The Washington Post reports, Bush’s ‘War’ On Terror Comes to a Sudden End. Which came to an end, the Terror or the War? Or did we win it already? Maybe it wasn’t necessary to win it? Or maybe it foolish to try. Just what exactly is BHO signaling? Open thread.
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The terrorists won’t stop their war on us.
Okay, if we aren’t supposed to call this armed conflict a “war”, perhaps we can call it a tea party instead.
According to Obama on inauguration day: “Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. ”
I think Dana Priest’s Post article is wildly overstating things. But if it tells people what they want to believe, I guess I can understand the propaganda value in it for the new administration.
However, UPI reported earlier today:
“WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) — U.S. policy on accused terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, likely won’t deviate much from its current form, a review of documents indicates.”
Link:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/23/Orders_may_not_reform_Gitmo_expert_says/UPI-53461232726039
THis is becoming quite confusing. The media seem to be more and more making up lies out of whole cloth and reporting what they want to report, because then when you read the actual quote from Obama or who-ever was talking, that’s not what they said at all.
That happened all the time with poor old Dubya, but I sort of thought the MSM would be more reverential towards their Messiah and quote him accurately. Maybe they’ve lost the ability to understand what is reality.
Or maybe since their steady drip-drip-drip of lies painted Bush and his policies as failures to most Americans, the media figure if they drip-drip-drip long enough about any subject, they can change ANY reality to what they think it should be.
Pure fantasizing!
Before Bush, prisoners were simply disposed of by inhumane methods and without gaining any intelligence.
The Clintonistas saw to that by turning what they had over to people far less ethical than the CIA.
Obama puts out a carefully hedged Executive
non-Order and some people get a fresh dose of leg-tingles.
And I would be surprised if it was not their middle leg that kept tingling at these platitudes.
What it means is quite clear. The Post is quite correct, America at a stroke became like the Netherlands or the UK or Spain.
Obama’s plan to respond to terror attacks is … appeasement and surrender. Just as Britain responded to bombing attacks by instituting Sharia, and imposing “hate speech” codes for people who criticize Islam, and bowing and scraping when Muslims demand an end to Christmas, and predict openly Muslim rule over England (which is in fact a dead certainty), and Spain did the same after the Madrid bombings, and the Netherlands the same after Van Gogh was murdered, that is Obama’s plan.
SURRENDER.
And it’s likely to succeed. Obama as President will have lots of powers to force surrender, and the People have decided that say NYC getting nuked out of existence is not worth pouring water up the nose of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
Obama HOPES for a mass-casualty terror attack. So he can then propose Sharia. He is after all a man who as a matter of record was born and raised a Muslim, and went to Pakistan one summer during College. Certainly the UK, Spain, and the Netherlands have responded to terror by surrender.
He certainly will have lots of supporters who want to surrender, to anyone, who is against the US. Surrender is popular in the Press, and media, entertainment, law, and other “knowledge worker” professions.
Certainly deciding to close Gitmo (inevitable most of the worst will go free, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed), no harsh interrogation, etc. will allow terrorists to kill Americans with impunity.
Nahncee #3- >>if they drip-drip-drip long enough about any subject, they can change ANY reality to what they think it should be.<<
This sums up left wing thinking. I saw one of those bumper stickers the other day, with Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
I think what he actually meant was, “If you are a Ph.D. in physics, imagination is more important than knowledge, because if you want to come up with new concepts you need fresh thinking more than going back over all the stuff you have studied.” For the other 99.99999% of the population, imagination is most definitely *not* more important than knowledge, because you need knowledge to do the tasks of ordinary life.
Liberals nonetheless love this quote because it’s just so much more fun to dream about how they would like things to be and insist that is the way it is than actually deal with things as they are. Communists love this because they believe society as currently structured is simply a social construct that can easily be swept away, if only the really brilliant can focus hard enough- see “The Matrix.”
Whiskey- Get a grip.
Wretchard- I think the last paragraph of Priest’s “analysis” is the most important: “Obama used a new lexicon to describe operations to defeat terrorists”. A lot of this is no doubt about words. How much remains to be seen. The most important thing is to call the war on terror something else and remove the troublesome Gitmo from public scrutiny. The American people will tolerate a lot as long as it’s removed fromt their everyday conciousness. Whether that means the effort stops or subsides will be evident soon enough. Obama is enough of a pragmatist to continue on some level if for no other reason than a terrorist attack could really mess up his plans for utopia. I don’t see Sharia as a priority for him. He’s the one being adored presently and I don’t think he wants anything to get in the way of that either.
And, so it begins.
It begins with a small puncture to side, and then a jab from rear – usually by a proxy. Next, will come a full body blow to the respect and great image of our Troops.
Just as Obama used the race card to cut to pieces his political adversaries he will do the same to our troops.
It may not be the race card but it will be a sharp shiv into the collective backs of our Troops.
