Below the Read More
- ‘We’re pinned down:’ 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush | McClatchy
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GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.
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Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.
U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.
“We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today,” Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter’s repeated demands for helicopters.
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- Negotiators shocked by special forces rescue raid on Taleban – Times Online
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Stephen Farrell — who was in Afghanistan for The New York Times — was not harmed in the raid but his Afghan translator, Sultan Munadi, and a British soldier from the Special Forces Support Group were killed. The men were being held at a house in Kharudi in northern Afghanistan. Just after midnight on Tuesday US helicopters dropped British special forces and Afghan troops in the village. Taleban militants fled the house and a fierce battle ensued. At least one civilian and scores of militants were killed.
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- New Afghan war: Frontline correspondent says fight has morphed – but we still can’t afford to lose
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Helmand, Afghanistan – The West is losing this war. This has been obvious for more than three years. Less obvious is that in 2009, we are down to the wire. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others will soon recommend to President Obama the latest treatment for a dying patient.
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Yet it seems certain the war will be lost if we do not significantly increase troops. While our enemies grow stronger, years will pass before Afghan forces can replace us. Enemies are gaining ground while we lose the goodwill of the people through disillusionment. In the mostly peaceful Ghor Province, for instance, development is scant and there are no Afghan soldiers.
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The strongest indicator of progress will come in the form of cooperation from the people. In Iraq, especially in about mid-2007, I witnessed a tidal shift in cooperation from the civilians and largely from that was able to report that the surge was working, long before the statistics would support what might have appeared to be a wild claim.
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The enemies here cannot defeat the United States, but they can dissolve the coalition. Some allies are ready to tap out, while others are learning that counterinsurgency is difficult. The Germans, for instance, are losing in their battle space. To avoid watching the coalition melt away, we must show progress before the end of 2010.
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To paraphrase a comment made here at BC some time ago: Guerilla fighters need a complicit population to maintain supply.
If these ‘enemy fighters’, the Taliban, are not uniformed belligerents, then they are ‘civilians’ – no?
This is more than a matter of semantics. This is asymmetrical warfare and some level of collateral damage must be expected – and accepted.
We will need to both come to grips with the nature of the enemy and wage war accordingly, or we should withdraw – without honor.
I think it is more the case that a guerrilla war needs a complicit or intimidated population to maintain itself.
In Iraq once the population believed combined US Iraqi forces could protect and persist against Al Qaeda, they came over to our side.
I agree that we need to come to grips with the nature of the enemy hunkpapasioux, but which enemy? The one hiding in the hills of Afghanistan, or the ones hiding in the marbled halls in D.C.?
The R.O.E. are the problem the troops face, they emenate from the White House. Until we can get the Boy Wonder to “man-up” our troops will fight without direction or support. I hate to see soldier’s lives thrown away because the leadership is more concerned with offending of the editorial board at the NYT than they are with winning the war.
It seems that they are doing their best to re-create the Viet Nam conflict.
My observations are leading me to the conclusion that Obama & Co. (A member of The Soros Group, LLC) are deliberately attempting to break the US Army. Just as he is europeanizing our domestic economy and dependency on government he is also bringing European standards of war-fighting to the DoD.
The motivating concept behind the Common Market ⇒ European Union was to draw the teeth from the Germans so that they could rejoin the human race and the French could feel safe. The Lion was convinced to lie down with the Lamb. That was all well and good as far as it went but it only worked as long as the American sheep dog was around to watch out for wolves and bears in the woods. Unfortunately the virus of resentment and the Free Rider Effect spread throughout Nato. Now the US has been lead in to join the rest of the old and toothless pack in a nice nap by the fireplace. But there will be no one to tend the fire now and as it dims the eyes in the forest will notice. Behind those eyes are teeth and empty bellies.
What is the story on Soros?
If he breaks America what does he get? Better hedge positions? Is it all about creating turmoil to exploit turmoil and get money and power.
Darn, a best seller for someone there. I suppose first the book has to get published.
