Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic explains the President’s muted reaction to the failed attempt to blow up the NWA to Detroit: he doesn’t want to dignify the attack by giving it attention. Now in all fairness to President Obama, this is Ambinder’s analysis of events, not the President’s.
There is a reason why Obama hasn’t given a public statement. It’s strategy.
Here’s the theory: a two-bit mook is sent by Al Qaeda to do a dastardly deed. He winds up neutering himself. Literally.
AdvertisementAuthorities respond appropriately; the president (as this president is wont to to) presides over the federal response. His senior aides speak for him, letting reporters know that he’s videoconferencing regularly, that he’s ordering a review of terrorist watch lists, that he’s discoursing with his secretary of Homeland Security.
But an in-person Obama statement isn’t needed; Indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic (because Obama usually DOESN’T talk about the specifics of cases like this, and so him deciding to do so would cue the American people to respond in a way that exacerbates the situation).
Obama of course will say something at some point. Had the terrorist blown up the plane, it’s safe to assume that Obama would no longer be in Hawaii. In either case, the public will need presidential fortification at some point. But Obama is willing to risk the accusation that he is “soft” on terrorism or is hovering above it all, or is just not to be bothered (his “head’s in the sand,” or “golfing comes first”) in order to advance what he believes is the proper collective response to a failed act of terrorism.
Let the authorities do their work. Don’t presume; don’t panic the country; don’t chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize (in an international sense), don’t give Al Qaeda (or whomever) a symbolic victory; resist the urge to open the old playbook and run a familiar play.
In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people, just as his advisers are convinced that the Bush administration projected their panic and anger on the self-same public eight years ago.
The problem with this analysis is that it comes from a different world from that suffused by dust, gunpowder, thin air, sweat and bewildering noise. It comes ready formed from that Washington cauldron of action, the cocktail party. In that setting the wounds are inflicted by different weapons: the disparaging glance, cutting word, calculated snub and the limpness of the handshake. These strike the telling blows. They destroy careers. They launch news stories with legs. In this world things are fixed by manipulating perception, by choosing the images allowed to the press. It is no wonder that Ambinder focuses on the symbolism of things. It is not that he is stupid. But even to an intelligent carpenter, every problem looks like a nail. And in Washington, symbols are the nails.
Through this prism the world looks a different place. Al-Qaeda must be crushed that the President has decided to stay in Hawaii rather than react o their nearly successful attempt to bring an airplane with nearly 300 people down on Detroit. The Islamists must be moritified that he does not even deign to notice them. They must feel downcast; oppressed by the certainty that they are so yesterday. In that universe Obama could not have smitten them more cruelly than if he had told them “don’t call me, I’ll call you”.
And as to leadership, what could be more inspiring to the great unwashed surging to and fro around the Beltway in their aimless evolutions than the majestic indifference of their President, who progresses serene and unperturbed across the pristine sands of a Pacific paradise, the symbol of greatness to which America has been restored.
If that sounds ridiculous, well it is. But to see that you have to apprehend things from the outside. From the vantage of a closed cabin where a small explosive can rip open the thin aluminum skin and leave you plummeting toward the pavements of Detroit, ruined enough as it is, with only enough to time to wonder if they’ll miss you next Christmas. Or from the perspective of a security supervisor who wonders how the hell things went wrong and to interrupt his musings to study the latest guidelines reducing the number of carry on luggage pieces. You have to worry less about symbolism than about defects in the intel system and whether we can anticipate the next attack because both the Fort Hood attacks and the NWA came as a total surprise. In all probability the next one, whatever that might be, will be a surprise also. And none of the nails that are up for hammering in Washington seem to be able to alter that probability. That is the important thing. Nor is it a hard one to grasp.
“You have a few sheep in the paddock,” he said. “Who attends to them?”
“I do, sir.”
“Have you noticed anything amiss with them of late?”
“Well, sir, not of much account; but three of them have gone lame, sir.”
I could see that Holmes was extremely pleased, for he chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
“A long shot, Watson; a very long shot,” said he, pinching my arm. “Gregory, let me recommend to your attention this singular epidemic among the sheep. Drive on, coachman!”
Colonel Ross still wore an expression which showed the poor opinion which he had formed of my companion’s ability, but I saw by the Inspector’s face that his attention had been keenly aroused.
“You consider that to be important?” he asked.
“Exceedingly so.”
“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
The problem with simply staying calm and letting “the authorities do their work” is that it hasn’t worked. Why should it work in the future? But don’t forget the epidemic among the sheep. What was the point of that experiment?
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The president doesn’t really need to cut short his vacation to have a press conference about a failed terrorist attack. It’s mostly only news junkies like us that are interested in the details, and Obama wouldn’t give them to us anyway.
Politically the last thing that Obama wants is to have another Afghanistan-like war in Yemen. Sending tens of thousands of troops to Yemen any time soon isn’t in the cards. But Obama can certainly see the threat that is arising in that country. I expect that he will keep his options open and attack AQ with cruise missiles and UAV launched Hellfire missiles rather than put American boots on the ground.
Whether these two attacks, like storm petrels, are harbingers of a storm to come remains to be seen.
[BTW, there is definitely something screwy with the posting system and has been for a week or more. I think this is the cause of the several double posts we've seen in the last few threads. When I post something the page reloads but my post doesn't appear. If I reload the page a couple times then the post appears with the countdown timer and things seem to work normally after that. Although a few days ago the timer appeared next to someone else's post. When I tried to edit it to see what would happen it then said I didn't have permission to edit the post.]
Does Marc Ambinder really believe the drivel he has written? “Don’t presume; don’t panic the country; don’t chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize…”
Who presumed when Professor Gates was detained? Who claims that if we do not enact drastic carbon limitations the planet will be destroyed? Who claims that his will be the administration that turns back the oceans? Who characterizes opponents of his health care scheme as uncaring? Who has politicized the actions of former administration attorneys and intelligence officers?
It seems that the only thing the President doesn’t get troubled by is terrorism.
Ambinder is one of the relatively more reasonable writers. If this is what he really believes and praises, heaven help us.
It may be that the President in the December 15th executive order has determined that is best for INTERPOL to handle these matters!!! Meanwhile, HomeLand Security can issue more guidelines for the TSA employees and the matter is resolved.
“In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people, just as his advisers are convinced that the Bush administration projected their panic and anger on the self-same public eight years ago.”
Brilliant. Never realized that my outrage post 9/11 was Bush’s fault. Here I was thinking it was a genuine spontaneous reaction to an unprecedented domestic atrocity.
I think we can tell what it means when Big Sister says “once the incident occurred, the system worked”: We generated reports and sent them around to all the right people. And if the next “incident” happens to bring down a planeload of people, they’ll be ready to send around some more reports.
So, he is above this and does not have to comment. Great. Then what about his comments about a cop arresting his friend? Wait – white cop, black friend. There, that is the diffenece. It was much more important then.
Hmm. All I can think of right now are three little words. My pet goat.
Wretchard, as an intelligent carpenter, and speaking on behalf of all other intelligent carpenters, I take exception to the comment that we see every problem as a nail. We also have the option of seeing a problem as a board…which, naturally, requires a bigger hammer. ^_^
Well, if you’re done with your right-wing take on a Greenwald rant, what do you suggest? Terrorists have not and, baring a loose Pakistani nuke, will not hurt us more than we can hurt ourselves, as proven by Iraq. It’s pathetic to see citizens of a nation that faced down a continent-spanning industrialized empire in living memory piss themselves over a handful of medieval throwbacks.
Obama’s anti-terror strategy of doubling down on the only theater of war that poses an actual threat and otherwise treating it as a law enforcement issue is the right one. And if you’re really determined to to have a war posture, you might want to note the ideology of 3 out of the 4 successful terrorist attacks on domestic soil this year…
Kae Arby, my pet goat just bleated in the night. Care to surmise what that means?
Ambinder’s analysis would make sense if the President were busy working on ever more effective ways to disable the terrorist–oops, I mean man-made disaster–networks. I don’t know if he is or he isn’t. But I do know that the people such as the Napolitanos and Holders he’s put in charge of insuring our domestic safety inspire absolutely no confidence that he is.
On the other hand, top to bottom, he does have good men and women working on the problem in the military.
I expect that he will keep his options open and attack AQ with cruise missiles and UAV launched Hellfire missiles rather than put American boots on the ground.
Maybe he’ll schedule it during testimony by Michele’s aides about her role in Walpin’s firing.
9. sirius_sir:
Hmm. Since goats usually sleep at night, my guess would be that there’s a predator milling about.
In articles past, Wretchard talked about the secondary channel that many of Obama’s supporters believe they have their ear tuned to. Well, to continue with that metaphor, Mr. Armbinder has tuned into an unused frequency. For most other people, all they hear is white noise; but to the likes of Armbinder, if you listen real close and careful, hidden behind the static, you can hear the message just as clear as day.
hon kee mufo: Go back to your cave or is your knees in front of Bambi?
So, he is above this and does not have to comment.
If this is indeed the case, then what do we need him for?
Leon Trotsky once said, “You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.” It is more commonly known under its corrupt form: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Like a class, you can extend it. “You may not be interested in victory, but your enemy is interested in victory over you.” And that enemy is by turns portrayed as invincible or not worthy of notice. He might be one or the other, but not both.
The enemy in this case may not be Islam, but it is certainly a global radical variant of it. The idea that Afghanistan is of central importance ignores the obvious circumstance that its economic, ideological and other wellsprings are in the Middle East or in other places. Afghanistan was al-Qaeda’s Fort Bragg. But Egypt was its cradle.
Most of the real sources of strength of radical Islam have been placed off limits to either law enforcement or US strategy, both under Bush and more so under Obama. Pakistan is neither going to be the subject of military action nor law enforcement.
Nobody speaks of law enforcement against the terror threat in Israel. Nor is there much talk of that in Lebanon. Or in Yemen, or Iraq or in Iran . Back in the day I remember participating in negotiations with the secessionist movement. They didn’t seem themselves as a “law enforcement problem”. They wanted to sign an agreement with a sovereign government. But there is a great deal of faith in law enforcement in the West. We shall see where that goes.
There’s no use debating the subject. People have come to their beliefs and will not be swayed by words. Al-Qaeda is not worthy of notice. The next 3 years will show, to anyone who is interested, whether Obama’s point of view is correct or whether he is completely mistaken.
I think he’s mistaken. And the lesson will be hard. What will happen then I think is that many of those who have so majestically decided to ignore the non-threat will be clamoring for safety at any price. And then the poor Third World man will pay the price. For his own dysfunction, yes. But for the vanity of the West most of all.
Double post. Sorry.
Sara: I honestly don’t follow what you’re asking.
wretchard: But what is Egypt gonna actually do? Specifically? Afghanistan is of central importance because a Taliban-controlled Afgahnistan would be a huge resource for Pakistani Islamists. The Muslim Bomb is the only real terrorist threat to this nation outside of self-imposed ones; 9/11 cannot be repeated and the remaining “bombs and bullets” terrorism is no more significant a risk than lightning strikes.
Sara: I honestly don’t follow what you’re asking.
Never mind, it was a typo and I doubt you’ll get it even if I explained.
hon kee mufo: why do you say 9/11 cannot be repeated?
There is a desperation in Ambinder and other commenters here. There must be nothing there. This must be an isolated event. There must be no consequence, no real threat.
If there was, then we would have to do something. And that, in the political reality, where the real war is happening, Washington, impossible.
Does not Al Queda know that? Do Muslims not understand that they are not important, when there are greater issues at hand.
This is a distraction. Move along, nothing to see here.
Derek
Sara, after a fruitless discussion on an earlier thread with Contrarian, I congratulate you on your decision not to pursue your point. You are smarter than I was.
re: dkite
Because 9/11 only worked back when terrorists who hijacked planes always used the passengers as hostages. The 9/11 hijackers were only able to take over their planes because the official, expert advice was to stay calm and passive (since that used to be the best way to survive). Now, we know that a terrorist who hijacks a plane is likely to use it as a suicide bomb. As a result, passengers will and do rise up against anyone who looks like they’re gonna commit an act of terrorism. The only way to hijack an American plane post-9/11 is to kill all or most of the able-bodied people, and barring something out of James Bond or a truly astounding security lapse I don’t see that happening. Also, re-enforced cockpit doors.
re: Sara
Perhaps you’re right, it certainly looked like it was going to be both profound and high-minded!
Any place on earth could be of central importance provided the financial and logistical support for radical Islamism exists. Afghanistan happened to be one place, but nothing at all precludes another failed state area from becoming a haven as long as the money flow is there and the radical ideology thrives in the Muslim world.
The strategic center of radical Islam is not and never was Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s place in radical Islam is that of a convenient pile of dirt.
In this regard, there are three problems which the current approach hardly touches:
1) the dependence on foreign oil, which will not be reduced by carbon trading, windmills, bans on drilling, disincentives to nuclear power
2) the perceived US alignment with dictators in the Islamic world. Egypt is one example. This has given radical Islamism a huge boost in the Arab world. Ironically, even our liberal friend in the Middle East are suffering from the Obama administration cozying up to Hezbollah and Syria; Hamas and the Ayatollahs! As we speak the dissidents in Iran are fighting their government.
3)the legitimacy which a supine Western intelligensia has granted radical Islam. That meme is now headquartered in Europe, especially in Britain.
You can wipe Afghanistan off the map and radical Islam will reconstitute itself elsewhere. They have the money; they have the legitimacy; they have a strategy. What the current administration has is a collection of fantasies.
What the US needs to do is mobilize all the sources of its national power: the economy, its ideology and where necessary military force, which in the modern age runs the gamut from conventional operations to targeted hts. There is a war on. And it is a job beyond the capability of cops.
Perhaps you’re right, it certainly looked like it was going to be both profound and high-minded!
Profound yes, high-minded, let’s hope not. Sara, champion of the small minds and little people.
Afghanistan is of central importance because a Taliban-controlled Afgahnistan would be a huge resource for Pakistani Islamists.
