State of the nation

[gotterdamerung]

http://nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200406040840.asp

 

quote:

 

Our Real Dilemma. We do have a grave problem in this country, but it is not the plan for Iraq, the neoconservatives, or targeting Saddam. Face it: This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor, cast around blame for the Japanese internment, sued over the light armor and guns of Sherman tanks, apologized for bombing German civilians, and recalled General Eisenhower to Washington to explain the rough treatment of Axis prisoners.

 

We are becoming a crazed culture of cheap criticism and pious moralizing, and in our self-absorption may well lose what we inherited from a better generation. Our groaning and hissing elite indulges itself, while better but forgotten folks risk their lives on our behalf in pretty horrible places.

 

Judging from our newspapers, we seem to care little about the soldiers while they are alive and fighting, but we suddenly put their names on our screens and speak up when a dozen err or die. And, in the latter case, our concern is not out of respect for their sacrifice but more likely a protest against what we don't like done in our name. So ABC's Nightline reads the names of the fallen from Iraq, but not those from the less controversial Afghanistan, because ideological purity — not remembering the departed per se — is once again the real aim.

[Beck]

Why did we invade Iraq for? Lies about WMD, illusory connections between Sadaam and Al Quaeda. Oil.

 

 

Americans killed for oil, and the profits to be made by privateers. Ain't worth fighting for.

[foraker]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, aren't the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court basically controlled by the conservatives now? If so, in whom do we place our present state? You could blame Clinton I suppose, but then I could rightly blame Bush 1, Ronald Reagan, Nixon, etc ad nauseum.

[eternalX]

Yea....next thing ya know...we'll be like Switzerland! The horror!

 

[Fairweather]

Good post, Gotterdamerung! We truly have lost our mettle. In WWII, newsreels were usually seen by the public three months after-the-fact. Even then, Roosevelt was worried about the American public discovering the true horrors that the firebombing of Japanese cities was wreaking.

 

I sincerely believe the press is at least in part responsible for our premature departure from Vietnam. Now they are trying to wield their power in Iraq. Kick the press out of Iraq, get the dirty work done, re-establish order by force, and get out.

[Stonehead]

aye, what we need is a strong leader who can invoke the melon gods.

 

Invocation of the melon gods

[cj001f]

I sincerely believe the press is at least in part responsible for our premature departure from Vietnam. Now they are trying to wield their power in Iraq. Kick the press out of Iraq, get the dirty work done, re-establish order by force, and get out.

So the problem isn't the press, it's when people know about the nastiness of war?

 

When people know of the nastiness of an Unprovoked war? Iraq didn't attack us like the Japanese did. Or declare war on us like Hitler did. Iraq didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda - and so far, doesn't seam to have had any Active Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. Or even be actively supporting any terrorists (apart from the Palestinians) like Afghanistan was. So what compelling reason was their to go to war in Iraq?

[JoshK]

C'mon, FW, you don't really think we should just push freedom of press aside, do you? If we despite the press so much we need to find other ways to get them to change, simply kicking them out isn't the answer. I dont think the press is our problem in Iraq. Kick them out and we still have a problem, it's just not seen as much. Sure, I agree, it might go a ways towards stemming a lot of the negative critisism, whether you think that is good or bad depends on your view.

 

There is a reason they called them "the greatest generation" You also can't compare WWII to the Iraq war. We literally were fighting for the future of the world in WWII, what we are fighting for in Iraq, well, again depends on your opinion, but it's hardly the equal of WWII.

 

 

Also, this is just plain ignorant:

 

So the problem in central Iraq is not us, but rather the fact that unlike Kurdistan — which had a decade of transition toward consensual society thanks to Anglo-American pilots — the country is reeling from 30 years of autocracy, in which Islamic fascism offered an alternative of sorts to an ossified Soviet-style dictatorship.

 

So, obviously no credit goes to Jewish American, African American, Hispanic American, or other Allied pilots? What a jackass.

 

And finally, I wonder if he'll take the time to go back and fix his article considerin the 9/11 commision just released their findings that Iraq in no way cooperated with Al-Queda in 9/11. But I'm sure that commission doesn't have access to the important information that "Victor Davis Hanson" has.