#4
Maybe Mitterand and Ms Thatcher were right to fear a big Germany
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c713ea2-9d7e-11de-9f4a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
According to some germans forumers, there still are some latent discourses on the “Sehnsucht nach Wehrmacht”, but you do know what that means : some kind of volkish traditions would reemerge !
Hmm, De Gaulle took all the useful measures so that “any time it would be needed” that our “autonome” and “modern” defense would work !
anton: The only thing BHO cares about is BHO. In his calculation, because he sees himself as the leader of the world, appeasing the Muslim world is more important than the lives of a few marines.
The problem with the opposition here in the US is this: to do what’s best for our military, given who’s currently CIC, is to now reverse field and advocate for getting out now. Because the price to pay for ensuring that ‘soldier’s lives (aren’t) thrown away’ is to throw away the lives of yet more.
This war is only winnable with the proper ROE’s in place. That won’t happen with BHO as CIC.
Writing with small words to describe the hopelessness that has crept into the Afghanistan mission is in itself a long slow exhale.
No one of Western importance cares anymore. Not the American president and not Europe. Some lawyer killed 4 Marines the other day. Only their families know that the Whitehouse sent out that missal of death. Death by disinterest. Wounded by dissonance. Abandoned by silence. Its time to call out the President. He may think of himself as some kind of executive or orator. A leader of a party, a spokesperson for the ideals of a nation. Whatever he may chose to say or parse there is only the responsibility of Commander in Chief that he must accept.
It is not prudent to think that Europe in general and Germany in particular will remain toothless forever.
There are particular meanings for America as to the consequences of this reawakening. The most primary of which will be that the Europeans will reassert (currently dead) Christianity and that the Europeans will kick out the Moslems. It is very important that whenever you intimate this you always steer the moslems back to the countries of their origin in Africa the middle east, and south Asia.
My studies show that we are in for a major league realignment of water and energy supplies in the next ten years which will make it economical to turn the deserts of the world green and double the size of the habitable planet.
These are the places that Europe’s moslems need to go. Because these places will be the lands of opportunity.
Charles,
Agitation by a few fringe parties that echo the memories of the hate speech of the past will do nothing but alienate or further confuse and endanger the European masses. If you could give credible evidence that the Europeans are committed to the values of their own civilization and pressing to expand the sphere of individual liberty I would be more hopeful. As it is the extreme nationalists are collectivists and often anti-Semites who are as likely to flip to an anti-American alliance with Islam as not.
I agree with your more hopeful view of the future of technology. Why would you think that it would work for 40 million moslems to migrate to new verdant plains? Their cultural legacy is an expertise in making blooming fields into deserts.
10. Lifeofthemind:
Why would you think that it would work for 40 million moslems to migrate to new verdant plains?
………..
With water and power all things are possible even in the limitless uninhabited spaces of north africa.
Their cultural legacy is an expertise in making blooming fields into deserts.
……
Here I’m thinking you meant NOT.
The Israelis are world class players in the water game.
The Saudis have learned the essential lesson of the last 10 years. Their dogs don’t hunt.
Not in the modern way that real guys work.
Currently they are primarily consumers of technology but they are pouring lots of money into research. But that means other countries are doing the research. Their guys are not up to snuff. Still, they set things up so that their guys get to hang out with the players. Their attitude is fairly sophisticated.
ie its all good.
Money talks
ROE.
Nothing else to say.
If you could give credible evidence that the Europeans are committed to the values of their own civilization and pressing to expand the sphere of individual liberty I would be more hopeful.
……….
There is no credible evidence but that we are at the end of one great age and the beginning of another great age. In years past I have marked here that these days here are much like the early 1500′s.
……..
As it is the extreme nationalists are collectivists and often anti-Semites who are as likely to flip to an anti-American alliance with Islam as not.
…….
The key phase above is anti-semite…
Not to be cute but the only semites in Europe of any note and number these days are moslems.They are currently trying as hard as they can to overplay their hand.