Make no mistake about it, Afghanistan is of central importance because were we to abandon it now we would effectively be abandoning Pakistan as well.
The Pakistanis are fighting for their democracy after getting the bejeebus scared out of them during last summer’s thrust by the extremists towards Islamabad. Up to that point, we heard a lot about how America was violating Pakistani sovereignty every time we took the fight to the Taliban and al Qaeda across the border. But since then, not so much. Additionally, the civilians of Pakistan have demanded much more of the Pakistan Army, which has since fought for and by most accounts won the contest for the Swat valley and is currently effectively engaged in South Waziristan, with more to follow. But this undeniable progress would be endangered–as would Pakistan’s democracy-were we to give up on Afghanistan and allow that to become again a safe haven for trouble.
Perhaps we need not support democracy wherever we find it, but it is critical to do so in this instance.
‘Democracy Is The Greatest Revenge’:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704680804574620411590579566.html
It’s really simple. GWB is history and he left what is ostensibly a very low bar. Any idiot can do better than he did, right? So here’s the deal. In the period after September 11, Bush won one foreign war and prevented any further attacks on US soil. He didn’t knock out the enemy, but then there’s supposed to be no enemy to knock out.
The problem for Obama is really simple. All he has to do is better that record. It should be easy. He should win the “war of necessity”. He should prevent any major attacks on US soil.
In fact, that would be the bar before any President. The job of all concerned should be to help him do it. Now the next three years will show whether he can do it or not. We will see what we will see.
W’s comment at 21 is as clear as anything I have read. There is a war on. And that war must be fought on every front — economically, militarily, politically, culturally, with information, with defense, with offense, in every corner of the world.
Unfortunately the mind set of most is focused either on the political or the military; seldom does it encompass all these elements and more.
I don’t know whether I agree with those who hold that Islam, in any of its forms, is incompatible with Western Civilization. Perhaps after a true reformation that unlinks them from their literal interpretations, there might be some compatibility. Or perhaps if the Sufi branch were in the ascendancy. But be that as it may, the current iterations of Islam must be discredited — discredited culturally, politically, philosophically, economically, and militarily if necessary.
And Afghanistan, as W correctly notes, is merely the current convenient locus of the most malignant of this cancer. But to see Afghanistan as the only theater of war is to miss the metastatic nature of this cancer. It has spread all over the world to far too many hospitable hosts.
As always, when I despair I turn to the religious sources and to the secular ones. So here is something first from Churchill and then from one of the Psalms.
“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
Churchill’s Address of June 4, 1940
And now to Psalm 29:11
“The Lord will give strength unto His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.”
The clear interpretation here is that we must have strength first if we are to be blessed with peace later.
9-11 Diary
Before the lecture Hauer, who I have known for years, confided that he had just been involved that morning in identifying the body of a close friend, John O’Neill, who died in the WTC. Hauer said “body”, but from what else he indicated it was obvious O’Neill?s remains were nothing the family ought to view. Hauer hasn’t slept in days. He is haggard and jittery. Distraught.
“John O’Neill was head of the FBI’s counterterrorism branch in Washington,” Hauer told me privately. “He led every important investigation you can name — the USS Cole, Tanzania, Kenya bombings. He retired three weeks ago. I helped him get the job as head of security for the World Trade Center. And the irony is the guy he chased for most of his career killed him.”
My dear friend Karen told me this morning that she has been overcome by a sense of doom. I have not. I truly believe that New York will triumph, grow, and be a better city and community five years from now than it has ever previously been.
But I confess that, for the first time in my life, I now believe in the concept of evil.
—
“And the irony is the guy he chased for most of his career killed him.”
Both O’neill’s and Rescorla’s stories could not be more ironic,
but then, our PC universe breeds irony, terror, and multiple other nightmares.
—
President Barack Obama is beginning to look out of his depth
…we repeat ourselves.
re: wretchard
You’re not addressing my point, though. I know that Afgahnistan isn’t central to Islamicism. What I’m saying is that the primary threat posed by Islamicism is the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on a lose nuke, which would most likely be Pakistani. If they never get a nuke, then they’re reduced to small-scale terrorist attacks that are, on the grand scheme of things, pinpricks. The one exception would be terrorists provoking us into another ill-conceived invasion like Iraq. This is the reason I don’t support treating the terrorism problem as a war.
Mostly agreed with your first “problem,” though. The drill-baby-drill agenda is a joke (domestic oil production peaked almost 40 years ago, we’re tapped out) but it’s a shame we aren’t building more nuclear plants. Left-wing folks are uncharacteristically ignorant when it comes to nuclear energy.
The Daily Mail desribes where Mutallab was probably radicalized. In London.
Yemen is another one of those empty places; one of those earthly Islamic paradises where everyone is perfectly Muslim and everything goes perfectly wrong. But because by definition this is impossible, since Islam is the religion of peace and enlightenment, then it must be America’s fault.
If an major attacks comes out of Yemen, will that prove once and for all that Afghanistan is not absolutely necessary as a base from which to launch against the US? If it comes out of London, will that make the point?
Right now there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of madrassas and cells pumping out radical ideology. There are training camps in Australia. There are training camps in Mindanao. There are training camps in Pakistan. And doubtless there are a few in Somalia and Yemen too.
But there’s no war on. It’s just a law enforcement problem. We’re not even facing a hostile ideology. There’s no evidence that Hassan acted with co-conspirators. Don’t jump to conclusions. Just limit passengers to one bag. Just strip search everyone who wants to fly commercial. The system is working. Fight a war of necessity and if that doesn’t work in 18 months then withdraw. Don’t dignify al-Qaeda with Presidential attention. Yes, that’ll work. Heck, what’s the problem? Just another lightning strike.
Ok. Let’s see the real problem is a loose nuke. That’s going to be fixed by Iran getting a weapon. You know, the one from the program that stopped years ago. By buddying up to Syria, which by the by, just had a nuke facility blown up near the Iraqi border. It’s going to be fixed by stabilizing Pakistan. Well Pakistan isn’t going to stabilize any time soon.
Well the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see and it will be for all to see.
Let us not over-react and make more of this than is warranted. Please, Mr. Obama would just like to finish his waffle!
“If they never get a nuke, then they’re reduced to small-scale terrorist attacks that are, on the grand scheme of things, pinpricks.”
How “small-scale” would you consider a weaponized anthrax attack to be? Especially an attack in an area where you live and on people whom you know? Would you consider that to be a matter strictly for law enforcement?
And how would you define “ill-conceived invasion?” Can you think of any invasion, including the Normandy landings, in which elements of the operation didn’t go the way we expected them to?
Think hard and long before you answer.
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.” because the perpetrator was not a stranger. “Silver Blaze”
“It’s pathetic to see citizens of a nation that faced down a continent-spanning industrialized empire in living memory piss themselves over a handful of medieval throwbacks.”
Well, neither the Soviets nor the Germans nor the Japanese ever managed to knock down the tallest buildings in a major US city and set fire to the Pentagon. Maybe you should be taking those medieval throwbacks more seriously.
As for the idea that they can’t hurt us without a loose nuke — have you ever considered the destructive power of a gasoline tanker driven into a mall, school, or government office? Or considered the vulnerability of electric supplies? Or how easy it would be to paralyze a major city’s road system?
“… if you’re done with your right-wing take …” — and there’s the heart of the problem for the US. The shear partisan hatred of too many on the left wing. They are glad to destroy themselves, as long as they have the satisfaction of knowing that they have in the process destroyed those who don’t accept their near-religion. Rather like the jihadists.
“
I await, wistfully, for that bright clear dawn when, Christmas break a receding memory, junior high schools around the world once again fling open their doors in rapturous anticipation….comment sections being as they are.
Anti Semitic Site’s Account of Flight 253
Mark: I’ll worry about terrorists with anthrax when there is any indication that they have or will have any; so far the only person to use biological weapons for political violence was a right-wing pro-war domestic terrorist. I live in an _extremely_ high-risk area and have for most of the decade so my money is firmly placed in my mouth.
And an ill-conceived invasion would be a $700,000,000,000 campaign to depose a secular dictator who was a long-standing enemy of the most bellicose Islamic nation in the region characterized by rampant war profiteering and untrue casus belli that incidentally killed more Americans than 9/11. In terms of cost to America and affirmation of Islamicist narratives Al Qaeda couldn’t have done a better job themselves.
re: Kinuachdrach
Are you saying that Islamic terrorism poses anything close to an existential threat to the United States or that the Axis/Soviet Union didn’t?
Derek @ 18 asked:
hon kee mufo: why do you say 9/11 cannot be repeated?
hon kee mufo @ 20 replied:
Because 9/11 only worked back when terrorists who hijacked planes always used the passengers as hostages.
The reply strikes me as way too literal and narrowly imagined. If you define “another 9/11″ as, strictly, “multiple plane hijack with low-tech non-explosive weapons where the intent is to use the plane itself as a suicide missile rather than a negotiating token” then, sure, 9/11 is almost certainly not going to be repeated, if only for the highly apparent evidence that passengers are not going to allow it.
But if 9/11 taught us anything, it should have taught us that we have to think outside the paradigm of previous terrorist methods … yes? Should not the post-9/11 paradigm be, “think the unthinkable”? If it is not, then we will consign ourselves to constantly be playing the part of the Polish cavalry to the jihadis’ paratroopers and panzers.
It’s pathetic to see citizens of a nation that faced down a continent-spanning industrialized empire in living memory piss themselves over a handful of medieval throwbacks.
No, what’s pathetic is to see citizens of a nation that faced down a continent-spanning industrialized empire in living memory incinerated inside their own offices in the heart of New York City because the “handful of medieval throwbacks” were ignored and enabled by the domestic “why do they hate us?” crowd.
(BTW, does even 1 percent of 1 billion Muslims constitute a “handful”? or do we have to start measuring in the hundreds of millions before we escalate from “handful” to “enough to worry about”?)
Terrorists have not and, baring a loose Pakistani nuke, will not hurt us more than we can hurt ourselves, as proven by Iraq.
Again, there’s a paucity of imagination here. So the only nukes that could be used against us are currently in Pakistan? And the only catastrophic damage that we could suffer is from a loose Pakistani nuke?
London.
Beslan.
Bali.
Mumbai.
Nothing to worry about there, huh?
Obama’s anti-terror strategy of doubling down
You are far kinder than I am, since you apparently believe that with regards to Afghanistan, Obama actually has something that could be called a “strategy” and that its purpose is “anti-terror.”
on the only theater of war that poses an actual threat
A “theater of war” exists wherever you are making war on the enemy, or wherever the enemy chooses to make war on you. 9/11 was indisputable proof that jihadism’s “theater of war” on the United States includes absolutely everything within America’s borders. No one and nothing, not school kids on a trip, not office workers, not firemen trying to save lives, not old women, not the remotest farm field, is exempt.
To declare that our homeland is no longer a theater of war is to assume one or both of the following: (1) that the jihadis are no longer interested in attacking us here, and/or (2) that they are no longer capable of attacking us here.
The NWA incident should dispel any notion that (1) is the case.
And assuming (2), even if you are POTUS and privy to the highest level of information available, is, absent sustained long-term proof (i.e. something to be measured only in hindsight, like 20 or 30 years of no domestic attacks or attempted attacks), not just a stupid and reckless gamble but a shamefully derelict one.
and otherwise treating it as a law enforcement issue is the right one.
Based on what evidence that the law-enforcement model as a primary counter-terrorism tool effectively neutralizes and deters terrorism? Trying Ramzi Yousef in a criminal court in New York did not deter 9/11. (And Benazir Bhutto is still dead, I might add.) Doubling-down on the hunch that trying KSM in New York is going to somehow prevent the next attack on our soil is magical thinking.
I sincerely hope you don’t live in LA, NYC, or DC. Alas, I have several friends who do.
I really don’t know what any President can do with a public acknowledgemt to help. Now the President can help himself with a public announcemnt for his own PR but that does not help the country. The DOJ and other agencies will investigate and rethink policies of profiling.
The last defense which is really the only effective defense is the people at large that refuse to allow any sabateur to work if the have intelligfence. The public has the same disadvantage as LEO needing effective intelligence to act. If an attack happens where the public can see then the public will act.
A self reliant population can handle itself and stop attacks. Just talk to the CCW permit holders that tok on the role to protect against crime.
However if the explosion had worked then any attck by the passengers may have be to no avil.
Kae Arby.
My Pet Goat
Bingo. The Left spent 8 years, including recent troll scripting in the BC, attacking Bush for not panicking before the school children and instead finishing his reading after a thoughtful pause, which was disparaged as a “frozen stare.” If Obama had been in charge and had a microphone catch him off teleprompter we would have gotten a stirring rendition of “I can’t hear you and the people who brought these buildings down will never hear you. Now go learn to staple insulation for a green job.”
To a bureaucrat like Napolitano the difference between a good idea and a great idea is;
1. A good idea is one you steal
2. A great idea is one for which you a back date a memo in the file claiming credit.
The only way to get these interchangeable mediocrities who are governing as an assemblage of Tsars to take seriously the public safety would be to strap one, there are enough of them, or at least their blood kin, to the nose of each international flight. If we sent the Safe Schools Tsar to Yemen he could teach them a meaning for “My Pet Goat” that might produce a pro-American movement in the back country. Either that or they may decide that the Great Satan is no longer worthy of kicking around.
This is Clintons response to al-Qeada, they bombed our embassies and the Cole but we didn’t give them the satisfaction of trying to root them out. Even Clinton has intimated that in hindsight he wished he had done more. Even Carter would have gone before the public and tried to do his job. Eisenhower could play golf and talk about disarmament because everyone knew that he understood and could fight a war. Besides Ike had the Dulles brothers so both the allies and the enemy knew that we were not paralyzed waiting for the boss to pick up the phone. With Obama the expectation is that the nobody does anything without approval from the White House. That may mean Barack Obama or the troika of Emanuel-Jenrette-Holder. Even if that wasn’t true and the White House could delegate we can’t trust the authorities to do the job because in every instance for 11 months now Obama’s appointments have proven to be disastrous. The initial expectation that Gates would continue to operate with wide latitude has faded. The 8 month delay in issuing an AfPak strategy makes clear that he is now just a gopher.