[Greg_W]

Interesting excert gotterdamerung. However, I am reminded of the fact that it took almost 4 years of European war and a direct attack on American soil for our leaders to enter WWII. The national and world leaders in the mid-30's were a band of appeasers, with a few bright spots of determined, stolid leadership (Churchill, FDR). American men were chomping at the bit to help our allies, but our leaders hesitated. It wasn't the American, or even Allied, political leaders who made our achievements in WWII so great; it was the fighting men and tacticians of that "hero" generation (as they are called).

[DPS]

I sincerely believe the press is at least in part responsible for our premature departure from Vietnam. Now they are trying to wield their power in Iraq. Kick the press out of Iraq, get the dirty work done, re-establish order by force, and get out.

 

I have to agree with you Fairweather, the press was in no small measure responsible for the country's realization of how poorly the war was going. I'm not sure what you mean by "premature", do you mean before the US was able to take control of the vital American business interests (oil, rubber, tin) that the war was actually started over? Pentagon papers clearly stated that was the objective of the war. Leaders sold it to the country under the guise of fighting communism.

[AlpineK]

This present generation of leaders at home would never have made it to Normandy Beach. They would instead have called off the advance to hold hearings on Pearl Harbor

 

Actually congress did hold hearings after Pearl Harbor.

[gotterdamerung]

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND

THE GREAT CALIPHATE

By

Larry Abraham

 

I urge all of my readers to make copies of this report and send them to your friends and relatives. The information is too critical to be overlooked in the madness of this election year.

 

Part I of this essay was written in January before the Democrat Party primaries settled anything and before the occupation of Iraq took a turn for the worse. However, it is now more obvious that what I wrote about the nature of the Third Great Jihad is all too true. The political picture has deteriorated in Europe and the U.S .to a great degree since then so Part II takes these developments into consideration. Again, I urge all of you to distribute this essay as far and wide as possible without any concern for copyright violation. Our fellow citizens need to know the true nature of what we all face. LHA

 

As we watch and listen to all the Democrat Party candidates running for the nomination of their party, it is tantamount to enduring the Chinese water torture. The blah, blah, blah goes on and nothing of value comes out except the pain of listening to the same nothingness over and over again. I won?t take the time or space to repeat what you have heard so many, mind numbing times over the past months but what you have not heard is crucial.

 

I must also fault President Bush and the administration spokesmen for not telling the American people what they really need to know about this ?war?. If they don?t do that sometime between now and November it may cost them the election.

 

It Did Not Start on 9/11

 

The war we are now facing did not begin on September 11, 2001, nor will it end with the peaceful transition to civilian authorities in Iraq, whenever that may be. In fact, Iraq is but a footnote in the bigger context of this encounter, but an important one none the less.

 

This war is what the Jihadists themselves are calling the ? Third Great Jihad? and are doing so within the framework of a time line which reaches back to the very creation of Islam in the Seventh century and their attempts to recreate the dynamics which gave rise to the religion in the first two hundred years of its existence.

 

No religion in history grew as fast, in its infancy, than did Islam and the reasons for this growth are not hard to explain when you understand what the world was like at the time of Muhammad?s death in 632 AD. The Western Roman Empire was in ruins and the Eastern Empire was based in Constantinople and trying desperately to keep the power of its early grandeur while transitioning to Christianity as a de facto state religion. The costs to the average person were unbearable as he was being required to meet the constantly rising taxes levied from the state along with the tithes coerced by the Church. What Islam offered was the ?carrot or the sword?.

 

If you became a convert, your taxes were immediately eliminated, as was your tithe. If you didn?t, you faced death. The choice was not hard for most to make, unless you were a very devoted martyr in the making. At the beginning, even the theology was not too hard for most to swallow, considering that both Jewry and Christianity were given their due by the Prophet. There is but one God-Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet, as was Jesus, and the pre-Christian Jewish prophets of the Torah (old testament). Both were called ?children of the book?, the book being the Koran, which replaced both the Old and New testaments for Christians and Jews.

 

With this practical approach to spreading the ?word? Islam grew like wild fire, reaching out from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula in all directions. This early growth is what the Muslims call the ?first? great Jihad and it met with little resistance until Charles Martel of France, the father of Charlemagne, stopped them in the battle of Tours in France, after they had firmly established the religion on the Iberian peninsula. This first onslaught against the West continued in various forms and at various times until Islam was finally driven out of Spain in 1492 at the battle of Granada.