The Hitler crowd were pagans. Their heirs are essentially jungle bunnies. They are as morally defenseless as African animists when confronted with moslems. They will not have a moral shield and sword until they return to christianity.
……
There is a last water/ power piece to this. I think the Europeans will become energy independent. But the USA will become energy independent first. For the US this will happen in 10 years. For Europe it will be 20.
For serious dreaming you have to visit NASA symposiums where they discuss terraforming Mars.
Charles,
jungle bunnies
It is no longer possible for me to engage you in a dialogue. You could not do more damage to this forum and those of us who rely on it than if you were a paid agent of John Podesta.
LOTM
I suppose you’re right. It is unseemly to call nazis jungle bunnies. better to call them godless communists or national socialists or even severe statists. these terms sound honorable.certainly these terms don’t put nazis socially below the level of african tribalists.
the trouble with this approach is that it misunderestimates how primitive people become when they abandon God.
“If you could give credible evidence that the Europeans are committed to the values of their own civilization and pressing to expand the sphere of individual liberty I would be more hopeful.”
Don’t worry, Charles, we aren’t going to forget who we are ! (for your damn
)
Besides, even muslim Women are making it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7509339.stm
as far as the old nazi deamons of Europe, Germany learnt the hard way to pass them, and people there aren’t ready to experience such a dreadful collapse again
Though, we can’t ignore that nationalism are emerging in EU, it’s rather the fault of Brussels administration that initiates laws and resolutions above the heads populations.
EU would have been more efficient with a union of nations that can discuss their deeds.
But this wasn’t the agenda of the enlightened alliees, that wanted a docile and weak EU
But this wasn’t the agenda of the enlightened alliees, that wanted a docile and weak EU
……
hey don’t fob the EU off on the USA. France and Germany figured the EU out by their lonesome.
Conservatives in the USA are working overtime to keep the libs from immitating the the EU model with something like the NAU.
I too think your idea of people sharing a common civilization but not a common polity is better model.
Charles,
Jean Monnet was the “brain” of the earlier EU . might be he got the idea in frequenting Roosevelt, as he was also a proxy intermediary for Europe means and Roosevelt.
Though since, water passed under bridges, and the interference of the US into EU became more felt. The organisation of the defense is their major discretion upon european countries means, as defined and supplied by the US
“I support the President on Afghanistan and am relieved he did not pull out of Iraq…”
And On It Goes
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson090909.html
Somehow I can’t help thinking this–all of it–doesn’t end well.
Quite some time ago I asserted that NATO should be withdrawn — completely. They are clay pigeons/ ransomees.
Current strategy is a mess. Giving Afghan culture a complete make-over is arrogance before the rout.
Under no conditions should we antagonize the locals: yet that is exactly what the brainiac British have done. They managed to get themselves aligned with one drug-running tribe vs another!
Helicopter dependency is a weakness. As the Russians could explain; any effective counter-air tactics cripple operations.
////
Wandering in upon a beaten zone is folly. That our guys are that careless is a sign that tactical arrogance has spread widely.
It is disturbing to read that front-line officers apprehend the real rules of engagement only after the battle is joined. Something’s really wrong with the chain of command.
There should be no way that a small formation be permitted to wander around indian country without over-watch elements.
When troop strength does not permit mission dominance then the operation must be adjusted or canceled.
Limited warfare means limited budget: shoot less, bleed less – go a lot slower — settle for a lot less.
All of the limitations are accepted so that persistence can be unlimited. Our collective Western group-think is to treat all military operations with a Normandy Beach mindset: up-tempo and all the marbles.
Instead, the model is Fort Apache.
The total immersion approach of al-Anbar seems inappropriate in Afghanistan. I recommend the fort & trading post model. We set up FOB’s AWAY from the village’s — but along natural trading routes. Then we append trading posts with suitable trade goods to our fort. Typical exchange: livestock for farm implements.
A historical example: Eight Army’s fort in South Korea. We set up shop in a devastated, de-populated city ( Seoul ) and the population came to us.