Will it be a thousand small cuts or one big jab and twist? Nothing good will come of it.
From Obama’s inaugural speech: “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals… And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughter of innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
Our spirit is stronger? Why? We cannot be broken? Why not? They can’t outlast us? Why ever not? We will defeat them? How? This is what I want to know. But I don’t hear ANY solid answers from The One. I suppose we’re all expected to believe that the mere assertion of our “higher ideals” is gonna do the trick. Why doesn’t he just drop all the fuzzy mushy psychobabble, get to the point and announce WE SURRENDER. That’s likely what every enemy of the U.S. and the West are already hearing anyway.
correction: IS already hearing..,
BOH is moving quickly to establish himself as the Alpha Executive. He has initiated face-to-face meetings with Beltway Conservative journalists and with Republican Congress critters to lay down the law and let them them know there is room for only one sheriff in town, and he is it.
We don’t know much about what happened at the journalists meeting but this New York Post article has enough information in it about BOH’s exchanges with the GOP critters to draw some conclusions from it about BOH’s view of how things are going to work in DC from now on.
Here’s the lede “President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.”
John McCain and Colin Powell notwithstanding the institutional role of opposition Senators is not “to get along.”
There have been other Alpha Executives. Jackson and FDR come to mind. Both used their popular support to change the nature of the Republic and not always in good ways.
Maybe I read too much history for my own good. Marius used his dominant personality to gain the adoration of the plebes and to cow the Roman Senate into submitting to his personal agenda. The Roman Republic had institutionalized the separation of powers generations before Marius. He went to the fringes of institutionalized separation which were not so clearly defined, but outside the consensual boundaries that had held the Republic together for hundreds of years.
Marius didn’t kill the Republic. He did kick the foundation of what was permissible hard enough to start the teeter.
With trillions to spend and no effective opposition to watch the store there is no kind of allegiance that cannot be purchased.
Dana Priest? Yawn. All you need to know about her is she was a Political Science major at UC Santa Cruz.
However, this is encouraging. Betrayed by Obama: Some of the new president’s most ardent supporters already feel let down.
Dan Savage, Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Corn, NOW, Medea Benjamin; all feeling like jilted lovers. No matter who proves to reside behind Obama’s mask, the fact that this crowd is already shrieking pleases me.
To be perfectly honest, I’ll be quite surprised if America doesn’t end up in civil war before Bama’s term is out. I’m seeing the Right buy guns and ammo like there’s no tomorrow because they don’t trust him any further than they can throw the White House. I think there are lots of people with the resolution to start shooting as soon as it becomes obvious who needs to get shot first. Bama makes a move to confiscate firearms, the first shootees will be the few police who will try to enforce the edict, as most would resign rather than obey. Dem politicians of all stripes will probably come right after that.
America is in a situation very analogous to pre-Civil War Spain now. All it will take is one publicized event and all Hell will break loose. I wouldn’t give even odds on Bama surviving to the end of his term. An “Allende moment” in his future wouldn’t surprise me a bit. Hard times and furious citizens make for a damned volatile mix. Add in a military that despises Bama and the Dems and you’ve got a real witches’ brew.
Bottoms up!
Nice roll of late Wretch. Thanks for the ponderings.
Interesting the manner in which Obama is trying to establish his position in the Washington pecking order — and how others (Pelosi, now Gillibrand) are not bending over. (Is it more than coincidence that we’re seeing women doing their own thing rather than just acceding to Obama’s pressure?)
On a slightly different topic, I have written one of my senators (the other is Reid — why bother?) urging him to oppose both the Geithner and Holder nominations on ethical grounds. (Geithner because of playing fast and loose with taxes, Holder because of his role in the Rich pardon and support for the Gorelick Line.) I encourage other BC readers to do likewise. I think this is the moment for folks on the Hill to show what they’re made of. Go write your senator. Please.
F
The Wash Post is RIGHT. It is BUSH’S War on Terror that is over. The OBAMA WOT is starting. Think CLINTON WOT as a basis. Or think KENNEDY in Vietnam (i.e., snazzy, cool, covert, and most importantly of all, totally half-assed).
#14, Joe Buzz,
Ditto. Wretchard’s been delivering a full-course buffet for the head of late.
You make my day, Richard.
The USA launched its War on Terror covertly on September 13, 1995. That was the date when the Clinton Administration’s CIA carried out its first extraordinary rendition — of Talaat Fouad Qassem from Croatia to Egypt, where he disappeared without a trace in some dungeon there.
The USA continued this war covertly for six years, until we were attacked on September 11, 2001.
The USA ended its War on Terror on November 4, 2009, by electing Barack Obama to be its new Commander-In-Chief.