 

The ?second great jihad? came with the Ottoman Turks. This empire succeeded in bringing about the downfall of Constantinople as a Christian stronghold and an end to Roman hegemony in all of its forms. The Ottoman Empire was Islam?s most successful expansion of territory even though the religion itself had fractured into warring sects and bitter rivalries with each claiming the ultimate truths in ?the ways of the Prophet?. By 1683 the Ottomans had suffered a series of defeats on both land and sea and the final and failed attempt to capture Vienna set the stage for the collapse of any further territorial ambitions and Islam shrunk into various sheikhdoms, emir dominated principalities, and roving tribes of nomads. However, by this time a growing anti-western sentiment, blaming its internal failures on anyone but themselves, was taking hold and setting the stage for a new revival know has Wahhabism which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian peninsula shortly before the onset of WWI. It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects, especially the Shiites. What this sect calls for is the complete and total rejection of anything and everything which is not based in the original teachings of The Prophet and it finds its most glaring practice in the policies of the Afgani Taliban or the Shiite practices of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Its Ali Pasha (Field Marshall) is now known as Osama bin Laden, the leader of the ?third Jihad?.

 

Jimmy Carter sets the stage

 

The strategy for this ?holy war? did not begin with the planning of the destruction of the World Trade Center. It began with the plans for toppling the Shah of Iran back in the early 1970?s and culminated with his exile in 1979. With his plans and programs to ?westernize? his country, along with his close ties to the U.S. and subdued acceptance of the State of Israel, the Shah was the soft target.

 

Thanks, in large part to the hypocritical and disastrous policies of the Jimmy Carter State Department the revolution was set into motion, the Shah was deposed, his arm forces scattered or murdered and stage one was complete. The Third Jihad now had a base of operations and the oil wealth to support its grand design or what they call the ?Great Caliphate?.

 

The Great Caliphate

 

What this design calls for is the replacement of all secular leadership in any country with Muslim majorities. This would include, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, all the Emirates, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and finally what they call the ?occupied territory? Israel.

 

As a part of this strategy, forces of the jihad will infiltrate governments and the military as a prelude to taking control, once the secular leadership is ousted or assassinated. Such was the case in Lebanon leading to the Syrian occupation and what was attempted in Egypt with the murder of Anwar Sadat, along with the multiple attempts on the lives of Hussein in Jordan, Mubarak of Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. Pakistan is a particular prize because of its nuclear weapons.

 

The long-range strategy of the Third Jihad counts on three strategic goals. 1. The U.S. withdrawing from the region just as it did in Southeast Asia, following Vietnam. 2. Taking control of the oil wealth in the Muslim countries, which would be upwards to 75% of known reserves, and 3. Using nuclear weapons or other WMDs to annihilate Israel. A further outcome of successfully achieving these objectives would be to place the United Nations as the sole arbiter in East/West negotiations.

Evidence of the Bush Administration awareness of this plan is found in the facts that immediately following the 9/11 attack, their first move was to shore up Pakistan and Egypt, believing that these two would be the next targets for al Qaeda while Americans focused on the disaster in New York. The administration also knew that the most important objective was to send a loud and clear message that the U.S. was in the region to stay, not only to shore up our allies but to send a message to the Jihadists. The attack on Afghanistan was necessary to break-up a secure al Qaeda base of operations and put their leadership on the run or in prison.

 

Why Iraq?

 

The war on Iraq also met a very strategic necessity in that no one knew how much collaboration existed between Saddam Hussein and the master planners of the Third Jihad or his willingness to hand off WMDs to terrorist groups including the PLO in Israel. What was known, were serious indications of on-going collaboration, as Saddam funneled money to families of suicide bombers attacking the Israelis and others in Kuwait.

 

What the U.S. needed to establish was a significant base of operations smack dab in the middle of the Islamic world, in a location which effectively cut it in half. Iraq was the ideal target for this and a host of other strategic reasons.