Fort Pashtun should be located astride choke points for trading and focus upon border security and smuggling of contraband.
All Ammonium Nitrate should be controlled and chemically labeled. Instead of us walking through their mine fields — we set up our own mine fields and overwatch them through various technical means.
The peasant never came to love the baron — but he came to obey him.
Befriending cultural opponents is impossible when your audience is a muslim. He’d have to abandon his entire ethos to accept your friendship. In the Pashtun world there exist only varying levels of enmity for those outside the tribe.
Such circumstance dictates no illusions — particularly the idea that options suitable to more modern peoples can succeed in Afghanistan.
BTW, what we’d term palm-greasing corruption is the norm in tribal societies. It is expected that the big man gets a mafiosi style slice of the ‘action.’ Failing to rent his loyalty is an insult for sure.
With this in mind, we must adjust our compensation system towards direct trade goods ( trading stamps will give the little lady pots & pans ) and direct cash in hand via US Army officer-couriers.
blert: I don’t disagree with your tactics in general.
What is the purpose of our standing on the throat of the Afghan population? So our presence may ‘take the fight to the bad guys’. They’ve proven to be fairly resillient to a temporary occupying force.
The enmity will not end. How do you define victory?
We should heed McCarther’s warning.
21. blert:
There should be no way that a small formation be permitted to wander around indian country without over-watch elements.
……
In fact, the whole point of guys doing that walk about is to draw fire so that air cover can come in and stomp the bad guys.
In fact, US troop operations need be measured according to their tasty treat bait potential. Because bait is mostly what they are out in the bad lands.
The tastier the the bait the shorter the wait for air power.
I’m shocked that there is a disconnect there.
Someone needs some splainin done to them.
Charles 9, can you point me to some sites where I can read up on what you are suggesting the future may be re water and energy?
A quote from a soldier I spoke to that had just returned from Afghanistan.
“If we can’t shoot back, if the air power or arty can’t support us, why are we there?”
These are the same guys that used AKs instead of their M4s in Iraq to fight AQ, so they could pass a “weapons check”.
As to airpower.
Anyhow, the question is how do you meet the brass needs for well creased pants and lower airpower with frontline grease needs for faster aircover.
The answer is tactical mappers. For guys who are tactically trained to read maps for ambush zones. It doesn’t take much on a map especially today’s scoped maps–where they can zoom through those high barren valley virtually and find the best places for an ambush.
I don’t think finding the best ambush site is rocket science. The bad guys will see them too. That’s where they’ll be.
So design patrols to pull the bad guys into the open at the designated trap points–ie places where the terrain shows the best place for an ambush & have the airpower already off the ground to provide support in minutes.
Shouldn’t be too tough to find ambush sites within away from heavily populated areas–but not so far as that the local bad guys won’t notice.
25. steeple:
Funny you should ask. I just happen to have a site called rdwaterpower.com
You can access it through my name above.
I get a post in now about once a month.
Right now I’m arguing that production of algae oil will likely increase geometrically starting in about 18-24 months. As well I’m aguing that the best place to site water desalination plants in california is offshore down about 850 feet by making use of offshore drilling expertise and some new deepwater desal technologies.
But right now we’re in the let a 1000 flowers bloom stage as far as power and water are concerned. I’ve posted on dozens of different kinds of power and water techs. The reason I link them is because across a range of technologies you need water to make power and you need power to produce clean water.
I need to finish mowing the lawn. out.
Worst Case Unfolding in Afghanistan?
The Afghan Campaign was lost Nov. 4, 2008.
The U. S. Army and Marine Corps are in much the same predicament as the paras and Légionnaires in Algeria in the spring of 1961.
Heartbreaking.
The Old Army, outcast and alien and remote from the warm bosom of society, officer and man alike, ordered into Korea, would have gone without questioning. It would have died without counting. As on Bataan, it would not have listened for the angel’s trumpet or the clarion call. It would have heard the hard sound of its own bugles, and hard-bitten, cynical, wise in bitter ways, it would have kept its eyes on its sergeants.