However, using chronological symmetry as a guide, we can forecast that we now are reverting to another, Clintonesque, six-year covert phase. Obama will successfully project a fiction that the USA is adhering to idealistic purity and to all civil laws. That ploy will enable the USA later to effectively use our good-old plausible-deniability punch-below-the-belt tactics on Moslem terrorists. We will smile and display our clean hands as the Moslem terrorists again continually disappear without a trace in dungeons throughout the Moslem world.
Ever since September 1995, the USA has thrown a variety of curve balls, speed balls and knuckle balls at the Moslem world. Our election of Barack Obama — a black-white, raised-Moslem-but-professed-Chrisitan, rags-to-riches, political-machinist Wunderkind — is our ultimate screw-ball pitch.
This is one of the sillier headlines I’ve seen in quite a while. The War on Terror is just about Gitmo and secret CIA prisons? Really? What of, you know, those two big battles in Iraq and Afghanistan? What about all the special forces operations that have been ramped up over the past 7 years in Africa, the Philippines, and part of Asia? Were those just distractions from the real reason for the WoT? Namely, waterboarding out of sheer fun?
Oh, and I love the quotes around “war”. How ironic. Nudge nudge.
“…they don’t trust him any further than they can throw the White House.”
The Left tries to levitate the White House. And then the Right tries to throw it.
I wonder how many of the centrist middle who voted for Obama because of his hypnotic speaking voice and promises of free stuff for everyone would wake up out of their trance once he does actually start surrendering. Or if they’ll actually even bring themselves to care about things like shariah law and freedom of speech.
Of course it won’t be called “surrender”. It’ll be called something like “peace with honor”. A pitcher of beer to the person who first correctly identifies the newly-worded surrender meme.
mac:
America is in a situation very analogous to pre-Civil War Spain now. All it will take is one publicized event and all Hell will break loose.
Sadly, you may have a point.
NahnCee:
“Peace in our time.”
The signal in question is the increasing usurpation of reality by ideality, by a scrum of ideational activity. If it continues on its present pace and scale it’s not outlandish to imagine a time within the next decade or two wherein a less peaceful transfer of power will be needed. That also assumes a larger number of more serious minded individuals, an “army of Davids,” will manifest itself – and it’s not clear either of those factors are on the horizon.
Though it’s not clear they are not on the horizon either. It was after the attack on Pearl Harbor that a Japanese high official said something along the lines of “I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant,” so ultimately there is a delimiting point, barring a completely de-moralized populace.
Mr. Obama’s White House spokesman stated that the Executive Orders calling for the closing of GITMO, the shutting down of overseas CIA interrogation centers and the use of the Army Field Manual for interrogation of terrorists ENHANCES American security. Spin for going back to 9/10? The Army Field Manual has 19 rules for interrogation, which give less leeway than the NYPD has with criminals; no threats are allowed nor good cop, bad cop acts. I feel just so-o-o-o much safer now. It is officially Mr. Obama and the Democrat’s war, ah, problem now. No more “its Bush’s fault”. Hope this turns out better than Vietnam in ’75.
“The signal in question is the increasing usurpation of reality by ideality, by a scrum of ideational activity.”
—
Amen
This thread made me search back to find Wretch on Horowitz, which I had not read.
Expecting to get some common sense.
Instead I get Horowitz as Peggy Noonan.
I say there is intrinsic value in SANITY,
when all around you have gone berserk.
Enough of this Imaginary Child’s Play.
It is what it is,
and it ain’t pretty.
Horowitz as Noonan or John McCain ain’t gonna cut it.
#20 An inclusive peace.
I think Obama’s word-play is designed to alleviate the pressure that real “war” puts on the US Treasury.
The advantage to calling this war what it is is, a Republican President could strong-arm our welfarist party, the Democrats, into spending our money on it. I think that this is what riled the Democrats more than any other thing Bush did. It gave him the message he needed to trump their redistributionist social agenda.
It is no coincidence that a competing global threat like “Global Warming,” and subversive domestic redistributionism, like Barney Frank’s covert enforcement of Clinton’s fudgy CRA lending quotas, both blossomed while Bush waged a real war. These subversive agendas were contrived and propagated simply to dull the legislative advantage that full-scale “War” awarded to their opponents’ Commander in Chief.
Conducting a real war is grown-ups’ work. Now, I’m afraid we’re in for 4-years of child’s play.
(*Yawn*)… The press once again demonstrates that it’s separated from reality, this time oddly from the reality of actions from the one they appointed as savior. Turns out he’s likely not going to be able to change much.
Strikes against terrorists? Obama’s still doing it.
Guantanamo? Sure, he’s closing it… but his administration is still looking at putting the detainees on trial, they just want to do so in some forum other than the Camp Delta tribunals. The camp closure is all show; what matters is what happens to the detained fighters.
Afghanistan? He wants to increase the US presence there, oddly enough.