One of the signs of maturity is the ability to regard an event in more than one way.
Michael Moore argues that terrorism is not a problem because the probability of any one individual in the U.S. being killed by it is vanishingly small. But the same argument applies to the attack on Pearl Harbor. If you did not man a battleship in Hawaii why should it be a big deal?
You have to look at terrorism and see it without personal fear but as a grave concern to the country. It probably is of no real threat to you as an individual but from the National standpoint may well be appropriate to prompt a nuclear strike in response. There are many complex reasons for this duality, but the simple one is that, just as the IJN attack on Pearl Harbor, if something is not done about it then the situation will indeed one day be one that threatens your own precious skin.
Marc Ambinder simply is not a mature person. In fact, like virtually all of the Left, he is not even a serious one.
On a lighter note:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Hr5GbRC7Q
Wretchard — My disagreement with your statements is that it will NOT BE the elites who clamor for safety at any price, including incinerating the Third World.
No. Because, contrary to those above, there is NOT A WAR ON. The elites made sure of that. The View, and Oprah, and Ann Althouse, to name a few examples, are threatened if there was a war on. What earthly use would America have for a female law professor of the most liberal stripe in Madison WI? Please.
No, half of America would be incinerated, and Ann Althouse, the ladies on the View, and Oprah would be calling for us to “understand Muslim rage” and surrender or ignore it. The same for the feminized elites, such as Thomas Friedman and Matthew Yglesias. Friedman for example is wealthy man who inherited some wealth and married more of it, and would not be more delighted to make flying a thing only for really, really rich people (because costs and security are so onerous).
No, it will be the “little people,” the Sarah Palin voters, the ordinary folk, those looked down on as fly-over country bumpkins, the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, those not tragically hip, who will throw out the elites and go about the business of killing as many Muslims as they can until Muslims stop fighting.
You dance around it — London, or Yemen, or Pakistan, or Iran, or Afghanistan, or Nigeria, or Somalia — all problems. Because they are filled with Muslims. The ordinary, average person will figure that out too. And come to the conclusion Kevin Klein’s character did in Silverado. “They can’t hurt you if they are dead.” If America killed 65-75% of the World’s Muslims, I guarantee you Jihad would cease. Certainly no planes flew into Shanghai skyscrapers, despite Communist Chinese oppression of Uighurs AND Hui Muslims. Because Muslims know that the Chinese would simply obliterate them. That is just how the Chinese are.
Fighting the enemy will require a sacrifice of power, cultural, political, and economic from the Ann Althouses, the Thomas Friedmans, the Oprah Winfreys, and the Joy Behars of America. They will never agree to that and thus survival alone will motivate the far less powerful ordinary people to finally overthrow their elite and embark on a war of sheer survival, people to people.
Why do you think Armbinder approves of Obama’s silence? Because actually fighting the enemy puts the end to the progressive dream (and the dream of ruling by decree forever to remake society in the Jim Jones/Rev. Wright fantasy mode).
Frankly I’m OK with Obama staying offstage on this for more or less the reasons giving, but I dearly love wretchard’s diatribe about it!
The enemy in this case may not be Islam
Well, yes, it is, in a dozen different ways, any one of which would be sufficient.
What I’m saying is that the primary threat posed by Islamicism is the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on a lose nuke, which would most likely be Pakistani. If they never get a nuke, then they’re reduced to small-scale terrorist attacks that are, on the grand scheme of things, pinpricks.
Are you saying that Islamic terrorism poses anything close to an existential threat to the United States or that the Axis/Soviet Union didn’t?
Does a threat have to be, literally, an “existential” one to warrant a response that includes military and security agency (i.e., other-than-
law-enforcement) action?
None of the terrorist actions I mentioned above (London, Bali, Beslan, Mumbai) would cause the United States to literally cease to exist. Not even 1000 Beslans would cause the United States to literally cease to exist, in the sense of the “existential threat” on order of the Soviet Union’s gadozens of nukes pointed at every sizable American city.
But why are you still thinking in Cold War terms? And insisting that anything different from that paradigm is “pinpricks”?
America (and every other first-world country) is, among other things, a highly complex system. It can suffer catastrophic damage — not necessarily literal existential damage, but enough to make it unrecognizable and immiserated in very short order — without nukes going off in every major city. We suffered a significant recession after 9/11 due in direct ways to the effects of that attack. And it was not just psychological, i.e. Americans getting “all wee-weed up” about flying and buying. What sort of economic and infrastructure damage do you think would ensue after, say, a couple simultaneous Mumbai- or Beslan-style attacks here? “Pinpricks” … if you are measuring solely in terms of body count and immediate geographical impact … perhaps. But there is a reason why 100 American deaths in an earthquake have more impact here than 10,000 Iranian deaths in an earthquake in Tehran … and it’s not just because the latter souls are Iranian. It’s because human life is dearer in the West. And THAT is because we have chosen to view it so, a choice made possible by centuries of agonizing steps to lift ourselves out of our previous mindset.
“Pinpricks” still count, if the prick-ee minds the blood being drawn in such fashion.
To go back to the original point of Wretchard’s post:
Marc Ambinder states that Obama’s silence on the matter is strategy. And so it is–the mythical strategy of the Ostrich, who when confronted with a dangerous situation from which it cannot flee buries its head in the sand. If I can’t see it, it can’t see me, and if I just keep my head under the sand long enough, the problem will simply go away. And if it really doesn’t–we’ll re-define it so that its no longer a problem.
So as terrorism became “man caused disasters” perhaps it will morph into something like “actions of socially oppressed persons with legitimate grievances who express their anger in ways that ignorant and reactionary people consider to be inappropriate.” Its just a matter of time.
wretchard:
If al-Qaeda were as stupid and unlucky as Snidely Whiplash, even Dudley Do-Right would prevail. But are all agents from al-Qaeda as stupid and unlucky as a cartoon villain? Somehow, I doubt that al-Qaeda is merely an Islamist version of Wile E Coyote with the Obama administration playing the part of Road Runner.
Maybe off topic, but maybe “Ruh,Roh!”
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/MFA+Spokesman/2009/Press+releases/First-Heads-of-Mission-Conference-24-Dec-2009.htm
“First-ever Heads of Missions Conference at the MFA
24 Dec 2009
Israel’s ambassadors and consuls general serving throughout the world will discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues at a conference to be held next week in Jerusalem.
Heads of Missions Conference – 27-31 December 2009
(Communicated by MFA Spokesperson’s Bureau)
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman, will host a conference next week (27-31 December) for Israeli Heads of Missions. At the conference, Israel’s ambassadors and consuls general serving throughout the world will discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues.
This is the first time a conference for all of Israel’s Heads of Missions has been held. The idea is to facilitate direct dialogue with the country’s leaders, mutual updates on major diplomatic issues, and a discussion of action plans to deal with the challenges awaiting the State of Israel in the international arena in the coming year, including the Iranian threat.
A major part of the conference will be devoted to examining Israel’s integration and potential contribution to items on the world agenda such as the environment, renewable energy, water and sewage treatment, and new technologies. The participants will discuss how to develop and promote Israel’s foreign relations and its image as a country that contributes to creating a better future for everyone. They will also talk about the rise of new global powers and how to deal with them.
On Monday, 28 December, the Heads of Missions will be guests of President Shimon Peres at the President’s Residence.
Foreign Minister Liberman will open the conference. Other officials invited to attend include Prime Minister Benyamin Natanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, and senior officials of Israel’s diplomatic and security community.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to make the Heads of Missions Conference an annual event, as it is in other leading foreign ministries in the world.”
Sara (Pal2Pal),
champion of the small minds and little people
Dear Hearts and Gentle People
Re: Doug @ 26
I just read that article in the Telegraph that you linked to at the end of your post. It ends with the maddening line;
“His credibility is seeping away, and it will require concrete achievements rather than more soaring oratory to recover it.”
I find it maddening because he never *had* any credibility – it was created from whole cloth by idiots like the writer of that article!
My opinion for what it’s worth is that Obama is doing his part in furthering the destruction of America and he counts on his minions and enablers, like hon kee mufo, to cheer him on and shout to anyone who is forced to listen, what a perfect gawd he is, if we all weren’t too stupid to see it.
Obama is incompetent, he is a case of a spoiled brat whiny 15 year old, a classic case of arrested development. How many hours did it take for him to come up with the spin that Gibbs spewed at us that the Christmas day attack was … wait for it … all Bush’s fault.
I.MISS.W!
hon kee,
You are right – 9/11 can never happen again, because the twin towers were destroyed. But how about using a truck bomb to bring down a skyscraper? Or a major bridge? Or blowing up the Holland Tunnel during rush hour? Can you conceive of that happening?
Don’t refer to someone as part of an elite unless he or she really is better than you.
We may need to overthrow the ruling class we presently have, but that would be because of the ruling class’s inferiority. They are elitists, yes. “Elite” my eye!
if I just keep my head under the sand long enough, the problem will simply go away
No, if you keep your head under the sand long enough, you die of suffocation. Dead is dead, whether by conventional weapon, nuke, or sand in the nose and lungs.
“You can wipe Afghanistan off the map and radical Islam will reconstitute itself elsewhere.”
It appears to me that AlQueda has already moved itself into Yemen, leaving America fighting the rat pack of the Taliban and crazy Pakistani’s in Afghanistan. Lots of very bad stuff frequently coming out of Yemen lately, while everyone is focused on whether or not we’re successfully playing whack-a-mole in Afghanistan.
///
Does the appearance of at least three new liberal-minded posters here this weekend (all spouting the exact same bushwah) signal that Wretchard has hit the radar screen at HuffPo and the little people are fighting back, or does it mean that one person with absolutely nothing else to do is deluging BC with his leftist hallucinations and lots of different names?
#41 Whiskey
Not to disagree at all with the main part of the thesis of your # 41, I would like to note that Ann Althouse has been …. evolving … in her public statements about the fresh train of new horrors that emanate from the regime on a daily basis. If you check out her reaction to Janet Napolitano’s verbal defecation on the subject of how everything is working wonderfully and how “the system” is apparently responsible for the NWA detonator failure on 3 talk shows today; Ann Althouse formally apologized to her readers for voting for Obama. If this is sincere, she is probably the sole exception that proves the rule. The rest of that lot will not have a moment’s doubts about their devotion to subjugating Americans until they are taking a ride in a tumbrel.
On a related note, today they took another Nigerian off of today’s North West Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. He supposedly was creating some sort of on-board disturbance. The plane landed and he was taken off. There has been no news follow up that I have heard.
However, would it not be in the interest of the regime for this to be publicly discounted as a mentally disturbed individual? Keep a watch out for any reports from the other passengers on today’s flight. And I stand by my concern that Al Quada does not do singletons when using airliners to attack. 4 on 9/11 [three of which successfully struck, one whose attack was broken up by an ad hoc group of the Unorganized Militia of the United States. 11 in the thwarted attempt in the Pacific in 1995. 6 in the thwarted attack on airliners over the North Atlantic in 2006. Keep thine codpieces buttoned.
Subotai Bahadur
The Islamists must be mortified that he does not even deign to notice them. They must feel downcast; oppressed by the certainty that they are so yesterday.
I apologize, but I’ve grown to like this approach in the past hour. The jihad elite seems enough like ours – super-rich, decadent, globe-trotting hypocrites, never putting themselves in harm’s way, but demanding it of others for the greater good. The President is probably correct in downplaying it; the citizens are probably correct in vowing vigilance and a little frontier justice when needed, and SNL would probably help enormously with some ruthlessly mocking skits, and we should probably have psychologists doing the press conferences instead of Napolitano. The poor misguided soul, he was a bed wetter until age 16 and could never get a date…
My name is Ambinder
And if I can find her
I’ll ask the HSA to tell
What happened at Schipol
That almost took wee toll
Of airplane and people as well
There’s nothing to see here
The president will be here
As soon as he’s finished his game
In meantime the gap in
Our intel may happen
But we know that Bush is to blame
The problems we’re fixin’
Go back to Dick Nixon
We’ve no time for terrorist plans
The prez will not notice
No matter they goad us
Because they know just where he stands
He stands square with free men
And knows that to be men
Al Qaeda and Taliban must fight
The wars George Bush gave them
And this prez will save them
By leading them into the light
They would not attack us
Instead they would back us
And join us in health care reform
And praise our decisions
On carbon emissions
And Islam would soon be the norm
Colonialism?
“….What the US needs to do is mobilize all the sources of its national power: the economy, its ideology and where necessary military force, which in the modern age runs the gamut from …..”
Old World, Jonathan Richman:
http://tinyurl.com/yhhto8a
Say good bye to the old world, the 50′s apartment house…
The old world is losing ground, just little traces around.
Charm.
Sorry in advance but I know we win. Don’t give up, step up.
bonzo @ 57: Colonialism?
Yes.
This false dichotomy between ‘military’ and ‘law enforcement’ perfectly encapsulates apparently insolvable problem of sharing data, information and intelligence between the warring beaurocracies.
Both are obviously necessary to deny our enemies the peace and the place to organize themselves. Only a military infrastructure can deliver boots or ordinance to the hinterlands of Yemen. Only good police work can uncover a bomb factory in a London row house.
Terrorism is neither fish nor fowl. There will be no grand gathering in Copenhagen, or wherever, to sign a treaty ending this war. There won’t be any discernable end to it, if we are very lucky and plucky it will just peter out. There’s no “winning strategy,” only vigilance, stamina, commitment, knowledge and intelligence will prevail against apocalyptic fanaticism. (Meanwhile, our departments of Middle Eastern studies remain more fifth column than training ground for defenders of freedom … )
The last year there have been many more announced “homegrown” terror plots. Whether this reflects a change in our enemy’s tactics or a change in our government’s informational stance is unknown to me.