It would have died. It would have retreated, or surrendered, only in the last extremity. In the enemy prison camps, exhausted, sick, it would have spat upon its captors, despising them to the last. It would have died, but it might have held.
. . . Korea was the kind of war that since the dawn of history was fought by professionals, by legions. It was fought by men who soon knew they had small support or sympathy at home, who could read in the papers statements by prominent men that they should be withdrawn. It was fought by men whom the Army – at its own peril – had given neither training nor indoctrination, nor the hardness and bitter pride men must have to fight a war in which they do not in their hearts believe. – - T. R. Fehrenbach
“jungle bunnies”
Yeah, if that was written with any racial animus, I guess I’ll have to object to it along with LOTM, who is exactly right in his prediction.
Charles @28, love some of these ideas, but whether any of them, ahem, actually *work*, seems to me rather more dubious.
OTOH, no doubt it’s time for more desal plants no matter the cost. Combined power generation and desal, probably, nuke if necessary, etc.
Is There A Victory?
You buy the Ticket You Get the Full Ride
Limpet6 @5:
“What is the story on Soros?”
Only Soros knows what Soros’ story is, but…
Consider the huge obstacles to consolidating the EU as a functional counterweight to America so long as America’s economy continues to attract Germans’, Irishmen’s, Romanians’ and Poles’ pensions by the billions. Socialist France pays its pensioners to retire early and remain quiet and out of the way, but then they turn around and send those Euros to the NYSE and the S&P! America, with its exceptional work-ethic and abundance of resources drains the Socialists’ payola as surely as a Bahamian tax shelter cuts into the American
Democrats’Socialists’ confiscatory tax policies.Considered from the standpoint of a frustrated EU evangelist like Soros or Alain Jospin, it’s plain that there is simply no way that the dream, strongly held by D’Estaing, DeVillepin, Chirac, Mitterrand et al, of displacing Americans on the world stage with a European “anti-America” could ever be realized if the American economy and political system continues to hum along.
So, it’s just a guess, but, I think Soros has pledged to help the EU to stand up, and the concerted ruination of America’s currency, her political discourse (Hate Bush!?), and her settled social contracts among the U.S.’s many races, age groups and income classes, is his preferred tactic.
Meanwhile, the peasants of France, Scotland and England remain skeptical of continental socialist projects, having twice rejected the EU-treaty, which points out that the EU’s real obstacles are European and democratic, not American and hegemonic. But, like so many “pushy” progressives, the EU’s architects prefer to militate against the American “other” rather than confront what are intrinsic, “at-home” blocks to D’Estaing’s final vision.
I’ve said it before Limpet, if you want to understand the Soros/Obama operation, simply imagine that Dominique DeVillepin is in the White House. It’s about all you need to know.
RE: News from Afghanistan – It’s clear that Obama is facing a short list of two options. He can either pull out or escalate. Both leave him gurgling under water: if he pulls out, he tars his entire nation, if he escalates he alienates the MoveOn left and his European sugar daddies. We’ll learn a lot about the man by the choice he makes.
Finally, to touch on Mongoose/HDGreene et al’s reminiscences of W in the prior thread – could it be that that “dumb dolt” from Texas intentionally drew the bath that Obama is on the verge of drowning in? Nah! Bush is too dumb for that kind of multifaceted strategery.
I know this because MoveOn.org said it’s so.
20. Marie Claude:
Jean Monnet was the “brain” of the earlier EU . might be he got the idea in frequenting Roosevelt, as he was also a proxy intermediary for Europe means and Roosevelt.
……
Charles DeGaulle was no big fan of the Anglo American alliance. It galled him. That alliance was based on a shared civilization and not a shared polity.
Probably shrewdly the founders of the EU calculated that a successful EU would over time break up the 100 year anglo American alliance. It is happening now but slowly slowly over decades.