But the major news media acts like he’s going to reverse everything Bush has done. What’s really going to happen is that he’s going to take some symbolic but superficial steps (closing Guantanamo, for example; the detainees aren’t going to be magically freed because of that), but he’s not going to be able to undo the actual pragmatic basics of Bush’s policies. How could he? To do so would be to act obliviously in the face of the very real problems Bush was dealing with, problems that Obama now has to stare in the face himself. He either chooses to understand the threat, or act in contradiction to the safety of the nation, and to do the latter would be political suicide.
Pragmaticism in the face of reality tends to assert its importance over campaign promises and political image-generation. We’ll see people joygasm over symbolic steps, but we’ll still see movement in the direction of fighting radicalism. Obliviousness to reality is not an option for the Chief Executive.
I am really going to miss having grown-ups running the country.
I think Nahncee’s got it right: the left, in its magical (rather than reason) based thinking, believes it change reality by simply talking or lying about it enough. And why not? It’s worked quite well over the past 8 years.
Hamas is a victim. Captured terrorists are civil rights heroes. The real terrorist was the poor schmuck who spent sleepless nights in the White House trying to keep us safe. Bipartisanship is accepting what the left wants without question. Europeans, a mere couple of generations from some of the worst crimes against humanity in history, are the true defenders of human rights, despite the fact that they’ve never done anything to protect anyone’s human rights. And, of course, the Jews are Nazis.
What they forget is that there are some people for whom reality can’t be changed by simple words.
We can say that the War on Terror ended when Obama was elected because the US population has voted to try to manage the further conflict through civilian judges, not through military commanders.
We no longer will take prisoners of war. Rather, we will arrest law violators and bring them to trial.
We no longer will freeze assets of the terrorists’ financiers. Rather, we will subpoena their records.
We will bring our soldiers home, and send out more diplomats.
So, the War on Terror has ended. Maybe I should say “is ending.” We will gradually stop applying wartime measures and exercising wartime powers.
I’m just pointing out (not advocating) the new reality. I voted against Obama, but the US voting majority elected him and hopes his changes will work. So, we doubters will have to watch and ridicule from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, Obama will learn some lessons that Clinton learned. If Moslem terrorists continue to bomb US embassies and prepare mass murders of US civilians, then Obama eventually will apply his natural talents for devious methods to covert attacks.
Clinton developed the tactic of extraordinary renditions. Terrorists magically disappeared from street corners in Milan and were magically teleported to dungeons in Cairo. Who knows what magic tricks Obama might invent? He does seem to have super-natural powers.
Anyway, the terrorist fantasy has exhausted itself in the Moslem world. Young Moslems have stopped believing the mullahs’ prophesies that brave Moslem terrorists will defeat the modern world and will re-establish the Caliphate. President Bush showed the Moslems for the past eight years that we can devastate and humiliate them with one hand tied behind our back. Terrorist attacks against the USA can’t accomplish anything at all for the Moslem world.
In these circumstances, our election of Barack Hussein Obama undermines the mullahs even further. No young Moslem can expect to become a hero to his family and neighbors by participating in a terrorist attack on a USA that is governed by a President named Barack Hussein Obama.
re:>6. Thrasymachus: (and Nahncee) and your comment:
“Liberals nonetheless love this quote because it’s just so much more fun to dream about how they would like things to be and insist that is the way it is than actually deal with things as they are. Communists love this because they believe society as currently structured is simply a social construct that can easily be swept away, if only the really brilliant can focus hard enough- see “The Matrix.”
Very perceptive and incisive observations from both of you – you penetrate straight to the nub of the problem of why our current Western leadership classes are simply cognitively incapable of grasping and then grappling with the dire reality confronting us.
I’ve always liked Heinlein’s brutally pragmatic take on this eternal dilemma as well:
“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”
If Custer had known how many Indians he was actually up against he and the Seventh Cavalry might have survived to tell their tale… /g
Mike,
No young Moslem can expect to become a hero to his family and neighbors by participating in a terrorist attack on a USA that is governed by a President named Barack Hussein Obama.
Where there is a will, there is a way. From AQ POV, B Hussein O can be considered an apostate. And you know what sharia sez about apostates…
Sure, no one issued a fatwa, yet. Just give it time.
This idea that by electing BHO we gained some sort of a magical shield is… … … not well thought out.
“No young Moslem can expect to become a hero to his family and neighbors by participating in a terrorist attack on a USA that is governed by a President named Barack Hussein Obama.”
Well that obviously must be true. After all, Islamic fascists never, ever use terrorism against countries that have leaders with Arab names.
That is why the Middle East would be such a peaceful place if it were not for the Jews.
*LOL!*
re:>31. Mike Sylwester:
“…Obama eventually will apply his natural talents for devious methods to covert attacks.
No, he won’t. Oh, he might try, but he will fail. First, whatever his alleged devious natural talents which helped him rise from the cesspool of Chicago politics may be, the effectiveness of covert methods is inseparably linked to the continuation worldwide of the forceful overt methods of using the US and Allied militaries to flush them from their cover by both attacking them directly and by threatening those nation-states which provide them aid and sanctuary.