I’m just awfully glad that now we have a *smart* president …
54. Subotai Bahadur
However, would it not be in the interest of the regime for this to be publicly discounted as a mentally disturbed individual?
Of course it would. If there is a real organized threat (as there is) this would mean that they would be expected to do something about it, and the present regime has no clue about how to fight such a problem. To Obama and his cronies having an opponent who can’t be co-opted or bought off is something beyond their experience and comprehension. It is far better for them to pretend there is no problem than it is for them to be expected to come up with a solution.
Imagine if you or I were expected to come up with a design for a faster than light starship drive within 30 days. I can’t speak for you, but I’m sure that whatever I would come up with would be greeted with scorn, derision, and laughter by any competent physicist or engineer.
And so it is with the Obama administration. They know as much about foreign affairs as I know about making FTL starship drives. If they admit there is a problem they will have to propose an answer, and they haven’t a clue about what to do in such a situation. And there is that lurking fear that whatever they propose will expose their ignorance for all to see.
This is a constant error in thinking that an organization or even a mind set of Wahabist terrorist thought is dependent on territory. The landscape is not land but the mind.
Transform the mind and you have created the terrorist. The Wahabist figured this out in the 1990’s when they set up mosques all over. I have seen many built here in the US during that time. The schools in Pakistan are where they create the Pakistani recruits.
That is why the Taliban target schools since that is the landscape of the mind.
The wellspring is Saudi Arabia. We have or had the leverage to make differences to require a change in funding and books and teaching. The foolish reluctance to tackle this is just squeamish. I have no moral qualms at squashing a religious doctrine that is creating war against me.
Regrettably the British brought the infection and allowed it to prosper. It really doesn’t take a huge will to shut down the Finsbury Mosque and the Imams that infect their congregations.
He’s not going to “dignify” the attack by ignoring it? What rot! What kind of mentality is that? Does he think he’s a god who can dignify things or wish them away by putting them on this scroll or that scroll?
This president is all out on front on so many issues, so many of them shadow issues, and on every cheap television show he can find. Who does he think he’s kidding about using the silence from his pulpit to combat the war on terror, especially after he’s dragged that same pulpit through the mud?
This idiot president never ceases to amaze me.
If the intent of the experiment on Northwest Flight 253 was to determine in what way best to lame the horse, what’s been discovered is that the horse is already lame. –And that the dog didn’t bark? Hasn’t barked and won’t? According to the story that means that the dog recognized a friend.
To those who seem to saying this administration is making the right moves, I’d like to point out that if you are flying you should get to the airport 4 hours ahead of time now.
When the terrorists attack, you pay. That’s a given. When they attack, do they pay? That’s a big question.
Hey, the War on Terrorism is offically over. It was too hard. It’s much easier to make you pay. You can be found.
Joe Liberman, quoting an administration official says the US is looking to act pre-emptively in Yemen.
Maybe it’s beginning to dawn on someone that we’re not engaged in separate wars. There is no “War in Iraq”, “War in Afghanistan” or a future “War in Yemen”. They are different campaigns in a single war — the war that doesn’t exist, except in these nonsensical geographical designations. It is the war against radical Islamism in particular. That’s the war America will find itself fighting. Is fighting. And perhaps to the very end will deny even exists.
The strategic center of radical Islam is the Middle East and South Asia, and to some extent Western Europe. It is from there that the money comes, the recruits are solicited, the ideology is developed. That is the foundation of enemy strength. It isn’t in the dirt of Afghanistan. You can get rid of every Jihadi in Afghanistan, and they would simply move somewhere else. You could drive them completely out. And they would simply come back again.
It will arise again and again on the Horn of Africa, in Indonesia, in Kashmir, in Pakistan, in Turkey, in Luton, in London. And maybe one day they’ll have a War in Detroit after they’ve run out of foreign places to name it after. But there will still be no war against radical Islam. Just a law enforcement problem and so many pesky places.
The place to fight radical Islam is in culture. The secular state has done a wonderful job of clearing all before it leaving a fertile field for Islam to sow in. Peter Hitchens says the day is not far off in Britain where children ask, “what’s a church?” They will have no trouble knowing what a mosque is.
And still there is no problem. The President will not even dignify it with attention or a name. All the systems worked. There is no evidence that he wasn’t acting alone. Don’t jump to conclusions. Tariq Ramadan! Ramadan kareem! And have you seen our Holiday Tree?
Ironically, youths like Mutallab want nothing to do with the culture of holiday trees and gay and lesbian pride day. He saw London. Studied in the very bosom of enlightened Europe. Where you have the dole and the National Health Service. Where it’s illegal to buy a gun. Where they’ve been under NuLabor for 12 years. And what was Mutallab’s reaction? He hated the Left and its works and pomps. Wanted nothing to do with it. Better six months in Yemen than a lifetime of watching the BBC.
And the Left can’t think to see that Islam hates it, root and branch. How could they be hated? They are the progressive voice of history. Everybody loves them and therefore terrorism must not exist, except as a reaction to George W. Bush. And so the intellectual elite stumbles from place to strange place, like a lunatic in pursuit of a mirage projected by own illusions. To the War in Somalia, the War in Iraq, the War in Lebanon, the War in Afghanistan and maybe soon the War in Yemen. Enveloped in one cloudy figure of speech after the other without ever grasping the thing by its name. To the end, even to the bitter end, there will be no War for them. Just a law enforcement problem somewhere far away. How could they not love us? Take care of it, my man. And where is my private plane?
Summing up:
Learning From Abdul Mutallab — By: Victor Davis Hanson
Dudley did okay.
(five minute mark of 1771A)
http://www.realmilitaryflix.com/public/309.cfm
Yes, I know, Wiki, but Google seems to have misplaced their relevant Medal of Freedom page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson
#14 Wretchard
the creepy thing is that the radicals haven’t changed , we have.in the aftermath of 9/11 the Pakistani’s were ready to do whatever Bush wanted because America had blood in her eyes.that has changed over the years.when , not if Al-Qaeda scores, the third world man will pay(he’s a non-player character to the liberals)to the ruthless of the weak.”kill them all” and all that.easier to drop a bomb and turn your head, from 50000ft, than to meet them face to face.easier but messier.with enough rationalization you can get your hands clean don’t you know.
#24 Wretchard
a little bit catty aren’t we?
the whole liberal attitude comes from arrogance due to the victory in WWII.Without the 26 million Soviet dead, and the destruction of every other economy in the world, what would they build their dreams on?who else would pay the price of their foolishness?certainly not the superior people.
The place to fight radical Islam is in culture.
Yes, but. Don’t think it can be fought in culture without fighting in faith as well. Sharia law binds both culture and religion. Frank Herbert said as much in Dune. That’s one of Islam’s big tricks. Is it even Islam without?
Do you think we can pry them apart? The conventional way of talking about this is in terms of a reformation for Islam, but Christianity pretty much always recognized the separation of secular and religious, since Jesus said “render unto Caesar”.
Our boy Abdul Mutallab shows how if anything the reformation in Islam is going the other way, recruiting secular and westernized Moslems into jihad. And I think it’s the majority of Islam that at least tacitly supports jihad.
Let them reform themselves, I still believe most in the King Hussein method, get their attention, give them pause, let them call it a hudna just so they pause, and maybe modernity will wear them away as it did the communists. If not, crank up the attention-getters.
But wretchard, if you disagree – what do you think it might mean, to “fight in culture”?
Walt #56: Your verse is an extremely accurate summary of exactly how our enemies, both foreign and domestic, are operating.
Well done, sir.
Subotai — I am unimpressed with Ann Althouse and told her so on her blog. She cannot call the bullet back nor can she take back her vote. She voted for Obama, the death toll of millions of Americans will be partially her fault. Not all of it. But some of it.
I will be happy when Law Professors of a feminist bent (like Althouse) are no longer able to be in public life because the people will not let them, the way the Revolution purged the decadent and corrupt aristocracy. Althouse cheer-led for Obama, the Magical Negro (apologies to Spike Lee) bringer of rainbows and unicorns. The Big Shot Big Man, Mr. Big, her own Sex and the City fantasy come to multicultural diversity life!
Wretchard — Politico is full of liberals calling Lieberman a “Jew Traitor” and already Jews in public life cannot exist without multicultural, “diversity” camouflage as Liberals not Jews.
Moreover, Yemen is the perfect way to stage attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which benefits Iran two ways. First it pushes up the world price of oil UP, far UP, and maintains regime stability (by paying their goons good money, in hard foreign currency). Second it destabilizes Saudi which is Iran’s regional Gulf rival and prevents the Sauds from using oil money to buy social peace at home.
A jihadist Yemeni regime with a spare Iranian nuke or two, mated to a missile, can threaten Saudi with impunity (see Pakistan and India) as it destabilizes it, and forces the US out of the Gulf indirectly.
There have been more anti-regime riots in Iran, with Twitter reports of men being hanged in public rescued by mobs. IF TRUE, this would tend to re-inforce the regime’s intent to use Yemen as a way to bump up the world oil price and buy peace at home and dissension in Saudi.
35 :hon kee mufo:
Mark: I’ll worry about terrorists with anthrax when there is any indication that they have or will have any
You mean like: “I’ll worry about the terrorists bringing down buildings when it happens.” Sort of short sighted, no? Not to mention way too late to act. Would you be as forgiving if your family were aboard the next plane brought down?
Pinpricks? Maybe, except that the President of the US is beholden to the citizens of the nation to protect them from external threats, even the “pinpricks.” If he cannot do this, The People are going to wonder why he is even necessary.
Ritualistic utterances from the present occupant mean nothing in this situation. (On the other hand, some kind words for the Green Revolution would have the effect of a combat brigade.) Abdulmutallab’s handlers got just what they wanted. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t down the plane – the long security lines and hysterical response of TSA are quite sufficient for them. Al Qaeda as Zorro, the Corsican brothers, the masked avenger – this is the appeal for Osama’s “youth.”
Luckily for us, wannabe shahids might get the lesson that they risk an asskicking from their fellow passengers. (It’s one thing to ride to paradise in a blaze of glory, a whole other thing to get a broken nose from an irate Dutchman.)
if you think Europe is the only one that shelters jihadists, an american friend, Creepingsharia, asked me to post that link on my face book
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1202892499#/group.php?gid=51579560536&ref=mf
Also The muslim murderer of americans soldiers in a casern was born in America
To “fight in culture”? means in the first instance to take our own corner. The enemy at least has the decency to fight for his. It’s not realistic to expect radical Islamists or Muslims as a whole to suddenly reject their traditions, their whole way of life. No. You have to be a Western intellectual to do that.
But that will never happen because a significantly large part of the West hates itself, systematically and ideologically. Avatar is how some people see their culture. They fervently want it dead. What will probably happen is a variation on their wishes.
Islam presents a binary poison for the Left. Separately they are merely noxious. Together they are fatal. Islamic combined with the Left creates a toxic brew which kills the host; and though it won’t destroy them directly radical Islam will create irreconcilable splits between the Left and the societies which sustain them.
So here’s what I think will happen. The binary poison will begin to raise up against itself the defense mechanisms of ordinary survival. The Left will destroy its credibility. Extremist anti-immigrant groups may arise. Demagogues will spring up. By some horrible process an immune reaction will create a new and perhaps not very attractive culture. Think of Spain at the end of the Reconquista.
But it does not have to be so bad if reason and common sense inform the debate in the years ahead. I’m hopeful, but not as hopeful as before.
Thanks again Wretchard, for your insights. I have to agree that there is just the one epic fight going on, although many do not realise it, or want to speak its name. I think you are right; the plot will evolve during more explosively dramatic chapters. The USA may have need of its Jeanne D’Arc if the men in politics have all been PC-neutered to the point where action is not an option. I have to add that the arts-media hegemony must be broken. It’s not quite as bad there as it is in Australia, but much remains to be corrected. They can hijack a nation’s notion of right and wrong, good and bad, and even threaten our collective survival by fostering what amount to “auto-immune diseases” within the body politic, or the national consciousness, if you prefer.
Uh-oh, your #75 just appeared while I was writing 76!
The notion of “never let a crisis go to waste,” could be a good reason to take Yemen. Yes, I said take Yemen. It would make a great US base of operations in the area with littoral access, allows us to keep the Straits of Hormuz open and gives us a base to combat piracy. The Saudis might like this idea because it gets Iran’s proxy out of their backfield. It would certainly send a message- we will not just accept these attacks.
the way the Revolution purged the decadent and corrupt aristocracy
I think you are confusing us with France.
There were two types during the Revolution, the Tories/Loyalists and the Patriots. Decadence and corruption had little to do with which side you chose. You either preferred living under the British Crown and Parliament, or you believed in freedom, opportunity, and libertarianism in this new land. Class distinctions had little to do with it at all. And since only about 15% were Loyalists and the majority of those went back to Great Britain on their own accord, purges, as you put it, were not a big agenda item for the Patriots. Now Torrie spies who depended on the British military for everything were a problem. And some, like the Quakers and the Germans preferred neutrality, yet when push came to shove, they did not support the Crown and although they did not like picking up arms, their overwhelming desire for religious freedom and the love of the land, drove them in many cases to do so, my Quaker ancestors included.