I hear Canadians Aussies French Israelis Singapores Phillipinos as well as Americans on this board. But rarely do I hear Brits. Something is off.
31. Salt Lick:
Yeah, if that was written with any racial animus,
0 racial animus.
Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
32. Josh:
Charles @28, love some of these ideas, but whether any of them, ahem, actually *work*, seems to me rather more dubious.
……
Newt
Gingrich said two years ago that in order to understand the technological change coming in the next 25 years you would have to go back to about 1880 and look at the change that occurred between then and now. Planners have to plan for technological change to crush 125 years or so into about 25 years. He he made that prediction after interviewing dozens of top US scientists about their views of scientific change over the next 25 years.
OTOH, no doubt it’s time for more desal plants no matter the cost.
…..
Desalinization is like cars or computers. At first its for the rich & powerful because its expensive. But as the price comes down desal like cars & computers will literally change the world. Especially the desert places.
In the end — this is the kind of stuff that will snuff AQ. The world moves on.
Filipinos, Charles.
Spelling counts on some things.
Limpet6 @5: “What is the story on Soros?”
For much more on Soros check David Horowitz’ site: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
He calls the site “a guide to the political left.”
Also Horowitz’ book The Shadow Party.
Should be a link to the book on his website
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Also Shadow World by Robert Chandler. Excellent reviews of Chandler’s book at Amazon.com
One more note. Years ago I worked for a firm that had Soros as an informal advisor. My boss and Soros hit it off so Soros helped the boss out with investment advice from time to time.
Markets make big and fast moves during times of chaos and uncertainty. It is during those times when Soros makes his big money. Position yourself to profit from chaos, then instigate the chaos. I think that is one of major reasons he has become a major behind the scenes political player. Of course, just having the power may be enough.
4. Lifeofthemind: My observations are leading me to the conclusion that Obama & Co. (A member of The Soros Group, LLC) are deliberately attempting to break the US Army.
What better way to undermine the military than lead them to defeat in Afganistan.
Something not quite understood on this board was that it was a great blood libel against Christians that Hitler was a product of Christian civilization. He was not. Rather Hitler was the product of a godless civilization. Nietzsche pointed out the consequences of becoming a godless civilization a priori.Europe had changed that fast. Europe can change again. As can America. And it can happen relatively quickly. Heck even the despised people of Nineveh repented when Jonah told them to repent.
Out of Afghanistan NOW ! No strategy, no play. Un-leash the UAV predators on the Taliban and Pakistan.Let the chips fall where they may with the Afghans. Alert the EU that we are going to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Alert the Israels that we will give them air cover, and o by the way impeach Obama for dereliction of duty!
Not to be cute but the only semites in Europe of any note and number these days are moslems.
LOTM
This is the annoying line–especially if you read right to left. I should know better. I lived in Manhattan long enough to understand Lenny Bruce’s trope that whether you were Jewish or not–if you lived in NYC you were Jewish. And if you lived outside of NYC whether you were christian or not–you were christian.
Of course the America that Lenny knew is not so much anymore.
43. SIGINT:
Out of Afghanistan NOW/
….
I’d kind of like to see the AQ honchos in Quetta taken out.
It is my personal opinion that we no longer have any business putting American servicemen in harm’s way in Afghanistan. I will be writing my representatives and senators to urge them to end our involvement in the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
NCA has abandoned the mission. We are not willing to kill the enemy where we find them, when we find them. From this day forward our dead, wounded, and maimed are pawns in a game that has already been conceded.
Wish it wasn’t that way. Tomorrow in the anniversary of a tragic day. I will remember where I was that day. Just as I remember 1979 and 1983, when I first noticed the war.
Our government, too busy attempting to overturn the Republic, will accept a trickle of pointless deaths until they are ready to formally surrender.
A.R. Jones
39. Cannoneer No. 4:
Filipinos, Charles.
Spelling counts on some things.