Each method, covert and overt, is necessary, but neither is sufficient alone. The same logic applies to diplomacy (which is why Obama’s intention to negotiate without preconditions is doomed to failure). Only when all are used together do they have the possibility of being necessary AND sufficient.
And, since Obama is going to eviscerate and neuter our military and destroy the effectiveness of the overt component of this triad, the same pre-9/11 conditions which allowed the worldwide networks of terrorists to melt into the safety of their protected sanctuaries in, e.g. Iran, Pakistan, Syria, etc. to regroup and prepare for the next round will re-emerge.
This is a disaster in the making, and a completely foreseeable one at that. While Team Obama and his fellow travelers will be playing for mere diplomatic cred, accolades and brownie points, and their dream of actualizing their own myth, the other side will simply be playing for time, until they can acquire the WMD weaponry they are convinced will give them untouchable status, and the ability to deliver devastating blows via deniable proxies, or make us offers we can’t refuse under the threat of same.
I have no doubt that in the near future we will see a series of seemingly astounding diplomatic “breakthroughs”, agreements, etc. credited to the One, and the claims will be that he has changed the failed paradigm of the past and brought us peace. Unfortunately, it will be merely the false peace of the hudna…
re:>“No young Moslem can expect to become a hero to his family and neighbors by participating in a terrorist attack on a USA that is governed by a President named Barack Hussein Obama.”
By the time I was able to finish my reply, twobyfour in post 33. had already given you the answer.
SMART POWER!
REW (@34):
Well that obviously must be true. After all, Islamic fascists never, ever use terrorism against countries that have leaders with Arab names.
Sure, Islamic fascists will use their terrorism against their own rulers. Terrorism is a way of life in the Moslem World.
But they might stop wasting their time and effort on futile terrorism against the USA. There have been periods when the USA was not a major target for Moslems’ terrorist fantasies, and we can hope that we are entering another such period. Sunni young people can become heroes by murdering Shiites, and vice versa. That’ll keep them busy enough for a while.
Nanc,
Did happen to catch this in the inaug. addy:
“…our security emanates from the justness of our cause.” ??
#38
Under Bush, terrorist attacks on the USA could have been seen as pointless. They’ve been attacking us for 30 years and we finally had someone in the oval office that did something about it in a huge way. Additional attacks would have just resulted in redoubled efforts to kick terrorist butt and increased security measures.
Obama with his euro-weenie foreign policy inclinations encourages terrorist strikes, gives hope that such attacks would be beneficial. Based on his platform, his election itself is a symbol that our country has lost its will to fight. Expect that we will be hit and hit repeatedly in the next 4 yrs. There’s blood in the water and the sharks know it.
*blinks slowly*
And …?
blink quicker and lock your doors if your cause in not “just”. Those that feel their cause is not just must be just in it because….
No my point was that the “surrender meme will be some variation on that theme.
@ 42. joe buzz
A minor correction:
blink quicker and lock your doors if your cause in not “just”. Those that feel that others’ cause is not “just” must be just in it because…
She belongs to eyelashes batting group, not to PWM, tho, so she may be safe.
I’m still not able to get that to compute so it must be REALLY subtle, and therefore a fitting contender to be a synonym for “surrender”.
“Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle / and they’ll never catch wise.”
“…our security emanates from the justness of our cause.” ?? – joe buzz
FWIW, I get it. Whenever I hear the word “just”, or any variation thereof, I get a tingle down my leg. And that’s not good. Humans do not do justice well and shouldn’t try anymore than necessary. Our founding fathers knew that in spades which is why they booby-trapped the system with circuit breakers – what we’ve come to call checks and balances.
What’s next?
“Smart Justice”
Mike Sylwester said: “We no longer will take prisoners of war.”
We never did. we detained “un-lawful combatants”
Have you noticed that our troops aren’t detaining people anymore? They either kill them or turn them over to the local government.
There is always the possibility that the Dana Priest article in the WaPa was structured political “PsyOps”, or intentional political mis-information, designed and aimed at the majority of the WaPo readers (not the typical Belmont Club wingnut like me and you), meant to re-assure the Obama political base that “all is well”. The Eviiiil Boosh is gone and so is his “illegal” War on Terror. Yeah, right.
I grew up in the ’60′s, and there was always ready articles in various magazines about how we were “winning” in Viet Nam. These were especially prevalent when LBJ was president, but some continued after Nixon became President. That was political dis-information, too. During that time, the situation might have been getting better for us in Viet Nam, but the true story is always more complicated than that.
Few things will really change in policy for a year or two. The incoming Obama administration frankly doesn’t know enough (factual knowledge, not implying stupidity) to radically change much in the way of policy in the “Terror War”. They are just going to re-brand it and market it differently; Axelrod and Co. know how to do that real well.