 

Leadership of various anti-American groups both here and abroad understood the vital nature of the Bush initiative and thus launched their demonstrations, world-wide, to ?Stop The War?. Failing this, they also laid plans to build a political campaign inside the country, with the War in Iraq as a plebiscite, using a little know politician as the thrust point; Howard Dean. This helps to explain how quickly the Radical Left moved into the Dean campaign with both people and money, creating what the clueless media called the ?Dean Phenomenon?.

 

By building on the left-wing base in the Democrat party and the ?Hate Bush? liberals, the campaign has already resulted in a consensus among the aspirants, minus Joe Lieberman, to withdraw the U.S. from Iraq and turn the operation over to the U.N. And, if past is prologue, i.e. Vietnam, once the U.S. leaves it will not go back under any circumstances, possibly even the destruction of Israel.

 

Should George W. Bush be defeated in November and a new administration come to power we could expect to see the dominoes start to fall in the secular Islamic countries and The Clash of Civilizations would then become a life changing event in all of our lives.

 

What surprised the Jihadists following the 9/11 attack was how American sentiment mobilized around the president and a profound sense of patriotism spread across the country They were not expecting this reaction, based on what had happened in the past, nor were they expecting the determined resolve of the President himself. I believe that this is one of the reasons we have not had any further attacks within our borders. They are content to wait, just as one of their tactical mentors, V.I. Lenin admonished??two steps forward, one step back?.

 

A couple of additional events serve as valuable footnotes to the current circumstances we face: the destruction of the human assets factor of the CIA during the Carter presidency, presided over by the late Senator Frank Church and Carter?s CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner. This fact has plagued our intelligence agencies right up to this very day with consequences which are now obvious. Jimmy Carter is the one man who must bear the bulk of the responsibility for setting the stage of the Third Jihad. Americans should find little comfort in how the Democrat contenders constantly seek the ?advice and counsel? of this despicable little hypocrite who now prances around with his Nobel Prize, while attacking President Bush with almost as much venom as his fellow Nobel Laureate, Yassir Arafat.

 

Lastly, we should not expect to see any meaningful cooperation from Western Europe, especially the French.

Since failing to protect their own interests in Algeria by turning the country over to the first of the Arab terrorists, Amid Ben Bella, the country itself is now occupied by Islamic immigrants totally twenty percent of the population.

 

We are in the battle of our lives which will go on for many years possibly even generations. If we fail to understand what we are facing or falter in the challenge of ?knowing our enemy? the results will be catastrophic.

 

PART II (May 1, 2004)

 

Since writing the above, we have witnessed some frightening evidence in support of our hypothesis both internally and in other parts of the world.

 

The al Qaeda bombing in Madrid has emboldened our enemy into believing it can use terror as an instrument for democratic regime change. Based on what happened there, they may be right.

 

Kerry and bin Laden on the same page

 

John Kerry and other leaders of his party constantly refer to the United States as ?acting unilaterally.? They give no credit whatsoever to countries like Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Australia or even tiny Honduras for putting their limited armed forces in harm?s way to support the U.S. led coalition in Iraq. It is little wonder that some are considering doing what Spain has done?pulling out. The leaders in these countries have spent considerable political capital in this effort, and have little to show for it as it relates to fostering good will with the American public. Couple that fact with Osama bin Ladin?s latest offer of withholding attacks on those who ?quit? the coalition and you have all the elements for a Democrat party fostered ?self-fulfilling prophecy? where the U.S. will be totally alone in the pacification of Iraq. John Kerry and the Bush critics persist in the ?lie? of the U.S. going it ?alone? in Iraq but Osama bin Laden knows differently and will use the Kerry rhetoric to help isolate the U.S. The terrorists now see themselves as political ?king-makers?. They may be right.

 

Another aspect of the ?anti-Bush? political axis is how both his political enemies and the main stream media take ghoulish delight in ?the body count,? just as they did in the later days of Vietnam. Oh sure, they pay incidental homage to the memory of the young Americans who gave their lives in the greatest threat this country has ever faced, but they do so with all the sincerity of Madonna making a vow of chastity. As the body bags grow in number, they believe, so grows their political prospects. They may be right.

 

If the Bush administration is further weakened in the months leading up to the November elections, we will witness a heightened al Qaeda offensive in all parts of the world, including our own country, and especially in Iraq and nations surrounding it ,i.e., Pakistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Events within the past few days in Jordan not only make this argument but also point to the possibility of ?what happened to the WMDs.?