One poster states that Afghanistan is of central importance because if it were to be run by the Taliban, it would constitute a major resource for Pakistani Islamists; that no further 911 attacks will occur because we’ve figured out how to keep the bad guys out of our cockpits; that the only one to use biological weapons for political violence was a right-wing, pro (Iraq) war domestic terrorist; that we were fools to depose Saddam Hussein because he was merely a secular dictator who stood up to the Iranians;
So much nonsense, so little time. For your information, that secular homicidal maniac dictator used biological weapons to murder some 5,000 people for political purposes, and was caught stockpiling anthrax even by the incompetent Hans Blix. You don’t think that any of that stuff might have found its way to the US? You don’t think that same dictator would now be allied with the Al Qaeda we fought for years on Iraqi soil? What you don’t seem to grasp about terrorism when you minimise it as “pinpricks” is that 1) those pinpricks maim and kill thousands of people every year and 2) the damage caused by terror episodes is leveraged to a factor of 10 by the inevitable and predictable effects of human nature. That one stupid dipwad who failed to hurt anyone with his shoe bomb has forced hundreds of millions of people to remove their shoes in security screenings. Now we’ll have to take our pants down too. 911 caused a loss of some 2 trillion dollars of equity wealth in American markets alone. Pinprick by pinprick, important liberties are destroyed and replaced by stupid bureaucratic responses that the bureaucrats just can’t stop themselves from making. And for your further edification, the radical islamists will definitely acquire a nuke, and the strength of their camp at the time will determine when and where they torch it off. These people must be checked, preemptively whenever possible, every day, every week, every month, every year, every decade as a continuing, national emergency. I call that a war. Afghanistan is in many ways no more central than any other dirt patch where Islamists can bivouac. I could care less when you start worrying about these things, but I don’t believe the public will suffer a president who shares your casual approach.
wretchard @ 75: The Left will destroy its credibility.
Heh.
OK, enough of that. I see your point about fighting in culture, standing up for our own, but I think there is a real fight involved that will involve more than our own self-realization, or, well, say part of our culture is “Hulk Smash!” Isn’t that what they’re always accusing us of? Well …
So if I understand it correctly, the left, in control of the universities, the arts, and the media, with a surplus of allies in the economic sphere, and a host of government dependent supplicants, dominate the culture and control politics (for the most part). And the left’s multicultural tolerance for Islam and their disdain for Western Civilization, combine to create a mixture that will eventually destroy themselves.
It seems to me that there is more than one solution to this tension arc. It could be that Islam triumphs and kills all their erstwhile leftist allies and assorted useful idiots. Or it could be that the non-left, with the center-right having been delegitimized by years of cultural and media attack, will be led by the militant right. This is the post-reconquista scenario W alluded to in #75.
Or, somehow the center and legitimate right will overturn the left and go all out to defeat Islam. This takes us back to the famous and worthy Three Conjectures.
None of these alternatives looks attractive to me.
We have a precious few years in which to preserve other choices before we reach the fork in the river that will lead us to the rapids.
A moment’s halt, a momentary taste
Of being in the well amid the waste,
Before the phantom caravan has reached
The nothing it set out from. O make haste.
bogie: My concern is that we can do more damage to ourselves in our response to terrorism than terrorism itself can cause. Compared to 9/11, the Iraq war killed more Americans and far more innocents, arguably cost more, and was infinitely more damaging to our foreign relations and military strength. Thus, in a way, the “war on terror” and its supporters pose as great a threat to the country as terrorists themselves. By all means, treat it as the serious law enforcement problem it is–freeze those bank accounts, listen to those phone calls (requiring a warrant for American citizens of course, by all accounts the FISA court is quite permissive), listen when someone’s parents tell you their kid may be a terrorist. Loose nukes and, potentially, chemical and biological weapons are a national security threat and should be dealt with accordingly. But let’s not go all half-cocked and invade Yemen because some joker lights a smoke bomb.
I just got off the phone with my cousin’s son. He is visiting friends who live about 15 miles from me. When he graduated from college, he went to work in the Bush Treasury Dept. When Obama was elected, he thought for sure he’d have to move on, but he is one of a handful who got to keep their job. I had to laugh when he said, “I think I’m one of about five Republicans left in Washington.” He also mentioned that although his particular job at Treasury isn’t really very political, there is a marked deterioration under the new admin. as far as efficiency and management is concerned and that what used to be a really fun and pleasant place to work is now full of whiners, complainers, and backstabbers. It was kind of sad to hear.
re: Judicial
the damage caused by terror episodes is leveraged to a factor of 10 by the inevitable and predictable effects of human nature. That one stupid dipwad who failed to hurt anyone with his shoe bomb has forced hundreds of millions of people to remove their shoes in security screenings. Now we’ll have to take our pants down too. 911 caused a loss of some 2 trillion dollars of equity wealth in American markets alone. Pinprick by pinprick, important liberties are destroyed and replaced by stupid bureaucratic responses that the bureaucrats just can’t stop themselves from making.
Exactly. And those who over-hype the threat of Islamicism are largely responsible for this. You don’t see me calling for security theater.
re: Batman
Do you really, seriously think Islamicists are gonna come over here and kill all the “leftists”? Is your contempt for or ignorance of America’s unparalleled strength really that deep?
re: SpeakEasy
The President is not your father. His oath is to protect the American constitution, not to prevent all of us from any harm. The last administration, lamentably, forgot this.
The “kultur kampf” in Amerika is coming to an end, or is it? Is the long Gramscian march through the Academy over? Is there anything left to salvage?
Do we really have any choices any more? Is our culture (in America) really that attractive any more? I heard George Lopez opening monologue the other night and frankly it made me sick. Even the audience was shocked at how frankly stupid and vulgar it was.
How much worse does the Left have to be to destroy their credibility? Marc Ambinder rationalizing away Obama and Napolitano’s credulous imbecilities?
Wretchard, I think you are dead right that the poor in the Third World will pay the steepest price for the political imbecility of America. It is often said that al Qaeda is the externalization of a civil war inside of Saudi Arabia.
I also think that a lot of the turmoil in the financial and political arenas outside the First World countries are a result of a political civil war between the Left and the Right in America.
The absence of logic, the greed, the obscene grotesqueness that have manifested themselves over the past 50 years are consequences of the churning of American politics.
1) the outright ban on DDT condemned millions in Africa, India,Sri Lanka and elsewhere to death.
2) the unwillingness to recognize the root cause of AIDS-HIV infection and the manner in which it has been spread. I remember reading in the ’80′s about “Patient Zero”, who was an infected airline (male) steward who couldn’t be bothered to contain his active homosexual lifestyle, who should have been quarantined; it was estimated at the time that he alone infected over 300 other men. Ah, political correctness. It’s killed millions.
3) And there’s always AGW, which is a menacing intellectual force potentially preventing people in the Third World from climbing up from the muck. Sorry, no cheap electrical power for you, bucko.
4) Finally Joan Rivers as a guest host on the “Tonight Show” in the 90′s. It made us all a lot stupider.
You could balance that with men like Norman Borlaug, one of the truly great men of the 20th century, who made it possible for millions to have enough to eat. But it shouldn’t be a balancing act. Logic, truth, fairness and justice should win more than lose, no?
Salafist Islam will sprout in every broken place in the world, an ideological wildfire that will be out of control. And as you so aptly notice, the Left in this country and the rest of the “West” is handing them matches and gasoline.
I guess we will need more lawyers than Marine Gunnys, huh?
if you’ve seen the link, then you know now that “why islam” is everywhere in the US.
now you can learn fom “Creeping sharia” here
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/
Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect
Haskell said the flight was mostly unremarkable. That was until he heard a flight attendant say she smelled smoke, just after the pilot announced the plane would land in Detroit in 10 minutes. Haskell got out of his seat to view the brewing commotion.
“I stood up and walked a couple feet ahead to get a closer look, and that’s when I saw the flames,” said Haskell, who sat about seven rows behind Mutallab. “It started to spread pretty quickly. It went up the wall, all the way to ceiling.”
Haskell, who described Mutallab as a diminutive man who looks like a teenager, said about 30 seconds passed between the first mention of smoke and when Mutallab was subdued by fellow passengers.
The ordeal has Haskell and his wife a little shaken. Flight attendants were screaming during the fire and the pilot sounded notably nervous when bringing the plane in for a landing, he said.
“Immediately, the pilot came on and said two words: emergency landing,” Haskell said.
“And that was it. The plane sped up instead of slowing down.
You could tell he floored it.”
The President is not your father. His oath is to protect the American constitution, not to prevent all of us from any harm.
As President he only has to swear to defend the Constitution, but as Commander-in-Chief he has a higher duty as detailed by the Oath required by the military:
This oath implies that the President and the military are on the same page and that defending the Constitution includes defending against all enemies, foreign and domestic. To say otherwise is misleading.
Brief answer to silly question at #84: I posited that as a theoretical alternative — one of the three most likely. We will see whether Europe is a leading indicator as sharia law becomes more and more de facto there.
I am certain that if Islam ever had the power to do so, they would be at least as ruthless in getting rid of their opposition and all who stand for the things they abhor, than the Bolshevics were after their take over.
However, I am still holding the belief that eventually alternative two (more probable) or three (less probable, the way things look today) will win the day.
In a way, this discussion is eerily similar to one on an earlier thread with Contrarian. He thought Lincoln to have been the originator of all of today’s statist evils — making an unnecessary war, destroying the Constitution, etc. After a while those of us who were defending Lincoln realized that nothing we said would affect his views.
Perhaps the same dynamic is happening here. For all I know, you and he could be the same person — but that would be mere speculation.
Nevertheless, wittingly or not, the multicultural, relativistic, deconstructionist, passive left is placing America and Western Civilization itself in jeopardy. Of course I hope I’m wrong. Of course I hope everything will turn out well, that we will not be attacked again, that our economy will not die a death of a thousand cuts from all the alterations we must make to be on defense against Islamist terrorism.
I prefer offense to defense. Clearly you see it the other way. I want to cut the source of Islamic terrorism at the roots, which means full force using all the tools at our disposal. These include culture (a ringing defense of Western Civilization together with a denunciation of those parts of Islam that threaten us), economic (energy independence, shutting off the sources of formal and informal funding for terrorism, and favorable treatment of countries that support us, along with harsh treatment of those who don’t). It also involves political choices (supporting the citizen rebellion in Iran at least as vigorously as we supported Solidarity and Soviet Jewry), strongest possible support of our allies (keep missile shield in Eastern Europe, strong backing for Israel, pressure to put oil pipelines across territories which support us). And yes, military pressure. Sufficient troops, aggressive rules of engagement, game plan for victory wherever it takes us. And keeping our arsenal at its most effective and modern — F-22, bunker buster bombs, appropriate blue water and littoral ships, etc.
Oh, by the way, I would stop bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, the leader of Japan, and the leaders of China and would cease embracing the dictator of Venezuela. And if a military crisis broke out involving us or one of our close allies, my first reaction would be to mobilize and not to convene the UN.
However, that may be too Lincolnesque for you, so I’ll stop my post at this point. I doubt more discussion will lead to greater agreement or even understanding. Since your team is currently in charge, I do hope you and they will keep us all safe.
Yes, all members of government are charged with preserving and protecting the Constitution of the United States. But as Commander-in-Chief, the President does have the responsibility to use his office to keep us safe from all enemies, domestic and foreign. Your wording of it in your recent post was not proper. True, neither the President nor one’s father is able to “prevent all of us from any harm,” though the liberal agenda would purport to do so with excessive legislative “protections.” But it is undoubtedly true that it is the responsibility of the President to do everything in his power to protect The Country from harm.
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
As I said in an earlier comment on the previous thread:
“Many things are going to happen. Surprises we can’t even think of now and it is going to be a race to see how Obama and his backers facilitate and embrace and try to fool us, while the forces that they should be fighting, but instead are harboring and enabling, do their dance upon the waters of our innocence and PC while sheltered in the ONE’s shadow and embrace.”
See if you can figure out the common thread between all my gibberish and the dog. If you can’t it is entirely because of my poor writing skills.
“It seems that the only thing the President doesn’t get troubled by is terrorism.”
Getting close.
“It may be that the President in the December 15th executive order has determined that is best for INTERPOL to handle these matters!!”
I wish it was that simple and logical, but I an others think it is to shield Obama or even something more nefarious.
“In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people, just as his advisers are convinced that the Bush administration projected their panic and anger on the self-same public eight years ago.”
Personally I didn’t get any sense of panic from President Bush or his Administration. I did get a sense of high anger and purpose but no panic.
“But I do know that the people such as the Napolitanos and Holders he’s put in charge of insuring our domestic safety inspire absolutely no confidence that he is.”
Confidence, whose confidence yours, mine? No. But they do have the confidence of those that placed them in such important positions. No why do you think that is? Loyalty perhaps, confidence that they will do as they are told perhaps?
“I expect that he will keep his options open and attack AQ with cruise missiles and UAV launched Hellfire missiles rather than put American boots on the ground.”
Yea and kill whoever the authorities there say to kill? I think I would want some CIA and SOF boots there to make sure we are killing the right people. Why would you trust that corrupt government?
“Afghanistan was al-Qaeda’s Fort Bragg. But Egypt was its cradle.”
And the Kingdom was it’s banker and it’s supplier of radical Islamic teachers and radical teachings. (and still is)
“I think he’s mistaken.”
No he is not “mistaken” he is letting them hide behind his inaction (shadow). He knows exactly what he is doing. It might not all be his idea but his backers know what is to be done or NOT done.
“The Muslim Bomb is the only real terrorist threat to this nation outside of self-imposed ones; 9/11 cannot be repeated and the remaining “bombs and bullets” terrorism is no more significant a risk than lightning strikes.”
While flying an airliner into another American target may not happen again (witness the heroic deed a day ago) a nuke is not the only threat. “Bombs and Bullets” will kill you and your family just as dead as the sudden stop in a crashing jetliner. And it matters not if it is a rare occurrence, once they have you too afraid to go to work or to let your family go out in public they have won and the American Economy will come to a crashing stop just as deadly as if a nuke had went off.
“2) the perceived US alignment with dictators in the Islamic world. Egypt is one example. This has given radical Islamism a huge boost in the Arab world. Ironically, even our liberal friend in the Middle East are suffering from the Obama administration cozening up to Hezbollah and Syria; Hamas and the Ayatollahs! As we speak the dissidents in Iran are fighting their government.”
You left out perhaps the most important one-
The Kingdom. Read about it in the link I left in the last thread.
“The Pakistanis are fighting for their democracy after getting the bejeebus scared out of them during last summer’s thrust by the extremists towards Islamabad.”