Headlines 4 years ago:
“Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees”
“Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times”
“Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft”
Headlines last week:
“Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million”
“Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party”
“Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate”
“Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration”
[brazenly copied from Maggie's Farm]
Sam Hall (@46)
We never did [take prisoners of war]. we detained “un-lawful combatants”
Good correction. But unfortunately my point still is true that they will be judged by courts, not detained by military commanders.
America and American’s have fifty years before the Muslem majority in American politics both City, State and federal are voted by them to implement Sharia.
Fifty years and American’s, lazy, arrogant, pampered and petted feel good voters get to experience real live HARD religious power.
The ones who lead us do not mind if they dump the constitution and feed you pap about the one true Allah The ones who lead us want American’s to be stupid and cowed by a vengeful god and that gods loyal minions.
The ones who lead us see the true power of a Theocracy run by them.
Fifty years America, I am glad I will be dead then.
“You get what you want, then you get what you deserve.”
Thanks for thinking of the children, barry…
Most of the 67 odd million that voted for Obama will go willingly into the night. Still that number is only 29% of the voting age population. That leaves 70% either ambivalent or for the other side. When SHTF what that 70% does is vastly more important.
Have your preps ready. Know your peeps. HAVE a PLAN. Better yet have TWO plans and a backup plan.
Jim
re: 50. barry 0351:
The ones who lead us see the true power of a Theocracy run by them.
The flaw in such a plan, however, should it come to fruition, is that “they” won’t be the ones running things. Most of “them” will be dead, or cowering in dhimmitude.
Fifty years America, I am glad I will be dead then. … “You get what you want, then you get what you deserve.”
As much as I hope and pray that we can avoid such a scenario, my thoughts of late are haunted by the words of Thomas Jefferson: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
Jim, I do not intend to go quietly into the islamic nightmare.
What can we do for the children? The teachers in their schools are teaching them islam by small bits and pieces. How do I know? Well My ex daughter in law is a total islam fan and a democrat oh yes, SHE is a 9th grade teacher. The son went to Iraq and she divorced him.
The children are going to be what the government decides the children will be.
Tharkun:
I agree many will fight but the majority will be quite content to be led by the nose into total serfdom and religious darkness.
WHY? because the government will order them, entice them, tax them if they don’t or simply indoctrinate them into islam.
I won’t go, my words will be Lan Astelam “I will not submit.”
As Alexis said in the top post, Islam won’t stop the war on us even if we stop the war on them.
This Post says it all. We are like the kid facing the bully who can kick the bully’s ass but won’t because that would mean becoming just like the bully unknowingly allowing the bully to simple take over the kids life through terror and intimidation.
re: >54. barry 0351:
I appreciate the courtesy of your response, barry; there’s a curious dearth of that around here.
I also understand your perspective regarding the severity and imminence of the threat.
However, I would offer a small ray of hope in the fact that I have a definite sense or feeling that our “enemies domestic” are trying to move too fast, and are overreaching and showing their cards too soon. I suspect we both will live long enough to see if this is in fact the case.
“…I have a definite sense or feeling that our “enemies domestic” are trying to move too fast …”
I’m trying to remember – isn’t there a management theory taught to MBA’s that if you want to change an organization you have to do it within the first 30 or 60 or 90 days — during the honeymoon period — when people are still willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and the opposition hasn’t had time to get it together yet?
Which always seemed odd to me, because how can you come in and start firing and changing when you don’t know (yet) what’s working and who’s competent?
But if it’s an Ivory Tower theory you can be damned sure Obama knows about it and will believe in it.
57. NahnCee:
I’m trying to remember – isn’t there a management theory taught to MBA’s that if you want to change an organization you have to do it within the first 30 or 60 or 90 days…
I’m not familiar with that theory in a formally expressed sense, but my professional background is in the broadcast industry, and that’s pretty much the way it was done whenever a new owner took over a property.
That said, sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn’t. We sometimes lose sight of the fact that theories are just tools, and matching the right tool to the job can make all the difference in the world to the outcome.
It’s entirely possible that Obama and his people are attempting to implement just this type of strategy from a purely management perspective.
My comments to barry, however, derive from more of a gut feeling I have that the real “powers that be”, the one that plucked a pliable tool named Obama from obscurity to serve as their tool, are being driven to force the agenda prematurely by something they fear, something which is at present unclear.
Of course, I have no hard evidence, so as I told barry, we’ll just have to hope we live long enough to see… /grin
“…the real “powers that be”, the one that plucked a pliable tool named Obama from obscurity to serve as their tool, are being driven to force the agenda prematurely by something they fear, something which is at present unclear.”
The Arabs have lost $2.5 trillion in the current “credit crunch” and the price of oil is still spiraling down. (There have also been rumors for years that Saudi Arabia, at least, is nearing the bottom of their oil fields.) Maybe they need Obama to start repaying their campaign donations sooner than anticipated.
