darkness - that's enough to cause a big heap of trouble.
And there are minimal degrees of separation between all these Mohammads and the most eminent figures in the Muslim world and the critical institutions at the heart of the West. For example, in 2003, Abdurahman Alamoudi was jailed for attempting to launder money from a Libyan terror-front "charity" into Syria via London.
Who's Abdurahman Alamoudi? He's the guy who until 1998 certified Muslim chaplains for the United States military, under the aegis of his Saudi-funded American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council. In 1993, at an American military base, at a ceremony to install the first imam in the nation's armed forces, it was Mr. Alamoudi who presented him with his new insignia of a silver crescent star.
He's also the fellow who helped devise the three-week Islamic awareness course in California public schools, in the course of which students adopt Muslim names, wear Islamic garb, give up candy and TV for Ramadan, memorize suras from the Koran, learn that "jihad" means "internal personal struggle," profess the Muslim faith, and recite prayers that begin "In the name of Allah," etc.
Oh, and, aside from his sterling efforts on behalf of multicultural education, Alamoudi was also an adviser on Islamic matters to Hillary Clinton.
And it turns out he's a bagman for terrorists.
Infiltration-wise, I would say that's pretty good. The desk jockeys at the CIA insist, oh no, it would be impossible for them to get any of their boys inside al Qaeda. But the other side has no difficulty setting their chaps up in the heart of the U.S. military, and the U.S. education system, and the U.S. political establishment, and the offices of U.S. senators and former First Ladies.
For many of us too busy or without the inclination to stop and think about unpleasant things, Americas Truth Forum Founder and President Jeffrey Epstein details for us how our indifference will impact the lives of our children. In an informative article well worth reading, we are called forth not to abandon those of us who work daily in this existential struggle with an implacable enemy.
For those of us engaged in the struggle to inform America about Radical Islam's menacing threat to our homeland, we've encountered numerous obstacles along the way. Most challenging has been the mainstream media's imposition of virtually impenetrable roadblocks - obstacles implemented to prevent us from reaching out to fellow citizens who share our concerns for national security and the safety of future generations. Fortunately, we've discovered alternative means to circumvent those barriers.
In the process, we also learned how to deal effectively with detractors and maneuver in an environment best described as "PC gone wild." But bar none, the greatest challenge currently facing us, and placing our nation in harm's way, is citizens apathy.
Sustained periods of uncertainty, especially when a nation is at war, should give rise to greater concern amongst the populace. We are currently engaged in a struggle for our very existence yet, astoundingly, few seem to take note or even care. This is true in nearly every case except, of course, for our Islamist enemies who are poised to benefit from our indifference.
The struggle against Islamofascism is clearly being lost on the home front. Consider the following:
There are over 1.1 billion Muslims worldwide. According to conservative estimates, at least 10% or 110 million are radicalized and sworn to our death and destruction.
Islamic religious leaders granted Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda the right to kill up to 10 million Americans. Experts agree that plans are in the works for catastrophic attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Yet, our ultra politically correct policies prohibit racial profiling and other effective measures that should be employed by law enforcement agencies to protect us.
Over 90% of American Mosques are Saudi funded and tainted by Wahabbi doctrine. Hate-inspired anti-American messages and literature are shared with their hungry audiences on our own soil.
American institutions of higher learning like Harvard, Georgetown and many others have received multi-million dollar gifts from Saudi Arabians - funds being used to purchase influence and capture the minds of our youth.
On an annual basis, tens of thousands of prisoners are being converted to Islam in our penal institutions. Upon release, many of these same felons are recruited into a standing army awaiting marching orders.
Terrorist training facilities continue to operate freely within our borders.
Muslim Students Associations (MSA's), Islamic centers and Mosques across America and Canada sponsor paintball outings and promote survival skills. Paintball, in itself, may be a harmless sport but one must consider ulterior motives since the MSA's also benefit from Saudi funding. The National MSA's online publication promotes firearms training with the following quote that they attribute to Mohammed, "Power is shooting, power is shooting, power is shooting". They also recommend to Muslim students that paintball is an excellent way to learn about combat. Why would a college-based, religious organization advocate sharpening combat skills?
Despite its dark history and terrorist ties, CAIR (the Council of America-Islamic Relations) continues to exert tremendous influence in Washington. Their propaganda machine is supported by multi-million dollar donations from Saudi Arabia.