Iran and Syria are daily growing more overt and bold in their support of insurgents within Iraq, believing that Bush has been so hurt by internal politics that he is powerless to act against them in any meaningful way. They may be right.

 

The Leftwing initiative, Political Correctness and Our Will to Win

 

Within our own country we are witnessing and almost insane application of ?political correctness.? As the barbarism of radical Islam grows more apparent in the streets of the Middle East from Gaza to Basra, we see a cultural suicide taking place within our own schools and communities.

 

Our children are being taught from the Koran, our professors are preaching intifadah in their class rooms, and Muslim ?call to prayer? loud speakers are blaring out from city halls. The more precarious our very existence becomes, the more our liberal brethren embrace their enemies. It is a Stockholm Syndrome which can only lead to the recruitment of young Muslims who will be willing to duplicate in the West what their co-religionists are doing in the streets of Israel and the market places of Baghdad. The liberal P.C. crowd say nothing about the silence of the Muslim religious leadership as it relates to the carnage of innocents but couldn?t speak out fast enough against the inspiration supplied to tens of millions of Christians by Mel Gibson?s The Passion of the Christ. They were put off by the movie?s ?violence? and its alleged ?fostering of anti-Semitism?. Movies must represent their ?reality? as the real thing moves them not at all. Among liberal Jews in America, hatred of George W. Bush is only surpassed by their contempt for Ariel Sharon?Let them explain it, I am at a total loss to do so. Maybe they just miss seeing Bill Clinton smooching Yassir Arafat in the White House Rose Garden.

 

The ?Reverend? Jesse Jackson is now calling the U.S. ?guilty of crimes against humanity? as he sets out to mobilize the non-Islamic Left. None of the Democrat leadership says a word in opposition to Jackson?s treason or Hillary?s attacks on the President and U.S. policy in an Arabic newspaper, while in London. You can bet that al Jezeera didn?t miss a beat in their reporting of both events.

 

The campaign takes its toll

 

The campaign is seriously hurting Mr. Bush?s leadership role in the War on Terror. While ducking every new book critical of his initiative or trying to counter the partisan nitpicking of the 9/11 Commission, he has persisted in the misbegotten insistence of ?installing democracy? in Iraq. Our purpose for being in that beleaguered country should be restricted to one purpose and one purpose only, to stop the expansion of The Third Jihad and provide a base for doing same in the neighboring areas. This can be done by sealing the borders, attacking anything that moves in violation of same and by making it clear to Syria and Iran that any participation on their part will be considered an ?act of war?. Let the country be governed by the local tribes, Shiite in the south, Sunni in the central and Kurds in the north with a U.S. pro consul overseeing the military. Oil revenues could be spilt by population allocation. How about installing a Republic?it worked pretty well here with diverse populations.

 

The very idea that we should spend our sons and daughters blood or our tax dollars on trying to building a ?democracy? in the region which has neither a history nor a desire for such, is sheer nonsense. The very essence of Islamic teaching speaks directly against this principle. Continuing on the current path can only result in fostering greater hatred for the ?Great Satan?. Force is the only thing which is respected in that part of the world and this force need not be tied to ?reform?. I suggest Mr. Rumsfled acquaint himself with a copy of Julius Caesar?s Gallic Wars and Sun Tsu?s Art of War. All the tactics and strategies necessary to subdue the Iraqi insurgents can be found in those two military gems.

 

Please not the UN

 

Bringing the U.N. to the party will only compound the problem without adding any accountability. The U.N. has been accused of many things over the years, but being a ?democratic? institution has never been one of them. Just the latest scandal of the ?Oil for Food? program should provide any thinking person with all the evidence they need to keep the U.N. at bay. But this doesn?t seem to bother the likes of the John Kerry?s of the world who prattle on as if the scam doesn?t even exist.