NahnCee, the issue here is to what degree the theory is scalable. An organization such a corporation has relatively limited scope or reach. Because of its compactness (for the sake of argument, I known that some corporation are resembling a government), it is easy to restructure, since it is one entity with well defined boundaries.
The country is a web of many entities. You can select a segment of a government and restructure it, But if you intend to restructure the whole country and try to do it fast (3 months), it is more likely than not that you may seriously break things, because if interdependencies and unintended consequences.
The only way it can be done that fast is to do it via revolution, or by a coup d’etat. And it has to be a complete change, else there would be enough resistance to wreck the planning.
In our case, if there is a plan, it would be done by the second, but since the junta is already voted in, it is partially done. Only a slooow process spread over 2 or more years is feasible. 100 days would be creating a lot ot tensions and it may fail.
So, the options are either a slow process, or something lightning fast that the opposition has no chance to react to.
If by the end of February (may be end of March, the period is 90 days) the financial crisis gets a lot worse suddenly, hold on to your hats. Watch for signs of riots and watch how they are handled.
The next 2 weeks will tell you where it is going, The one thing to watch is black SUVs going around and detaining “inciters”. Especially when the inciters aren’t the inciter types. Some sites you favor may be not accessible. If these trends grow (riots, sites down, “inciters” detention), you’d know that the game is up. Within two weeks, martial law is declared and then the fun starts for real. Detentions would be escalating. An announcement will be made, something about a conspiracy of certain elements trying to overthrow the government.
Certain FEMA facilities would be appropriated by government for another purpose. These facilities store combined about 6 million containers that are ready for handling fatalities of natural disasters or enemy attack. Each container can store 4 bodies. That is 24 million bodies that can be fit in them.
Those details are a fact. I don’t want to scare anybody. Just make contingencies for this eventuality.
You may want to find a good location for your guns and ammo, only you and yours would know about. You may want to keep some ample cash handy, and if things seem to be progressing according the described scenario, take a vacation, say, to Canada or other places like Australia. Make sure you have your passports in order, and check right away, apply for one if you don’t have it. If you live in rural areas, you may be safer than city folks and it may be better to stay put. Still, hide your weaponry. Make survival packets (find information online what you should pack).
Make several plans and a backup plan. Just consider it a what-if game. The chances are fairly small that this would transpire. It is more likely that the 0′s administration is a bunch of incompetent hacks and would follow the route of a fast but gradual change. But don’t rely on it. Be ready if things seem to acquire ominous trend.
the real “powers that be”, the one that plucked a pliable tool named Obama from obscurity to serve as their tool, are being driven to force the agenda prematurely by something they fear, something which is at present unclear. – tharkun
I was getting edgy last week at the repeated theme of Tim “the only man-genius who can do the job” Geithner.
Buddy Larsen dropped a theory over at Maggie’s Farm that Geithner is a member of the anti-China economic bloc, which includes Larry Summers, that wants to disrupt foreign trade in order to reignite domestic unionized manufacturing. This is consistent – in my view – with the grumbling that globalization failed to empower enough people into prosperity – and peace – fast enough, the thinking being that people with paychecks are less likely to wage wars. Rather it weakened the USA. Dramatically. Some of the shadow players showing their sweat.
re: 60. Cassandra Crossing:
NahnCee, the issue here is to what degree the theory is scalable…
Excellent point Cassandra. The rest of your exposition was illuminating as well. Much of it paralleled an interesting tidbit from years past called “Garden Plot”… /g
Just beware the danger of being too accurate a seer, as old RAH noted: “A fake fortuneteller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved.” – from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long… /g
re: 61. slade:
Sorry for the tardy reply – I was called away.
…This is consistent – in my view – with the grumbling that globalization failed to empower enough people into prosperity – and peace – fast enough, the thinking being that people with paychecks are less likely to wage wars…
In other words, they’ve realized they’re riding the tiger, and the dismount is going to be really dangerous.
Cassandra, after the initial hiss of dismay upon reading your post, I couldn’t help thinking to myself that your scenario had a hint of familiarity to it. Now where had I heard those “sky is falling – lock ‘em up and disappear them” plots before?
And it came to me that what you just outlined is exactly what the moonbats were telling each other as scary bedtime stories four years ago. Black SUVs roaming the streets scooping up people who talk too much and disappearing them (although the warehouses full of body bins is a new touch). Favorite moonbat websites going down for no good reason — although Daily Kos and MoveOn.org both seem to be lamentably still alive and kicking. Having to flee to Canada to sit it out until it’s safe back home — Canada should be overflowing with political refugees from Vietnam forward by now.
The main problem I have with martial law being declared within the first 90 days of Obama’s inauguration is where are they going to get that many gun-toting entities willing to fire on their own neighbors? We did see police in New Orleans trying to disarm civilians, but I just can’t see any local police organization willing to follow an order to go into Beverly Hills, for example, and disarm Steven Speilberg, et al. Especially since Beverly Hills has its own extremely well-equipped police force.