In the words of CAIR's Chairman, Omar Ahmad, "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to be dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth".
CAIR continues to host regional conferences for thousands of Muslims nationwide. Keynote Speakers include the likes of Siraj Wahhaj. According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Wahhaj is the un-indicted co-conspirator of the 1993 WorldTradeCenter bombing.
Our enemies are forthright when voicing their intentions to establish a caliphate and deliver the entire world to Allah. We are the ones who refuse to accept the fact that they mean business, so we continue to live in a state of lethal denial.
Over 6,300 Muslim-inspired terrorist attacks have taken place worldwide since 9/11, and jihadists have threatened even the Popes life. Why do our leaders in Washington continue to refer to Islam as a religion of peace?
The future of America is in grave peril. Silent are the voices of those patriots who stand proud while paying homage to our nation's fallen servicemen on Memorial Day.
Absent are the statesmen of a by-gone era when men served their nation with dignity and upheld their oaths to preserve the constitution.
We are currently engaged in fighting a war for our very survival against a cunning, ruthless and implacable enemy - an enemy that is skilled in using against us the rights guaranteed by our own Constitution.
What future awaits your children? Who will be there to protect them from this evil, if we fail to confront it now in earnest? The time has come for all concerned Americans to either rise up and take a stand or acquiesce and sink further into a state of apathy. A lack of action, at this point, will only seal the fate of our heirs. We owe it to our founding fathers who fought against great dangers themselves to ensure that we could avoid having to make a choice between death, conversion or enslavement from foreign enemies. The time has come for those of us who value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to unite, in a common front, and be heard.
To quote Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch: "In this era of violent intimidation, it is crucial for the continued life of our free society that we speak out, and do so fearlessly."
Show your concern for the future of our great nation. Don't abandon those who are engaged in a daily struggle, both here and abroad, and help us fight to preserve our American way of life.
Jeffrey Epstein is founder and president of Americas Truth Forum. To learn more about how to secure the United States from terrorist attacks, attend the upcoming Americas Truth Forum symposium, Understanding the Threat of Radical Islamist Terrorism, taking place in Las Vegas this November 10th and 11th. Go to http://www.americastruthforum.com/ for more details.
#2
Wow. This should be shouted from the mountain tops. As he says, any parent who cares at all about the future for their children and grandchildren should pull their head out of the sand now.
It is not yet too late for America to wake up, smell the coffee, come to its senses, but with each day it gets later. The unsettling reality that America must recognize is that, if it is to survive in anything resembling its present form, dominance, influence, and prosperity, it must decide to subordinate its "niceness," its debilitating civility, its incapacitating decency, its sniveling obsession with being "liked" by the rest of the world, no matter how ineffectual or snobbish or opportunistic or barbaric the rest of the world may be, to the necessities of defending itself and others, its allies and friends, its Judeo-Christian civilization, and indeed the entire non-Islamic world, from the otherwise implacable advance of the Islamic Resistance Movement that intends to abolish Western Civilization as we have known it, and usher in a new world order of Islamic Empire, a thousand year reich of puritanical Islamic Nazism.
Written by Raymond Kraft
Saturday, August 12, 2006
War has morphed, indeed, in ways unimaginable fifty years ago.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (IRM), the Jihad, which includes Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all other like-minded folk, is much smarter about it than we are. It has turned the civility of the United States and Europe, into a weapon and turned it against us. It has weaponized niceness, it has weaponized compassion, it has weaponized the fundamental decency of Western Civilization. It has weaponized our desire for peace. It has recognized that our goodness is no match for its savagery, and will continue to exploit that fact until we lose and they win. However long it takes. Centuries, generations, decades, years, months.
The soft underbelly of America in particular and Western Civilization in general is that it has become so excessively nice and decent and civilized that it is now loathe to rise to its own self-defense, loathe to kill civilians when necessary, loath to cause "collateral damages," loathe to fight and defeat other countries, even when its own survival is at stake. We have emasculated our will to rise to our own defense, to the defense of our interests, to the defense of our friends and allies, to the defense of our own civilization and its unique freedoms. We would rather die than kill. We are willing to martyr ourselves and our children and their children and our country to the conceit of our own goodness. We have spent sixty years obsessing (as a culture, as a nation) with whether we might have done the wrong thing by nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even if it did end World War II, even if it did save a million American casualties and maybe five or ten or twenty million Japanese casualties . . . the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki might well have saved Japan from extinction, since if the Japanese had all fought to the death as they promised and threatened to do there wouldn't have been enough Japanese left to be Japan anymore, so that, in a perverse way, Japan may now owe its existence to America's willingness to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We can't imagine ourselves nuking Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or firebombing Dresden or Tokyo anymore, killing scores of thousands of civilians in the process, or laying waste to Beirut, or Damascus, or Tehran. We're way too nice for all that, now. We have become much more civilized.