Your correct to a point. But they are far from fighting hard. They have commited just a handful of troops and assets, while they keep the rest of their considerable troops and assets facing towards India. Also they are allowing safe areas in the border regions against all the complaining we can do.
The Pakistani anti-Americanism is at an all time high. So high that many civilians have been packed up and sent home and others moved to the relative safety of the Embassies grounds.
They are on the cusp of another civil turn over or war, which ever comes first. But they are trying to squeeze every billion they can out of America. Corruption is just as rampant in Pakistan as it is in Afghanistan and the rest of the SE and ME.
“And Afghanistan, as W correctly notes, is merely the current convenient locus of the most malignant of this cancer. But to see Afghanistan as the only theater of war is to miss the metastatic nature of this cancer. It has spread all over the world to far too many hospitable hosts.”
You uttered a big mouthful of truth. It would take a long list (and it is growing) to show all the locations and countries that Radical Islam is not only present, but expanding. Ever wonder why we don’t have enough SOF? Every jack one of them is on their forth or fifth tour and many newbys are in training but won’t be one tenth enough. But only so many make it out of the thousands that apply.
OK, I can’t keep up, my old fingers don’t work so good anymore. But I would like to leave with this warning once again:
Islam is a cult, an evil war cult. If you are a believing practicing Muslim you must follow Allah and Allah says that the Infidels and his world must submit to Islam. One set of Radicals want to do it quick, by war, by murder in all its forms for any and all infidels.
The other set, the majority of Muslims, want to conquer our world peacefully. But using our laws, customs and our stupidity to allow them to stealthily absorb our cultures and governments. Witness the EU.
There will be no reformation of Islam. Those that try are marked for death. Dead Muslims can’t reform anything.
Islam is the Muslims worse enemy.
Papa Ray
wretchard:
As harsh as this may sound, have you ever considered the notion that western civilization is already dead? Perhaps the people of the twentieth century witnessed the death of western civilization and didn’t even know it at the time. And yet, during a period starting in 1914 (with the rot starting as early as the 1870’s) and ending in 1968, it can be said that western civilization committed suicide. During the Tragic Era (1914-1968), the standard of culture shifted from the Paris Opera House to a bunch of hippies on LSD. There was a shift in power away from Europe. By 1968, there was a political push to stop teaching Latin in universities. After 1968, Latin was no longer the standard liturgy of Catholic Mass. By 1968, the Left no longer made any pretense to care about the working class, a far cry from 1914 when the Left really was the standard of the working class. The musical rhythms of the West become rock and roll, and whatever else one can say for rock music, it isn’t part of the grand classical music tradition of Europe.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War seemed to be over. And yet, Europe was a hollow shell of what it once was. The events of 1989 merely caught up with the promise of the Prague Spring. The civilization that had existed in 1914 had long vanished, for while there were remnants of the old Europe, it had long since ceased to be a vital force.
Perhaps the main reason why Islamists are attacking what they see as “western civilization” isn’t because it is weak, but rather because it is dead. A carcass. Perhaps the Left is not only beating a dead horse, but continuing to beat it when the maggots and hyenas and vultures are pecking at it and wishing the Left would go away. Perhaps that is also why Hollywood is so keen to demonize western civilization, for Hollywood is historically unwilling to antagonize anybody who is willing and able to fight back.
In such a situation, it is not a question of keeping western civilization alive. It’s not a question of resurrecting western civilization. It’s a matter of realizing that we live in a different world from our ancestors and understanding that we now need to create a new civilization out of the materials at hand. We need to stitch together the pieces, mend the old rips, and recycle the materials of western civilization to make something better.
More Questions on Why Terror Suspect Was Not Stopped
WASHINGTON — When a prominent Nigerian banker and former government official phoned the American Embassy in Abuja in October with a warning that his son had developed radical views, had disappeared and might have traveled to Yemen, embassy officials did not revoke the young man’s visa to enter the United States, which was good until June 2010.
Instead, officials said Sunday, they marked the file of the son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for a full investigation should he ever reapply for a visa.
And when they passed the information on to Washington, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name was added to 550,000 others with some alleged terrorist connections — but not to the no-fly list. That meant no flags were raised when he used cash to buy a ticket to the United States and boarded a plane, checking no bags.
—
Obama administration officials scrambled to portray the episode, in which passengers and flight attendants subdued Mr. Abdulmutallab and doused the fire he had started, as a test that the air safety system passed.
“The system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days,” Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary said, in an interview on “This Week” on ABC. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, used nearly the same language on “Face the Nation” on CBS, saying that “in many ways, this system has worked.”
But counterterrorism experts and members of Congress were hardly willing to praise what they said was a security system that had proved to be not nimble enough to respond to the ever-creative techniques devised by would-be terrorists.
Alexis @ 91 — That was a very sobering and enlightening post. You are definitely on to something. My two great professors of European History at Berkeley (they were among the last of their “breed” if I may say it that way), Carl Shorske and Raymond Sontag, identified a major cusp or transformation of Western Civilization in their classes. Professor Shorske located it in the 1890′s, Professor Sontag placed it as the aftermath of World War I. The more eccentric Professor Richard Rubenstein sided with Professor Sontag, citing what he called “the cunning of history” as the culprit.
Being in the middle of a tectonic change makes it much harder to recognize it. Great historical trends are practically impossible to catch in real time.
But the take home point of your excellent post is that perhaps we should not be trying to SAVE something as much as we should be trying to BUILD or CREATE something.
Very thought provoking. Thank you.
wretchard said:
“Avatar is how some people see their culture. They fervently want it dead.”
I made an off-topic comment about “Avatar” a couple posts ago. I’m still furious at James Cameron, the director of “Avatar”. He turned what was potentially a science fiction classic into a moonbat political shriek. Though state-of-the-art computer graphics entertainment technology and a $300 million dollar investment from 20th Century Fox, Cameron advocated our annihilation.
It amazes me how such intelligent people can be so stupid.
Wait–let me guess: you are referring to Nigeria, right?
Batman @ 93: But the take home point of your excellent post is that perhaps we should not be trying to SAVE something as much as we should be trying to BUILD or CREATE something.
Always.
And that’s exactly the illness of today’s modernity, they think things are as they are by magic, that they don’t require running as fast as you can just to stay in one place. Not that it’s so new, the old debates about the happy state of nature, or whether it was only nasty, brutish, and short, is quite similar.
Have to run up the ladder faster than the rungs break.
And that’s the issue of conservatism versus progressivism – you can’t just preserve, that doesn’t work, but if all you do is run in all directions, you may lose all you had. Takes some of both.
Batman,
I find it difficult to imagine a starting point, or immediate actions toward that goal.
…kinda stuck in awe of our founders and their documents, I guess.
When did you attend Beserkley?
Dismantling public education is a necessity, but how to overcome the NEA/Dem Cabal?
Re: Alexis, #91: This has occurred to me too – or at least, more specifically, that the Republic may already be too far gone to be salvageable even if we manage to drive the Left out of power, because the culture underpinning it is also too far gone. Hence my concern, which I’ve voiced on BC on a number of occasions, that if it comes to revolution, instead of another George Washington we could well end up saddled with another Oliver Cromwell instead.
IIRC it was Shakespeare who said that the past might as well be a foreign country. Well, as wise as the Founding Fathers were, at the end of the day they and the society (economy, culture, technology, etc.) from whence they came are now so far removed from the experience of vast swaths of the American public, and virtually all of the cultural elite, as to be quite alien to them. As far as they are concerned, those who would still promote that wisdom might as well be extolling the virtues of the Roman Empire. Or for that matter, the Romulan Empire from Star Trek. Small wonder then, that they tend to dismiss such talk as either so much pipe dreaming, or as code-speak for more nefarious agendas.
Doug, I was there 1960-64 but kept in close touch after as well. My sister and brother (both much more to the left than I am) as well as my nieces and nephew and two cousins went there too. I had an uncle who lived there from the late 1940′s and my sister and cousins still do.
I can tell you that it was quite different then from what it became only a year later. Do you have some Berkeley roots as well?
Somehow I absorbed old fashioned liberalism (the kind that believed in true academic freedom, open and fair questioning, listening to all sides) instead of the radicalism that took hold right around the time I moved on to medical school.
Perhaps majoring in philosophy helped too. Back then the department was quite rigorous, there was no grade inflation, and the spirit of learning was truly in the air. The combination of philosophy, lots of history courses, and all my pre-med courses kept me grounded while at the same time allowing me to explore many sides of every idea. Back then it was true liberalism. Today it is center-right conservatism.
And yes, I am truly in awe of our founders and of Lincoln. The combination of Plato, Aristotle, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the American founders (here I do include Lincoln) are the intellectual and values foundation for me. Add Shakespeare, Bach, Beethoven, and a few others and it is quite a tradition.
62 – 63, Chemical Engineering. I can assure you Calculus for Math and Science majors was quite rigorous!
Barely squeaked through.
That era was rainy enough to offer me an excuse to retreat to UCSB!
Unfortunately by the time I got back from the Army, UCSB had temporarily taken the lead in “student activism” from Berkeley. Couple of folks were murdered during my tenure, including a janitor killed in a bomb blast.
Bach!
I Should delve further into the activities of our esteemed Houstonian to see what he is up to re Public Ed. (L3)
Subotai,
Not only is what you say in #54 quite true, but also–nothing in my years-long reading at Althouse makes me think that she is of the head-in-the-sand mindset.
bogie wheel,
Yes, the more interesting (and morbid) question is, how many American Beslans would it take for the Muslim world to cease to exist. I assume it would be a much smaller number.
Wretchard wrote: “But that will never happen because a significantly large part of the West hates itself, systematically and ideologically. Avatar is how some people see their culture. They fervently want it dead. What will probably happen is a variation on their wishes.”
——————
BINGO!
But who? Malibu Marxists, would-be elitists, deeply feminized “beta boys” or perhaps “herbivore men” seeking wrongly to curry favor from women by paying attention to what women SAY (which is uniformly nonsense when directed at the kind of man they want) rather than what they do (i.e. pursue bad boys as hard as they can). There is a deep, deep rot in Western culture, and it is not just “Leftists.”
Hell, Joseph Stalin was a leftist. Did he tolerate Islamists attacking HIS nation? [Hint: he deported the Chechens to Siberia for siding with the Nazis.] Much of the Malibu Marxist frustration with Western society (and why they want it dead) is that there are limits and they are not king — they don’t have ordinary people bowing and scraping before them like they are royalty.
Women want it dead because of the annoying beta males whom they despise. Nothing makes women hate men more than supplicating “niceness” which like doing the cooking invites only contempt, for them and the culture that produced them. The beta males who follow the rules that women lay down for courtship (such as it exists) and find themselves like Klebold, Harris, or Soldini embrace death also.
—————-
Currently there a whole host of young men who are “blocked” from advancement and power by the structure of elitism and connections, a defacto aristocracy by folks like Cameron. What will replace the status quo will be different, as a war of the peoples is different, but need not be that bad. The Reconquista was preferable to Muslim rule in Spain, led to recovery of Christian lands, helped push Muslims back out of at least part of the Western Med, and replaced truly loathesome regimes in Mexico and Peru. As bad as the Conquistadors were, they were gentle lambs compared to the mass human sacrifice of the Aztecs and Incas (which is why they succeeded — their slaves hated them more than the Spaniards).
Even a Reconquista West would be preferable (and more politically-socially sustainable) than the stuff we have now, all openly allied against the White Middle Class of the West.
hon kee mufo @ 27:
It seems you buy into the Lefts attitude of police action because YOU say it isn’t a war. What you miss and what makes you sound so wrong is that you miss the central point. It does not matter what you think this thing is but what the guy who says: “This is war of Islam against the West.” says it is. You do not get to decide. It is decided by your enemy, not you.
Case in point as a gedanken experiment only. Say that you do not know it but you have a mortal enemy who wants you dead. What do you think the outcome is going to be? Even when he sends you a letter that says he is going to kill you? Hmm? I’ll tell you – you are going to die in all likely scenarios. Unless you take decisive action to stop the threat, IOW, declare and acknowledge it as a kind of war yourself. See what I mean? If you call the cops, get the protection order, etc. but do not up-armor your circumstances, you are dead, dead, dead.
Horsepuckey and simply not true.
What kills me is that most do not see or maybe just cannot articulate that al Qaeda (the base) is not a place. You cannot find it in Af-Pak nor Yemen nor anywhere. wretchard is right, it is a culture we must fight. And until we release ourselves from some very bad ideas we are going to have a hard time surviving. Like I have said before, it may be time to figuratively retreat to the monasteries like medieval Irish monks to try and preserve part of the culture until the darkness passes once again. Or on the other side, not look for revenge but retribution. (Just channeling my inner Doc Holiday)
OT – Two buckets of salt ready:
NIRU statement
Coordination Center for National Iranian Armed Resistance Forces declares its existence.
This announcement was received via telephone from a high ranking Army officer of NIRU from Iran
Start of announcement
Saturday December 26th, 2009
In the name of God the Merciful & Forgiving
Praise be to God and peace on the His Messenger (PBUH) and his family I take refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan
The coordination center for National Iranian Armed Resistance Forces (NIRU) hereby declares its existence & accuses the current government and the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Mr. Sayyed Ali Khamenei of legal transgressions and high treason of nation and homeland.
We, a number of Officers, Soldiers and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hereby declare our readiness for rise to the armed defense of our nation against the forces of the criminal, illegitimate, transgressing and occupying current Government of Iran, and hereby inform our brothers and sisters serving with the armed security forces of Iran, invite them to join us, request their support and ask them to provide cover for us in this moral & national act. A special request for support & cooperation goes to our brothers of the Military Police.
Our action has no political or revolting aspects. We’d rather see our actions as the carrying out of the moral & national duties of all soldiers & Iranians. Our intention is the defense of the oppressed against oppressors, and avoidance of further crimes committed by the illegitimate Government, as well as the return of freedom, peace, order & justice to our land.