 

Just one example will make my case; the UN mandate in Israel, which has been in place since 1948. One more salient point needs to be made on this subject. There is no such thing as ?The International Community.? There are only individual countries, each with its own agenda which is always self serving. The myth of a higher level of ?moral authority? coming out of the UN as been one of the greater lies of the past half century, but it is a lie which persists in spite of a bloody record of hypocrisy, graft, genocide and ?perpetual war for perpetual peace.? I have a suggestion for the 9/11 Commission:.Why don?t they look into what the UN was doing before the attack on the World Trade Center? If they do, they will find that exactly one week before, the UN was holding a Conference on Racism in Durbin, South Africa where the delegates voted overwhelmingly to condemn Israel, as ?racist and terrorist.? The U.S., Canadian and Israeli delegates walked out in disgust. Nary a word was uttered about Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda, or the Taliban, to say nothing of what was happening in Rwanda while they crunched caviar on toast and washed it down with vintage Champaign. Genocide does not qualify as ?racism? according to the UN ?morality.? Neither we nor the world needs the UN to muck up what is already a very delicate situation. If given proper leadership every Middle Eastern country named above will throw in with the Coalition, for if they don?t they will be the next targets of the Third Great Jihad and the Great Caliphate. Pakistan is already showing the leadership which others will follow. What do you think moved Kadahaffi to cozy up to the U.S. and Great Britain? He fears the Jihadist more than he hates us.

 

Evil Does Exist

 

Our current crises, in meeting the threat of the Third Jihad, is one more example of how most Americans simply refuse to believe there is evil in this world and are willing to grant moral equivalence on any human action. Unless the crime is personalized such as in the case of Lacy Peterson, we lose interest quickly and become bored or at least not involved.

 

To try and understand what we are facing, look into the eyes of your son or grandson and try to fathom a mind which would take pride in strapping a bomb to his body and sending him out to kill himself and countless innocent people. Or in the case of your daughter or grand daughter, try to imagine a religion which commands you to mutilate her vagina to destroy her sex drive or demands you to stone her to death if she has sexual relations with a man other than of your choosing.

 

If you can comprehend these facts both intellectually and emotionally, then you will start to understand what we are facing in the months and years ahead, both at home and abroad.

 

The radicals of Islam will stop at nothing to destroy us and all we stand for. They see this war as their ?entry to paradise? and a release from the miserable existence they have built for themselves within the confines of an evil and perverse religion. The Jihadist are NOT like us, nor most of their fellow Muslims. But, like terrorists everywhere they have silenced any criticisms from fellow Muslims through threat and intimidation and have, with the help of the ?useful idiots? in the West, ?created the appearance of popular support?.

 

If we are incapable of understanding these realities and acting accordingly, within the life time of everyone who reads these words, we will see our cherished way of like cease to exist and chaos become our lot. The Clash of Civilizations is now reaching out and touching all of us. May God grant us the wisdom and the courage to meet the challenge.

 

I respectfully dedicate the above to the memory of Pat Tillman and his 872 comrades who by their courage and willing sacrifice set an example for every American. May we be worthy of their ?greatest love??

 

http://www.insiderreport.net/clash_1-2.html

[gotterdamerung]

Why did we invade Iraq for? Lies about WMD, illusory connections between Sadaam and Al Quaeda. Oil.

 

 

Americans killed for oil, and the profits to be made by privateers. Ain't worth fighting for.

 

Did they teach you that at Evergreen Beck? Why don't you grow up and allow your mind to expand past the borders of your rectum.

[Jim]

I din't think it possible to have "clash of clivizations", "..fall like dominos", "Great Caliphate", Jimmy Carter, "Great Jihad", and other sweet nothings in the same essay. Bravo! Great piece of satire!

[gotterdamerung]

Glad you're so amused. Too bad you don't have a clue about the middle east and the way things are going over there. These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

[Loose_Brie]

Glad you're so amused. Too bad you don't have a clue about the middle east and the way things are going over there. These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

It seems quite clear how things are going over there. Everyone is shooting and blowing each other up. Pretty simple really. Its been that way for quite some time. Why the hell should we want to send out troops over there and spend our treasure to stand between a few dozen clans of homicidal maniacs?

[Jim]

These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

 

If that last essay is an example of "experts in the field" I'd suggest you cast a wider net.

[willstrickland]

Abraham does ok until he gets to the "Why Iraq" section. His assertion is that:

 

1. Iraq could have been actively cooperating with terrorist groups and passing WMD to them (he mentions the PLO).

 

2. We needed a strategic base of operations to protect against the rise of radical islamic regimes.

 

Abraham continues by attempting to equate the war in Iraq with the war on terror. And this is the critical error in his analysis.