So the Jihadis hide in plain sight among the civilians, and thumb their noses and say "Check!" And we are stuck harassing their pawns because we lack the will to topple their knights and bishops, kings and queens, with all the "collateral damage" that would happen in the process. We can't imagine ourselves nuking Beirut, or Damascus, or Tehran, not even to save the world from the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad of puritanical Islamic Nazism. So far, we can't even imagine ourselves deconstructing the infrastructure and economies of Syria and Iran in the way Israel is presently deconstructing Lebanon to save ourselves from the Jihad.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, the Jihad of puritanical Islamic Nazism, is strategically very intelligent. It has calculated that although it lacks the massed military force to confront the United States directly in battle, by The Management of Savagery it can foment endless incidents of terrorism and theaters of seemingly inexhaustible savagery in many places all over the world, year after year, decade after decade, until the Americans, Aussies, and Brits, are worn down, exhausted, demoralized, and no longer have the political will to keep trying to defend Western Civilization from the savages. At that point the IRM can begin to take things over with little objection or resistance, since they will promise peace--PEACE--the peace America is psychologically and politically obsessive about. They will offer peace with the right hand, and an end to the savagery they have created with the left. And after years or decades of widespread savagery, peace will be welcomed. The price for peace, of course, will be an Islamic Empire, an empire in which the unique freedoms of Western Civilization, intellectual freedom, religious freedom, political freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, will not exist, an empire in which one can be anything one wishes to be, as long as it is Muslim.
Today, we see this strategic philosophy at work in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Sudan, in Somalia, and its gestation in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez is arming against an American threat that does not exist, in order to turn Venezuela into a hostile camp calculated to pull America into a military intervention to prevent the destabilization of South America, a strategic calculation intended to force America's military and economic overextension, and therefore America's weakening, with the assistance of Russia, China, and the Islamic Resistance Movement.
This Strategic Philosophy is very clearly articulated in The Management of Savagery, translated from the Arabic, which can be readily found on the Internet via any good search engine. While America wants peace, and recoils from the projection of deliberate savagery, the Islamic Resistance Movement embraces and adopts savagery, "managed savagery," as its primary militant tactic, calculating, correctly, so far, that America, which wants to be nice and doesn't really want to hurt anybody, will never respond with equal or greater force, or savagery. Thus, it calculates, Islam can easily withstand the pulled punches America is willing to throw, while America will eventually succumb to the never-ending managed savagery of militant Islam. Unfortunately, America does not appear to have a Strategic Philosophy, and therefore, the IRM accurately calculates, while America does not want to lose this war, America, blinded by the conceit of its own goodness to the ruthless malevolence of others, does not understand this war, and therefore lacks the will, the clear vision, and the decisiveness to win it.
The Chinese and the Russians do not want to fight a war with America, not openly and directly; they would get hurt too badly, no matter who "won," and they do not need to. They want a reasonably prosperous and productive America to sell stuff to, and buy stuff from, but they would be hugely pleased to see America cut down to size a bit, or a lot, an America that was a No. 3 Semi-Super Power, after China and Russia, or Russia and China, in either order, or maybe No. 4 after China, Russia, and the New Islamic Caliphate. They would like to see an America that is about as much a threat to anybody as the European Union is now, so the Chinese and Russians can run the global show as they see fit, ration the oil, and pocket the profits.
Thus, they are perfectly happy to sell weapons to Hezbollah, calculating that the Hezbos & Friends will do the dirty work for them, will maintain a generation of savagery all over the world (except in Russia and China), and that America will exhaust itself, its politics, its will and economy, trying to "control" and contain the savagery, but lacking the will and strategic vision to root out its roots, because that would cause way too many civilian casualties, and America cannot stomach the infliction of civilian casualties, or the destruction of nations, even if they are sponsors of terror. We're way too nice for all that. And so our "niceness" is turned and weaponized against us. We have become too civilized to defeat our enemies, perhaps too civilized to survive. The dagger of our decency stabs us in the back.