Now, after 6 months of crisis, oppression, crimes, repeated violent transgressions of our nation’s rights, as well as the trampling of Constitutional & moral laws, the Leader and other main agents of the Government have stripped themselves of their qualification and legitimacy by committing these acts or failing to carry out their legal & moral duties and therefore are considered an occupying and forced regime. In accordance with the regulations of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, we are commissioned to protect the lives, properties and honor of our nation, and defend our sacred soil, as well as combat all occupying forces within the borders of the land. Any failure in carrying out this duty is considered a betrayal of nation and oath. According to the constitution, the defense of the rights of the nation of Iran, and avoidance of the collapse of the country takes precedence over protection of the ruling regime. Such (defensive) action is “promotion of the good & rejection of wrong” which one is of the two main principles of our constitution, the other being democracy.
In accordance with the decision of this command, and in carrying out our national & moral duties, we hereby announce the initiation of Operation “Azadi” (Freedom).
Name of Operation: Azadi (Freedom)
Start of Operation: December 27th, at noon
End of operation: Upon declaration of acceptance by trusted & esteemed high ranking regime officials & unconditional surrender of the occupying Government & leadership.
Operational Stages:
1. Immediate creation of command and coordination centers at tactical level for seizing your places of service (bases,etc…) with complete observance of rank & military regulations.
2. Disarming & arrest of Government supporting agents within your units & transfer to military detention facilities under strict observance of their rights.
3. Announcement of seizing of your station & recitation of the principles and aims of the operation through military & public communication facilities as well as other news media.
4. Establishment of communication with allied units & coordination of operations
5. Start of combat mission at regional level, and expanding. In order to better identify ourselves to allies and protesting people, green symbols and the Hosseinian (green) banner should be flown next to our national tricolor banner.
Rules of Engagement:
1. Use of firearms is only permitted in defense of lives, property & honor of our people and allied forces.
2. In case they face Government forces, NIRU officers are obliged to establish communication & negotiate with the commanders of the opposite force in order to avoid violence.
3. Disarming & temporary arrests of opposing forces is permitted.
4. In case of request for cease-fire, and announced willingness to surrender by opposing forces, NIRU commanders are to carefully consider the proposition and, whenever possible, agree with such, and proceed as in rule 3 of engagement.
5. Refrain from heavy fire exchanges in residential areas and in the presence of civilians.
6. Avoid destruction (damage) of public or private properties
7. The responsibility to uphold the rights, and the lives of prisoners lays with the commander of the arresting unit & thereafter with the command of the prison.
8. Avoid any violent confrontation with unarmed civilians.
9. The responsibility to uphold public peace and order in (re)conquered areas lays with NIRU in accordance with the Artesh regulations for (re)conquering occupied areas within the borders of Iran, and in cooperation with local police & security forces.
10. Martial Courts can’t be held during the length of the operation.
Operational goals in combat theatre:
1. Defense of lives, properties, honor and rights of citizens within the borders of the land.
2. Downfall of the illegitimate & occupying rule of Mr. Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and the transgressing current Government.
3. Seizing & defense of the Parliament.
4. Seizing and defense of Government (Central & Provincial) buildings, Basij and other military bases & facilities nationwide.
5. Seizing & defense of Radio & TV stations across the nation.
6. Seizing & defense of prisons, supervising proper & legal treatment, freeing of political prisoners after appropriate due diligence & in coordination with responsible officials.
Cease-fire & end of operation conditions:
1. Establishment of a temporary Government in coordination and cooperation with members of parliament, members of the steering committee of the Expediency Council, Steering Committee of the Assembly of Experts for leadership, and other political & social elites & activists.
2. Carrying out a referendum within 3 months of formation of temporary Government, to determine whether people would want a new regime based on democracy & separation of 3 powers principles, observation of human rights, respect for all faiths & religions, legal equality of genders and religions.
3. Formation of an independent, impartial and just council to reform the constitution and other laws of the land, in order to avoid any future repetition of such deviations and oppression, this council should be in cooperation with all political parties & movements, as well as social, scientific and cultural groups.
4. Holding of free parliamentary, and presidential elections within 9 months of the referendum.
5. Dissolution of Basij forces, fusion of IRGC security forces, and police to a national police force.
6. Fusion of IRGC Combat Forces with the Artesh to form an apolitical, and national Army without interfering in economic, social or cultural affairs of the country.
End of announcement
Original Farsi
***
Once again, this may be a wishful thinking on the part of some INA officers, but who knows. The anti-government movement is still going, despite of killings by government agents every time it rekindles anew, maybe the army anticipates a wide support for its intended coup.
It is probably a confluence of things. Note the recall of Israeli ambassadors from abroad for briefing in this context. Perhaps the goal of INA is broader, to prevent war of a large scale, they may have to declare a local one.
If the NIRU exists, and the coup will commence as planned, the big unknown is IRG. While INA is mostly conscripts, IRG is an elite professional force. Also, in the past few years, too many planes with certain high ranking IRG officers crashed mysteriously. These may be considered, perhaps, “accidental” purges of potentially disloyal elements by powers that be.
Yes, it is all speculation, but as said… something’s up.
My Mother attended University High School which at that time was part of the Berkeley campus and most of her teachers were grad students from Cal. She was classified as a Super Genius, IQ over 170. She went on to college and graduate school at Berkeley and graduated with her masters in four years a few months shy of 20 years old in 1930. She went back for reunions occasionally thru the years and the last was her 70th reunion in 2000. There were five of the class left.
She would never say she attended Berkeley after 1966, always referring to it as Cal after that. When it was time for me to apply to colleges, I suggested Berkeley, even though we lived in Buffalo, NY at the time. I figured my Grandparents still lived within walking distance of the campus and I could always live with them rather than in campus housing, if I had to. My Mother’s reaction was instantaneous. She exploded, surprising me speechless at this unprecedented reaction. She absolutely refused to consider allowing me to go to that school. She called it a hotbed of communism and anti-American indoctrination and she didn’t want me scarred and brainwashed for life. Yes, that was her fear about her own alma mater. She called it an embarrassment. I wish I had her journals available to me right now, because she devotes several pages in the early ’70s to her sadness at what the university had devolved into. Many years later my 1st cousin told me that my Uncle, also a Berkeley grad, had the same reaction when she was college shopping. I was not surprised about my Uncle, who in later life turned into a John Bircher, but my Mother was much more the free spirit. She marched with MLK and was in DC with him, good friends with Corretta, and also marched in Selma and Birmingham. And although her expertise was economics, she was really more of an artsy, head in the clouds, absent-minded professor bookworm geek type in her personality and not really conservative at all. A lifelong Republican, but more the fiscal variety than conservative. Very open-minded about social issues. I overheard her once tell a friend she felt she’d failed with me because I was not a supporter of the women’s liberation movement or the ERA of the ’70s. I never understood why women would want to lower themselves to be equal with men, so we clashed constantly, as she saw it as gaining status, not losing it. Yet she hated FDR and everything he stood for and implemented, calling him a socialist, and she couldn’t stand Clinton because “he never wears long pants,” and she thought he didn’t take the presidency seriously enough. I’m sure she would despise Obama. And yet, I’m just as sure she would have been an avid supporter of gay rights and gay marriage, and some of the other liberal pet issues.
Perhaps it’s time to arrange for most of the world’s Muslims to see a message that every last one of them is going to see anyway:
THROUGH ME YOU PASS INTO THE CITY OF WOE:
THROUGH ME YOU PASS INTO ETERNAL PAIN:
THROUGH ME AMONG THE PEOPLE LOST FOR AYE.
JUSTICE THE FOUNDER OF MY FABRIC MOV’D:
TO REAR ME WAS THE TASK OF POWER DIVINE,
SUPREMEST WISDOM, AND PRIMEVAL LOVE.
BEFORE ME THINGS CREATE WERE NONE, SAVE THINGS
ETERNAL, AND ETERNAL I ENDURE.
ALL HOPE ABANDON YE WHO ENTER HERE.
The main thing the Big 0 doesn’t want to “dignify” is the proper criticism of his lax security policies and the fact that unarmed citizens subdued a rich black terrorist with 80 grams PENT in his underwear.
Another thing that the big 0 doesn’t want to dignify is the justified criticism of his lame security lackey Janet Napolitano and her blithering nonsense on national television.
Lastly the big 0 doesn’t want to dignify the spot-on criticism of his “let’s look at the root causes of Terrorism such as Poverty” speech after 9/11.
In conclusion, the Big 0 is a selfish power grabbing swindler with a ego the size of city block and a brain the size of green pea.
Malkilin shreds 0bama’s poor oppressed Jihadist meme.
http://tinyurl.com/yeclphg
2009: The Year of Living Fecklessly
Krauthammer on Iran
Phillip Niemeyer | Picturing the Past 10 Years
- ht Quirk
–
Interesting site;
http://www.shadowstats.com/
- Dr Housing Bubble poster.
23. sirius_sir:
Thank you for that, I have been growing respect and even admiration for Mr. Zardari. His obstacles internally have been greater than the challenge faced by Mexico’s government but with the added urgency of a slew of nukes and the never ending expectation of a border conflict. I think he has grown as a leader, and his ability to inflict damage on the Taliban is not something to be trivialized, although I have done my share of that in the past. It may be that even more than PM Bhutto, Mr. Zardari will lead Pakistan to its long hoped for destiny as a model nation populated by modern Muslim men and women.
–Wadeusaf
Here is a graph of weekly US oil imports. They are falling fast. The oil spikes in the 1970′s cut US oil imports in half. No reason to think the oil spike since 2005 will do any differently.
If the Obama were serious about extracting information from this terrorists I believe it would be fairly simple. Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab cause a self-inflicted burn injury to legs, buttocks, and most likely to his testacies. The pain is probably quite high. Obama should order doctors to cease all pain medication being given to him. Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab will soon talk.
I am not saying this is ethical or even legal – but almost everything Obama does is not ethical or even legal. Get all the information out of terrorist burn boy while the time is right.
Iranian Military Moves to Support the ‘People’s Revolution’
ht – Bob
The London Telegraph wrote Sunday evening:
“Iranians are dying for Freedom—Where is Barack Obama?”
Photos and Video
Kind of makes a mockery of People’s Park!
27 Dec 09 Tehran People stop a police car and free protesters from Inside it
(scroll down for video)
18. dkite:
hon kee mufo: why do you say 9/11 cannot be repeated?
Because mufo does not have much of an imagination, that’s all – at least none beyond what is allowed within mufo’s reality denying Fantasyland.
Being perturbed about the purported actions of the purported perpertrator on the that lucky flight only helps the Israel Lobby.
And that’s something this administration will NOT abide.
Being perturbed about the demonstrations in Iran only helps the Israel Lobby.
And that’s something this administration will NOT abide.
Taking staunch measures to defend America only helps the Israel Lobby.
Um, are you getting the picture?
AKA Walt and Mearsheimer wax triumphant!!…
But wait….
(Hold on just a second there, mister. How exactly do you define “Defending America”??)
I taught at Berkeley in the 1970′s and there was a period there when the radicals were somewhat at bay. They where more hanger-ons in an off-campus culture.
To me Berkeley really changed in the 1980′s when the radicals started getting on junior faculty. It was really the cohort that started on to college after 1964 or so that did ot most damage. It wook them a while to really get going.
Say, 1978 or so.
Is the West dead? This cannot be answered until after the Boomers pass. It does raise the question though, will subsequent generations be able to understand the damage the Boomer radicals wrought and be able to right it somehow? That is the core question. Has it all been destroyed or is it merely dormant.
Let us hope it is a momentary decadence–the West has had such moments before. Our current elites will not be swayed though, that is for sure. They and their whole apparatus must go. Certainly, a cultural form is passing.
The Nation’s response to Obama may enlighten.
Mongoose:
Do tell what you taught.
Thanks.
Police Are Said to Have Killed 10 in Iran Protests
Unlike the other protesters reported killed on Sunday, Ali Moussavi appears to have been assassinated in a political gesture aimed at his uncle, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an opposition figure based in Paris with close ties to the Moussavi family.
Mr. Moussavi was first run over by a sport utility vehicle outside his home, Mr. Makhmalbaf wrote on his Web site. Five men then emerged from the car, and one of them shot Mr. Moussavi.
The System Works!
Should Janet Napolitano be forced to endure TSA screenings for the rest of her life, or merely fired?
Doug, can you make it both?
The only way to eradicate terrorism is recolonisation of all failed or rogue states and realignment of everybody else to global US hegemony – as allies, as client states or as independent states, recognising US status as the only and unrivaled hyperpower and behaving accordingly. This is an ambitious goal, sure, and will take several decades to accomplish. But to put the end to chaos in international politics this is the only efficient solution.
Janet Napolitano must be high off her ass.
It just goes to show, you can put an explosive pair a briefs on a pig but it’s still a pig.
Definitely, twoby!
Napolitano Changes Her Tune [Jonah Goldberg]
She now says that her repeated mantra of “the system worked” was taken out of context. .
Translation:
her hackish talking points were a flop so she’s pretending she didn’t mean what she said and is blaming others for not understanding her.
I thought the head of the DHS was supposed to have the trust of the American people.
Again: This hack should be fired.
twobyfour @ 104, it does bear watching and even ‘encouraging’–something is indeed up.
Doug, where is Obama? Ummm, out on a golf course perhaps? No doubt another part of a grand strategy as perceived by the likes of Ambinder.
hmm, before tracing the origins to Europe and particularly to France, you should ask yourselves about your TV series and Hollywood movies that were flooding toward Europe, in which crimes, lust, drugs, anti-heros were shown to the youngs as a model for the american dream.
Also the flowers revolution happened in the US before reaching our continent. Hysteria for a pop star were more the usual happening in the US, UK, than in our continent
Those, that point on our writers and philosophes, forget that a tiny minority in the US had read them, the majority can’t say where is Pisa tower, indifferently they’ll put Paris intead of Roma place, and so on
So the incoherence in which you’re trappedcomes from your own pop culture, when abondance and its derives was the golden calf
You don’t have to put the blame on us, just digg into your proxy history
wretchard, silence is certainly a strategy when intentionally employed, however, did the American people deserve silence from their Commander in Chief, when an attack on their soil on Christmas Day was unleashed?