 

1)Regarding his first assertion, we have determined that the Hussein regime was not actively working with Al Qaeda, and they did not pass WMD to the PLO for use against Israel. The PLO scenario is pure fantasy. Condi Rice's assessment that WMD possessed by Iraq would be uselss to them because it would result in obliteration of their country in retaliation, can also be applied to the PLO scenario - If the PLO deployed WMD in Israel, and there was any indication that it came from Baghdad, nukes would be flying from Tel Aviv with coordinates to center-punch Sadaam's palace.

 

2)We had existing strategic footholds in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan. We did not "need" Iraq.

 

 

Abraham's second error is equating the opposition to the Iraq war with a failure to understand the danger posed by the rise of radical islam by those in opposition. This is preposterous to me. I fully recognize the danger and support the intelligent use of crushing, decisive force to quell that rise. The outright lying to the public and the misapplication of both forces and resources are the reasons for my opposition. In other words, we could be using our military and financial resources in much more productive ways in the fight against terror than nation-building in Iraq.

 

Abraham attempts to play the "liberal wussy" card, which in many cases can be valid. There are certainly peaceniks who live in a fanatasyland of "smile on your brother, everybody get together try to love one another right now". But broad stroke generalizations of the opposition ignores that there are many conservative leaning, pro military types who opposed the conflict based on practical analysis rather than idealistic pipedreams.

 

I think the MOST relevant thing in the whole article is one line that doesn't get much emphasis: "Such was the case in Lebanon leading to the Syrian occupation and what was attempted in Egypt with the murder of Anwar Sadat, along with the multiple attempts on the lives of Hussein in Jordan, Mubarak of Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. Pakistan is a particular prize because of its nuclear weapons."

 

Pakistan is also a hotbed of radical islamic schools and a haven for the radicals themselves. I'd wager good money that bin Laden and his gang of shitheads are in the Pakistan border region. And from what I've read, our troops in Afghanistan patrolling the border region cannot cross the border in pursuit of insurgents. This baffles me. BushCo needs to make it very clear to Musharaf that he WILL cooperate. No "request". More like "we will pursue them if they cross the border, and any attempt to intervene on the part of Pakistani troops will bring down a world of hurt".

 

Everyone agrees that Hussein was an evil dictator. But it also defies logic to say that he needed to go BECAUSE of the dangers of a rise of radical islam. Hussein's regime was secular, and he ruled with an iron fist. The stability of Iraq's regime, and/or it's susceptibility to an radical islamic uprising was never in question. Regardless of your feelings about Sadaam and his ways, he was a stabalizing secular force and in many ways that was an asset to the region with regards to ascention of radicals to governmental control.

Edited June 17, 2004 by willstrickland

[gotterdamerung]

Glad you're so amused. Too bad you don't have a clue about the middle east and the way things are going over there. These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

It seems quite clear how things are going over there. Everyone is shooting and blowing each other up. Pretty simple really. Its been that way for quite some time. Why the hell should we want to send out troops over there and spend our treasure to stand between a few dozen clans of homicidal maniacs?

 

Quite clear from Washington State? Blow me assmonkey.

[gotterdamerung]

These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

 

If that last essay is an example of "experts in the field" I'd suggest you cast a wider net.

 

I didn't say that essay was written by "an expert" I said those themes come up quite often by NSA writers who are experts in the field. Read what I wrote and quit trying to bang heads with me.

[snoboy]

These are all themes I have heard spoken of or read in several books written by experts in the field.

 

If that last essay is an example of "experts in the field" I'd suggest you cast a wider net.

 

 

Like someone who can spell for starters.

[gotterdamerung]

You are exactly the kind of person this article talks about. If you're Canadian stay on your side of the border and mind your own countries business why don't ya?

[snoboy]

The business of our closest and largest neighbour/allie tends to be our business too. to you too.

[gotterdamerung]

Then send some troops to Iraq to fight.

[slothrop]

If you're Canadian stay on your side of the border and mind your own countries business why don't ya?

 

Remind me why Iraq is our business again? How does America get an exception to this "sit down and shut up" rule?