We've been sucker punched, but we set ourselves up for it, and we won't admit it. We actually think that Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Quaeda, the whole Islamic Resistance Movement, the whole Jihad, is a bunch of "non-state actors." Technically, but only theoretically, they are. In form, but not in substance. In real life they're rather conspicuously the agents and co-conspirators of nation states (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, China, North Korea, at least) that want to deflate America without having an open war with America, and have figured out that as long as they can send in the street soldiers of the Muslim Mafia to do the dirty work we will do everything we can to avoid a real war with the real Godfathers. We love peace too much. And it's working. Perfectly.
In the law of agency, the Principle is liable for the acts and omissions of his Agent. The Employer (principle) is liable for the acts and omissions of his Employee (agent), at least within the course and scope of the employment, at least within the scope of the intended purposes and objectives of the agency. The Conspirator is liable for the acts of his Co-Conspirator, at least within the scope of the objectives of the conspiracy. Thus, applying this basic principle of agency and conspiracy to geopolitics, we should be holding Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, China, and North Korea, who are providing weapons to the Jihad with which to attack Israel and America and the new Iraqi democracy, and providing safe havens and money and technical assistance for the Islamic Resistance Movement, responsible for the acts and omissions of their agents, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Quaeda, et al., but we lack the intellectual and strategic clarity, and the political will, to do so.
We insist on indulging our fine little fantasy that "nation states" are, ipso facto, somehow legitimate, and should not be attacked, much less destroyed, not even on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly by John Bolton, not even when they engage in a criminal conspiracy with the terrorists of the Islamic Resistance Movement to obliterate Israel and divide, demoralize, deplete, defeat, deflate, and dessicate America.
Israel is doing a little better than we are, at last, and we should follow the Israeli example, as far as it goes, and then go the rest of the way. We will have to, sooner or later, unless we intend to aquiesce to the vastly diminished role in the world our enemies have planned for us. We should do so sooner, before the Jihad gets nuclear weapons, rather than later, after it has them, when the price of defeating the Jihad, in dollars and blood, ours and theirs, will go up by several orders of magnitude.
A good start would be to give short notice to Iran and Syria that we expect the terrorism, in Iraq and everywhere else, to end, NOW. They've been hospitable to the Islamic Resistance Movement, the IRM, the Jihad, they support it, they arm it, they give it safe haven, and it's time to stop to it. Lob that ball back into THEIR court. So, they have, say, a week, two weeks, ten days, to shut it down. No more. After that, if there is an Islamic terrorist attack ANYWHERE ON EARTH we start rolling up the carpet on Iran and Syria (while Israel continues to dismantle Lebanon)--i.e., hold Iran and Syria hostage to American terror, just as they are now holding the United States hostage to Islamic terror.
Except we do not hold them hostage to random terror, as they do--WE GIVE THEM CONTROL--if they end Islamic terrorism, then they have nothing more to fear from us. If they do not end Islamic terrorism, then they have everything to fear. And if the terrorism does not stop on schedule, then we start taking apart the armed forces, infrastructure, and economies, of Syria and Iran, piece by piece, using all necessary and convenient force, until the terrorism stops and they surrender, unconditionally, as Germany and Japan once did. So far, because they understand that we do not yet fully understand this war, and will not do what is necessary to win it, they do not fear us.
Now, Russia and China want to be on the winning side of things in ten years when the dust settles, so they are selling weapons to the IRM, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Iran, betting that America will not wake up and smell the coffee, and will not develop the intellectual, strategic, or moral clarity to recognize that it is dying a death of a thousand cuts, until long after it's too late to save the patient, or the victim. So far, Russia and China are betting on the right horse.
And so as the political will of America to save itself slowly (or quickly) expires, we will see, in our lifetimes, maybe within the next few election cycles, or the next few years, a New World Order emerge, not the one American conspiracy theorists fear, but a far more deadly and malevolent one in which a new Islamic Caliphate, a new Islamic Empire, rises as a strutting puppet of the new superpowers, Russia, and China, with America relegated to geopolitical inconsequence, vying with the geopolitically inconsequential European Union for a distant fourth or fifth place in the pecking order.