…
Yeah you’re right. I’ve been uncomfortable about the Philippines ever since LOTM suggested that they might become another state in the Union. Bad idea. They’re too far away. Plus it makes Wretchard cross eyed. The great pleasantness and helpfulness is sharing similar civilizations but not the same polity.
The ROE
Is from DC
So if we hurt a guy
Dressed in a robe
There’ll be a probe
And lawyers then will cry
That we should not
Return a shot
With civvies in the way
And if we do
Then you know who
Will make the culprits pay
Obama says
And he’s the prez
That battles should be fought
With hands tied twice
And smiling nice
‘Cause that’s what he’s been taught
There’s no excuse
For the caboose
To wag the engineer
And Taliban
Will to a man
Have naught at all to fear
#36 Charles,
“Charles DeGaulle was no big fan of the Anglo American alliance. It galled him. That alliance was based on a shared civilization and not a shared polity.”
It was rather the policy of the merchands that he couldn’t stand
“Probably shrewdly the founders of the EU calculated that a successful EU would over time break up the 100 year anglo American alliance. It is happening now but slowly slowly over decades.”
Not in the spirit of Jean Monnet
read that link, it’s the whole story of the “gang” : Jean Monnet, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, and the initiation of EU as an ideal. Of course De Gaulle was against it, but he wasn’t there anymore to empech it. There is a “humoristic” declaration (in a very british humor style) of De gaulle at the end of the paragraph
http://tinyurl.com/pgj3kk
OT –
Anyone catch the Jawa Report/JihadWatch controversy with LGF?
Reading LGF tonight, probably for the last time, well, I just sympathize with Charles. It’s like watching a family member receding into dementia and driving away everyone they were close to.
Paranoia and instability… Geez, I mean as a parting shot he accuses the Powerline guys of being in bed with “Eurofascists.” Tragic to read his site these days, as everyone leaves him alone in his sandbox. I guess we can wish Charles the best and move on.
A ‘hooker’ sinks the ol’ hook into an ACORN.
Got to hand it to these kids. Pretty crafty. Crafty, creative, bold and serious.
In the Bowels of Baltimore’s ACORN
by Hannah Giles
The Baltimore adventure with ACORN started off as a silly idea, both absurd and incredible by all accounts. But it stuck, and quickly escalated into a full blown operation with scripts, method acting, undercover gear, scandalous outfits, fast minds, good hearts, plenty of humor and healthy homemade blueberry muffins.
When I pitched the “prostitute goes into ACORN seeking housing” idea to James O’Keefe at the beginning of the summer, I had absolutely no idea how he would respond. He came back with, “Would you be willing to portray the prostitute? And if so, when can you do this?”
Needless to say, the project had officially begun.
An idea conceived on an afternoon jog would soon birth material evidence.
Most people come up with ridiculous ideas, things that graze against societal norms. However, not all are capable of action because not all are comfortable with action. Many lack the desire for truth and justice, most don’t even know to want it. But on occasion, the previous join forces. The right people with the appropriate calling unite against a common enemy, then the sky is the limit and hell is the target. There will be no compromises, only adaptation and infiltration.
The socially unacceptable became our mode of visual operation. When visuals match content, the system will fall.
The staff we dealt with in Baltimore had no problem offering their time to James and me, not because we were two white kids undercover looking for a big story, but because of the mess we claimed to be in and wished to create.
We connected with these people on a level they were comfortable with. We came off as troubled, torn, innovative and devoted individuals who couldn’t skirt the system unless the system helped us along our journey.
Our presence screamed, as James puts it, “unique situation.” And so when we sought council in regards to tax evasion, obtaining a house for use as an underage brothel, the avoidance of an abusive pimp, and establishing illegitimate congressional campaign funds, they were ready and unfazed by the direction our conversation took.