So maybe Obama will get the National Guard to clamp down in your “martial law” scenario, which leads to the interesting mental picture in Los Angeles of LAUSD getting Obama’s National Guard in a pincer with the Marines, Army, Navy and Coast Guard installations in San Diego.
Or maybe since he’s now the Commander in Chief, he can round up enough Real Soldiers not currently overseas fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to take over America. First I have a problem with believing that American soldiers would ever even *do* that, and second that doesn’t take into consideration the percentage of American civilians who are already armed and would be shooting back. Not to mention third, what the Real Soldiers overseas would do once they got back home.
So that leaves us with imported Hessians, paid mercenaries brought in from overseas to clamp down on America. Yeah, like the UN’s Smurfs and France could ever take over any American state or city or children’s park and make it stick. Not gonna happen.
If I’m overlooking something in your martial law scenario, I wish you’d tell me what it is so I can be a well-prepared American citizen.
That’s close to how I see it as well, tharkun. I expect that the behind closed doors sweat-fest explains why we are seeing all these Horowitz pieces that stop just short of begging people to cooperate or at least lay down the long knives for a few months/quarters/years. I can’t help myself (barely try anymore) but I keep coming back to the multiple warnings that were – just ignored – like an ex-spouse who had a good lawyer. Had the credit markets not been allowed to deteriorate to such dangerous levels of dysfunction, this would just be a regular bubble/recession. Roubini called and even now he is being quietly marginalized.
NahnCee,
Please note that I stipulated “a small chance” and “incompetence of 0 administration”, so the scenario is not as probable as other 2.
That being said… Someone mentioned here a while ago a meeting of Colorado People’s Republic town hall folks, I believe, all Obamunists, and they were discussing what to don with Republicans, emntertaining ideas like locking them up in camp (not sure if they used the word “concentration”).
The thing about liberals… they tend to project their own thought patterns on others.
That does not mean they weren’t just fantasizing, it is a favorite liberal pass time. Although a majority were no doubt wussies, with a proper mandate and ideology scaffolding and demonization of the oponets, the wussies becoming alphas would be nasty critters to behold. They may still feel uneasy with ba side arm, but zapping repugs with tasers may be quite enjoyable undertaking for them.
However, these folks would not be needed. As we type, 0 staff is in a process of perusing their database of 13 million Obamunists and sifting and sorting them into groups of usefulness for particular tasks. Another factor is their Chicago-acquired conviction that every man (and woman) has their price. And there is a plenty of leftover cash from campaign and cash is still being raised without any oversight.
But there is already a core of potential komissars in place, properly ideologically equipped and reliable. A mighty oak can grow from ACORN. Once the martial law is established, but even before, ACORNiacs can be quickly deputized as marshals, and you don’t need that many to do the first night “visits” pinpointed targeting before martial law is declared. In fact, these “marshalls” can work as provocateurs to incite riots during the day and collect alleged inciters during the night.
As for military, in the first phase Posse Comitatus would be invoked and cited to keep them from interference. At a later time oodles of cash would be made available to see what price the key figures have. After that is sorted out, Posse Comitatus would be invoked no more and military would be prompted to help resolving the “problem” under guidance of the anointed one.
As I said, I think this scenario is the least likely, but don’t discount it entirely.
I see. So I’m supposed to take the specter of a posse made up of Code Pink and ACORN activists to heart.
Good-oh.
@ 67. NahnCee
When you look at history of how totalitarian regimes got established, you’d see that evil often is suprisingly banal. In GDR, it was not really STASI and Army that wielded the power, but the apartment block old janitor hag.
I my high school class, there was this wuss boy, he was as omega as they make them. He later went to study law and signed up with the devil (commie party). He got shortly into a leadership position on the campus (everyone probably though he would be a guaranteed pushover to tweak according to everyone needs and their abilities), but since then he ruined many many lives until 1989.
Germans weren’t armed when the janitor hag came in the night. Big big difference.
I keep thinking that if you allow Code Pink to posse and disappear you then you deserve whatever happens.
Let’s get one thing straight: If ordered by competent authority, the military will make arrests and pick up weapons.
And my police friends liked to say, “There’s nothing wrong with a Police State, if you are the police.”
Finally, when the NG is activated, they ain’t your friends and neighbors anymore. They will obey those who provide boots, bucks, beans, bullets, and bandages.
Believe me.
@ 69. NahnCee
No, the hag was a coward, they always are, she just pointed, the STASI picked.
Imagine that one night, a bunch of people is standing in your doorway and they say “US Marshals”, while flashing badges, “you are coming with us”. You may be suspicious that they were ACORNs before becoming marshals, but no one is confirming, spontaneously. Nor you see anyone dressed in pink and they are all males. For all practical purposes, they are bona fide marshals.
WWND?