Russia and China will not be overrun by the Islamic Resistance Movement, since they do not have our qualms about collateral damages, civilian casualties, nor our obsession with being "nice." They do not have our pathological desire to be liked by everyone. They do not fancy themselves quite so civilized, so "over-civilized," as do we, and so their civility cannot be weaponized and turned against them. They do not want "peace" as obsessively as we do, and so their passion for "peace" cannot stab them in the back. They will have no trouble ceding a large part of the world to the Islamic sphere of influence, the Arabian subcontinent, Africa, southern Europe, western Europe, with the message to Ahmadinejad, or whoever succeeds him, that "you can do whatever you like, as long as you cooperate with us, and as long as you don't threaten us, in which case your life expectancy will grow very short." Russia and China are not paralyzed by our pathological aversion to the use of savagery in self-defense, or in the pursuit of their national self-interests.
I.e., Russia and China are waiting in the wings to pick up the geopolitical spoils after the Islamic Resistance Movement deflates and defeats the will of America to defend itself and its interests, and exhausts and obliterates Israel. Russia and China will not threaten American sovereignty in North America, because they will be very happy to look to America as a source of technology exports, cheap labor, and cheap food.
The support of Russia and China for the Islamic Resistance Movement (via Iran) will, however, evaporate, when, or IF, the United States comes to its senses and begins to systematically deconstruct the ability and will of Iran, Syria, and the Islamic Resistance Movement, to project terrorism throughout the world. Russia and China, quite logically, want to be on the winning side of things when the dust settles. And if another horse starts to run faster, they'll change their bets.
It is not yet too late for America to wake up, smell the coffee, come to its senses, but with each day it gets later. The unsettling reality that America must recognize is that, if it is to survive in anything resembling its present form, dominance, influence, and prosperity, it must decide to subordinate its "niceness," its debilitating civility, its incapacitating decency, its sniveling obsession with being "liked" by the rest of the world, no matter how ineffectual or snobbish or opportunistic or barbaric the rest of the world may be, to the necessities of defending itself and others, its allies and friends, its Judeo-Christian civilization, and indeed the entire non-Islamic world, from the otherwise implacable advance of the Islamic Resistance Movement that intends to abolish Western Civilization as we have known it, and usher in a new world order of Islamic Empire, a thousand year reich of puritanical Islamic Nazism.
#7
Solutions? I have come to believe that the President is too tied to the oil patch, to deal effectively with Muslim terror. However, he is subject to Republican Party pressure, and I am hearing good things abou the need for a hardline response to Muslim aggression. Once you agree that Iraq and Afghanistan cannot pacify with terror harborage from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, then our leaders will adapt to it.
GWB fixates on ideas, some good some bad. He could have been a good leader if he was more flexible.
#8
I have come to believe that the President is too tied to the oil patch, to deal effectively with Muslim terror.
Yeah, everybody in the country wants to go to war with the Paks and Sauds. I hear it every night on TV and read it in the papeer every morning. The only thing stopping it is the bribes Bush is getting from Sauds and Halliburton. It's all Bush's fault.
#9
good posts. I'd submit that it is not only our "niceness" that is getting in the way but also our 24 hr media spin cycle which undercuts our strategic and tactical effectiveness wrt the WoT.
#10
I have come to believe that the President is too tied to the oil patch, to deal effectively with Muslim terror.
That's what the Democrats say every time they successfully vote to curtail domestic oil exploration here, which always somehow winds up putting more money in the pockets of the saudis.
(I wonder, one day are these guys gonna sober up or something and say "I voted for _what_?" interesting crossover-thread potential with the cannabis/mental illness thread down the page...)
#12
I take it that "come down" might be a better phrase to use than "sober up?"
If you read Rb today, you'll see that Oztralian handle the booze, Vance Bedbug the pot, and I have the pr0n squarely in my sights, as usual.
Thus, all bases are covered.
#14
I really dunno... anyway, to me, real problem is internal, not external.
Islam IS a weaponized civilization itself from its very conception, but it is a carrion, feeding on dying empires and civilizations, and sustaining its otherwise unviable civilizations(s) by "digesting" its prey.
I simply believe it's this cycle again; islam the civilization has found us (mostly Europe, but you're affected too) weakened and literally dying, and it is on the move again.