James and I saw the ACORN Housing location in Baltimore as a target–the den of a giant corrupt lion. We wanted to get a reaction and gauge the corruption. We came armed with the things necessary to cause a reaction; we came equipped with the things necessary to capture the reaction. We expected to be successful. We weren’t overly confident but we had tested methods at our disposal and were able to calculate the lines along which the staffers would react. We didn’t go in expecting major results; we also didn’t limit what could happen seated behind closed doors. We went in knowing that if we were meant to succeed, we would. It is not as if we went in carefree and lah-dee-dah. But we were confident in our mission.
I have a theory that the 2 World Wars destroyed the European mission. We look at Germany, note the basic changes coming out of the rubble. But I think that England and France, and the rest of Europe had lost faith in themselves and their religion and their values, their societies by 1946. Europe has lost its nerve. No one has noticed, really, until recently. Now, of course, we see that Europe cannot provide military power for anything (and this is not just because of its 3 generation reliance upon the USA). More fundamentally, they cannot even reproduce themselves (neither can Canada, by the way, as it nudges up to the American teat, having lost that of the British Empire.)
I’m not sure about this theory. However, we are watching a civilization shrivel into nothing but empty cathedrals, led by jokes like Prince Charles and the EU. I really think Europe was broken by 1946.
heathermc,
Hmmm, I think you’re wrong, Ireland and France have the same birth rate as the US.
Besides pparently passivity of the EU as far as defense, isn’t new for certain states, the northern as Sweede, Norway, Danemark, and Belgium Holland, Ireland, Spain, Austria, were already “neutral” before WW2.
The real change was non-aggressivity of Germany, and Italy ; nothing really changed for UK and France, who are the very european country with a valuable self-defense force.
Though, we can perceive since the reunification, that some movements towards “grandeur” and effectiveness of the “great Germany” started to point in a few aeras, and that the new generation don’t feel shame for their fathers nazy past, but that the german government is aware of that and that they maintain some sort of stiffness about the EU rules and laws, may-be the ol deamons are just awaiting an opportunity.
Also this kind of non reactive EU, has been wanted by the “globalist” merchands and bankers, already in the drawers since 1941 meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt : the Atlantic alliance, and that many miny treaties corroborated since then, the last important one in 2007 between Bush and Merkel, that wasn’t very mediatised, but that that augurates the very commun marcket between EU and the US for 2015
Blocking The Path To 9-11
Be sure to watch the Obama clip beneath the Trailer, in which moron boy President demonstrates that he is ignorant about 93 Trade Towers, 9-11, and the story of KSM.
…naturally, he was not called on it.
Yeah, if that was written with any racial animus,
0 racial animus.
Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
Not Deutsch, Charles, but having grown up in Mississippi, I have good ear for racist. Racists have shat on a noble heritage I’d like to spend more time celebrating, not defending. Glad to hear you aren’t one of those.
The Jig Is Up Next Year
911 – Atlas Shrugs
#53 Marie:
Much to the chagrin of my French acquaintances, and of great concern to me is that nearly all the recent population growth within Le Belle France seems to be from un-assimilated Muslims who have no interest in liberty, fraternity (with infidels), or equality (for any woman) or for male infidel citizens of the republic. At this rate France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, the U.K., and many other European nations are on the verge of becoming part of the growing caliphate. Ireland will hold out for quite some time if the Irish can vote down the EU balderdash and keep their socialist government from importing Muslim hordes as happened in the U.K. The Irish have recent memories of being “ruled” by foreigners and living with blatant religious discrimination. The average citizen of Ireland won’t stand idly by as Sharia is implemented on their isle.
The link Bob in your post 56. Thanks Bob.
It’s to a WSj article about a Russian Igor Panarin. He’s described by the writer as an academic who has been predicting the breakup of the U.S. for a long time.
Before the election of a Marxist simpleton America-Hater I would have laughed at the idea.
Now I think all it takes is citizens who can’t acknowledge it could happen to us just like collapse and decline and breakup has come to many other great civilizations.
Seems like the West res embles more and more the decadence and corruption of Rome before it fell to people it called “barbarians.”
Except their “barbarians” seem pretty tame compared to the folks currently trying to destroy everyone that fails to submit to their beliefs.