Again, this might be a swan song for it, but who cares?
Europe is screwed, at least in its current form, no way we can return to statu quo (not with 10-12 millions settled non europeans for 60 millions population in France, for example).
Regardless, History is accelerating. I really don't know what will happen next, not to mention what it will be like in 2050.
That response by Kraft and the article above by Epstein can't be stated more clearly or succinctly. Everything is on the line for our culture now. How to wake up the populace ??? Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
We could form an organization called America First, and fund billboards and bumper stickers that say simply
"The Enemy is Islam".
There are a bunch of organizations to secure the border, and support our troops, maybe we could get one of them to branch out into the Enemy is Islam campaign.
Surely, we have the smarts and the ballsy people here to run such a campaign, I'll donate and do whatever I can. I love America and that's all there is to it.
#18
SpecOp35, How to wake up the populace ???...
I don't know. The billboard suggestion... not sure that would work and very likely be litigated against by by CAIR et all. It is a simple message, but too simple. People need to know why, else they would not accept the message without a context.
It's a damn gordic knot. Keeps me sometimes sleepless during nights when I try to untie it.
I see if I can nail down some coherent thoughts in a week or so. A pre alpha version of sorts.
#19
You wake up the populace by not hiding the what the muslims are saying, plotting, and doing. It could be as simple as the gov buying, or demanding time as a public service, to publicize islamic ideology, what is being preached in mosques, said on muslim TV and papers, showing the day in day out atrocities committed by muslims. Drive the point home five times a day. Instead we have near total total silence by the government and media. So much so that even news networks have difficulty accessing images from the 911 attacks.
Posted by: ed ||
10/17/2006 17:29 Comments ||
Top||
#20
One way to wake up the populace would be to put a "war tax" of $2 a gallon on petroleum products & use the cash to defray expenses and promote energy independence so the US doesn't continue to send billions of dollars yearly to finance Islamic fascists. At the very least, practically every American would pay attention. Nah, it would never work...
#21
One way to wake up the populace would be to put a "war tax" of $2 a gallon on petroleum products & use the cash to defray expenses and promote energy independence
The 'use the cash' for its intended purpose would never happen.
#22
Frankly, there are still tens of thousands of us that are not "too civilized" to nuke ANYWHERE. There's an even easier answer - promote individual gun ownership and use. In the end, we will have to take out a large majority of our "too civilized" government to survive. We need weapons to do that. We'll also need to dispose of about 90 percent of the "professors" in our universities and colleges, and maybe half of our school teachers, in order to save the next generation from being prissified the same way. We may even end up having to nuke one or two of our own cities in order for the rest of us to survive. It's going to take a lot of work. As long as we have the Internet, and can speak the truth to one another, some part of America will survive.
Islam is a non-generative society. That is, they don't create a lot of "new" things. The easiest way we can defeat them is to continue to move ahead, intellectually, individually, personally, and as a group. They continue to remain rooted in the seventh century. Eventually the gap will be so huge they will collapse in upon themselves, solving the entire problem. We're already seeing that in some areas in Africa, where Muslims refuse to be innoculated against polio and other once-deadly diseases. If we let them kill themselves, it will save us the guilt of having to kill them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/17/2006 22:48 Comments ||
Top||
#23
#22: "Frankly, there are still tens of thousands millions of us that are not "too civilized" to nuke ANYWHERE."
There - fixed that for ya', OP. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/17/2006 22:52 Comments ||
Top||
#24
Instead we have near total total silence by the government and media.
Silence from the government. The media is on the other side, N.M.E.
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.
A major piece of the United Nations reform promised by Secretary General Kofi Annan was a new Human Rights Council. The idea was to replace the Commission on Human Rights, which had been hijacked by rogue states such as Libya and Sudan, with a body that could refocus attention on serious human rights violations around the world -- and in so doing remove what Mr. Annan said was "the shadow" cast by the old organization on "the United Nations system as a whole."
It is no secret that U.S. policymakers have lowered their expectations of what a future Iraq will resemble. President Bushs hoped-for shining beacon of freedom, which would infuse its authoritarian neighbors with democracy, has been downgraded. James A. Baker III, cochair of a forthcoming report on Iraq, says the United States would be lucky to see a state emerge that is merely representative, not democratic. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is 