The Obama “celebration” was not of Christmas, since it’s the “wrong kind” of religion.
The Obama response to an attack on our countrymen was silence, because to do otherwise is the “wrong kind” of patriotism.
The Obama response to prosecuting a DECLARED war against us, is to turn it into a police matter, because the military is the “wrong kind” of national defense.
The Obama response to “leading” America, is to apologize for her very existence. He got engaged to a girl that he’s ashamed of, and when he’s out with the guys in the neighborhood, he becomes Henry Higgins…why can’t a capitalist be more like a socialist?
The silence you hear is a strategy. Indeed.
A deep bow to an Arab prince and a back of the hand to a British Prime Minister is a strategy.
The response to the Gates fiasco is a strategy.
A police incident garnered a response, as if it was an act of war. An act of war incident garnered no response, because it is treated as if it was a police incident.
There is a strategy indeed. You just need the right prism through which to view who the real enemy might be. Who needs protection and who needs prosecution.
Gates received the instant and kneejerk reaction. Plotting to blow up a plane by a Nigerian Muslim gets silence. Ft. Hood gets the “don’t jump to conclusions” response. It’s a strategy.
The strategy is…picking your enemies. And tricking them into voting for you.
Hmm. Since goats usually sleep at night, my guess would be that there’s a predator milling about. Kae Arby @ 12
Heh, no doubt. Maybe goats are used as early warning indicators in the tribal regions of Pakistan?
We have a serious problem, Sirius.
Learning From Abdul Mutallab
VDH
5) After the embarrassing debate about Hasan (e.g., “Was he a terrorist?”; second-hand post-traumatic stress syndrome, etc.), I don’t think the public will put up with similar contextualization about Mutallab.
6) The politics of anti-terrorism in this administration will insidiously begin to change, given that there was no repeat of 9/11 between 2001 and 2009 — and that thereafter, signs began to emerge that radical Muslims were reenergized and eager to trump their feat of eight years ago. In such a climate, one must worry more about the passengers on Flight 253 and less about whether self-confessed mass murderer and beheader KSM is given a public venue to explain his hatred of the United States, and is granted rights usually not accorded to such out-of-uniform and self-proclaimed terrorist enemies.
So a little more
“Beware of radical Muslim terrorists who want to murder us — and won’t!”
and a little less chest-thumping about dropping the supposedly retrograde “War on Terror.”
—
Sorry, Victor, but I’m not holding my breath.
This Guy’s Been on Every Channel, Every Day for a Year. Now He’s Shy?
At some point, a strategy insisting that unsuccessful attacks are not worth presidential comment starts looking like whistling past the graveyard, or pretending that the incidents aren’t a big deal when they are.
Alexis
“the standard of culture shifted from the Paris Opera House to a bunch of hippies on LSD.”
in may 1968 in Paris, we didn’t think of becoming hippies, but to break the old rules that were of the leading bourgeoise class
and we were absorbing american pop culture
Suppose one discovered a technique to steal money from pedestrians in the streets, sucking it through the air straight out of their wallets, without their noticing. And if the response of the TSA “law enforcement/not war” was “We recommend people move their wallets to the other rear pocket”, who would listen when they then announces, “The systems are working”?
All the systems worked is the viewpoint of those whose only religion is materialistic. If there is nothing sacred, nothing beyond the natural, then making war on objects and arrests after the act are the logical conclusions. One might ask this question, “Do the elite Prince Ambinders of the Beltway and the Kings of Foggy Bottom have a sticking place in themselves, such tackle as it took to muster the resolve to defeat a Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? I say not. Their religion and morals are ceded to a fantasy. They have nothing in them to suggest that “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but principalities, powers, ..”
If the attacks are only seen in terms of material damage, then the response will be to prevent material damages only, to ameliorate the “pinpricks”. But if this assumption is valid, why are there no massed drive by shootings? Bombs left in malls? Poisons in lettuce bars? DC snipers? Why are there beheading (video games) video? To see only material damages is to miss the point. A Religious war is being waged upon us, by a religion which is also a political movement. To the left, religion is just silliness, “a stumbling block to the Jews, to the Greeks, foolishness”. (And by the left I mean the Obamabots, Obamaites and all Obmaminions and -inations). And therefore we are not attacking what we ought to attack, the source of their ideology against the West. (And by the way, it was the Church made Europe, and not the other way around. And, until Luther, the Church was one. It still is, though splintered.) The left is the atheistic, absolutist counterpart to the absolutism of radical Islam, except its war is also upon the West. Christendom must be renewed! I will say it outright, even though the (Planet of the Apes) gorillas shriek and seize their ears, it was Christ Himself who said, “Those who are not for us, are against us”. And the Archangel Michael, when asked “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” replied, “With the Hosts of the Lord I am come”. Pause… OK, remove your hands. What is the point of life…material things bring material happiness…? Were that true, no one in America has any cause to be “… whiners, complainers, and backstabbers.” As this is not the case, then we must look elsewhere for that for which we look, even when the looking happens beneath our notice. “IHS”
(Note: I know the above is somewhat rough and disjointed.)
Mr. Obama is staying quiet for the simple reason he doesn’t have a clue of what to say or do. It’s not that calm, cool brilliance we all heard about; it’s deer-in-the-headlights bafflement. He’s lost at what to do and has surrounded himself with people who are as lost and clueless as he is.
Mr. Obama is not a leader, not a commander, not an executive. He is a poseur and even at that he is failing.
Rough or not, I like it Kerry.
Thanks
Don’t miss:
Re: re: Laps in security
[Andy McCarthy]
“And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.“
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
the dog is attacking the sheep …
Sara(Pal2Pal)@78
What fortuitous coincidence. We may be related.
The maternal line were Quakers. My mother would tear up momentarily for only two movies. “Friendly Persuasion” and “How Green Was My Valley.”
The strange confluences of history. Came to the Thirteen Colonies for religious freedom. Hacked down forests and built that up. Held true to their religious beliefs and were persuaded to come to Southern Ontario. Hacked that out of the bush and built that up. When Alberta transitioned from a territory to province they went West and where they settled there was no forest. They built that up anyway.
You should visit and see what they built. A drive up through the Eastern Seaboard on your way would I think be best.
Perhaps before you visit, should you of course chose to, here’s a tourist guide.
http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22The+Loyalists%3A+Revolution%2C+Exile%2CSettlement%22&x=15&y=18
Our percentages vary somewhat from yours but that must be because of that pesky metric system.
All the best to you in the New Year.
Heyyoukids
IRAN
—
Best Coverage
41 whiskey “No, it will be the “little people,” the Sarah Palin voters, the ordinary folk, those looked down on as fly-over country bumpkins, the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, those not tragically hip, who will throw out the elites and go about the business of killing as many Muslims as they can until Muslims stop fighting.”
We can only pray you are correct. But with the enemy within determined to keep us deaf and dumb,broke and discouraged it will take much longer than it should. Voices from here and other places need to make their way out into the street and into American’s homes and workplaces. I am doing my part in my small world. (I have the distinction of being the only one in my crowd ever thrown out of two coffee shops for talking politics) I have since been let back in and told to just not talk so loud and to cut back on profanity.
65 W “Maybe it’s beginning to dawn on someone that we’re not engaged in separate wars. There is no “War in Iraq”, “War in Afghanistan” or a future “War in Yemen”. They are different campaigns in a single war — the war that doesn’t exist, except in these nonsensical geographical designations. It is the war against radical Islamism in particular. That’s the war America will find itself fighting. Is fighting. And perhaps to the very end will deny even exists.
I have been saying the same thing for years I still hope that soon everyone will come to understand it but even now it is very few.
Please read the article I commented on. Austin was a touchstone (among many) for me over the years.
133 Jeff
You broke the code! except in this case I believe the dog will be allowing his ancestral friends access to his charges soon, along with other even more dangerous predators.
135 Doug
Thank you for the links. We can only offer our prayers and encouragement as our government will offer nothing. To our everlasting shame.
Papa Ray
“(I have the distinction of being the only one in my crowd ever thrown out of two coffee shops for talking politics)”
Congrats, Papa Ray!
I always knew you were a man of distinction.
The Napolitano and Gibbs talking points interviews makes me wonder if the description of Obama’s reaction, conference, ordering this and that, is not real but just another talking point.
While Honkee’s tedious Democratic talking points nonsense just wasted a lot of my time as I caught up to this thread, I have to give the little ignoramous props in that he inadvertently set off a belly laugh with this gem:
Left-wing folks are uncharacteristically ignorant when it comes to nuclear energy.
Wow. That “uncharacteristically” is a stroke of ironic genius.
Looking for “dogs not barking”. It is the old investigating technique of finding anomalies in conduct and trying to determine the “why?” behind them.
Look at the Christmas bombing attempt. Within a hour, we had more information than the president had [since they did not bother to disturb his golf game until 3 hours after it happened.]. We had a name. We had a rough outline of the incident, including that passengers defended themselves and the country [although the hero is a Dutchman who our media promptly named and pictured for the benefit of Jihadi's in the Netherlands]. We had eyewitness accounts. We had eyewitness reports [of inauthenticated credibility, but we were getting information] of anomalies in behavior and lapses in security procedure in the Netherlands that may have included the arrest of an accomplice. We had passengers talking to the news media. We knew shortly afterwards that the would be bomber was on a list of terrorist affiliated persons. That he had bought his one way ticket with cash at the last minute [that is one of the major flags that should get you turned inside out by security personnel] and did not have any luggage for a multi-continental trip [that is another major flag calling for turning the suspect into a Klein Bottle under the rules we are playing by]. We soon knew that he openly claimed Al Quada affiliation, training in Yemen and acquisition of the device there. And that he claimed that there were multiple others en route using the same method.
We also knew the next day that the Chef d’Cuisine for this airborne serving of Hangtown Fries had secreted himself in the plane’s head for a prolonged period and apparently had …. extracted … at least part of the hypergolic mixture from waterproofed packaging that was, as we said in the business, “keistered” for transport.
Two days later, there is another very similar incident on the same flight, same route. The subject of interest is also a Nigerian. He is known to have secreted himself in the head. After the plane landed and it, the passengers, and the crew were subjected to a rather extensive search; an all clear was sounded. And there was silence. The dog is not barking.
I have not done a deliberate search for more information this morning as it has been busy and I have been away from the computer. I may be missing more data, in which case I will have to have an “Emily Latella moment”. But when I shut down last night, it was real quiet as far as information on the subject.
The government has declared officially that he was a Nigerian businessman who was ill. When the plane landed, he was taken into custody. I have seen no report that he was released, which one would normally expect. There are other reports, not confirmed, that a) once again, it was a cash purchase at the last minute, with no luggage, b) that he had barricaded himself in the head for over an hour and the crew and/or crew and passengers had to physically break down the door to get him out. Keep in mind that everyone has been on alert for similar incidents since the Christmas attempt. Thus the immediate reaction at DTW airport. At least some of the passengers should have been on edge and alert on that particular flight.
Yet, there has been all but an overt news blackout on the details of this one. The local FOX News affiliate put out a call for any of the passengers of that flight to contact them, and as far as I know have received no response. That is NOT normal. The imagery of the door to the head being broken down is sufficient to get someone to go for their 15 minutes of fame. Such would be noticed on board, even outside the immediate area of the heads. People on board a plane [especially one which probably has told everyone to sit down, shut up, and buckle in NOW] tend to notice loud noises and vibrations. We don’t know the name of the “businessman”, or his destination [DTW may be a transfer point], or his business. These are things that normally an unrestricted American media would ferret out for sensationalism if nothing else.
We have one hell of an anomaly here, and the dog is not only not barking, it may have been muzzled. I have more than a passing suspicion that the incident is not as benign as it is being presented. Further, the major media [which does whatever this administration wants] has been told to back off, and perhaps the passengers have been told that it is their “patriotic duty” to shut up.
That way, “the system” can be seen to have still be “working smoothly”. But that can only be a temporary fix purely for publicity purposes. The whole thing will blow up in the regime’s faces if word of another incident gets out. The only way to prevent that would involve a level of effort to protect this country that very few realists and observers of the regime can expect, in a very short period of time. And probably methods that the people on the pointy end of the stick now know with ontological certitude will get them court-martialed as soon as they are no longer of use to the regime.
The only timeline data that we have is every other day, and that is based on only two data points. NOT reliable. Still, while keeping on watch for a period of time, I would keep an eye on tomorrow and on New Years Eve. Just because people think and act in patterns unless they conciously try not to. But I would not depend on that timing. I still expect multiple attempts in keeping with Al Quada’s pattern when dealing with airliners, and at any time.
I know that I and my family are staying off of airliners as much as possible for the forseeable future. We have some friends who are flying back to DC on New Years Eve, but flights originating domestically are somewhat less at risk from the data points we have; and they are going to be watching their fellow passengers. We already avoid what we call “Round-eye New Years” celebrations, because there are too many amateur drunks about and they are intrinsically dangerous, even without the risk of terrorism.
That leads us to a second point. Why the less than energetic response? I do not rule out the concept posited by others here that this is deliberate, because to put it bluntly an attack on the United States is desired for their own purposes which may or may not be parallel with the enemy. It may be a degree of incompetence, corruption, and lack of reality testing that certainly is not unreasonable given what we have seen since January 20. Or it may be opportunistic.
Let me offer a theory. Pretty much every action by this regime domestically has had the result, intentionally or otherwise, of destroying our economy and nationalizing as much of it as possible. Your opinion on this will vary according to your political leanings; but there is plenty of room for arguing the point in the affirmative.
A certain percentage of air travel by Americans is mandatory, due to business reasons or otherwise. But I rather suspect that a significant fraction, if not a majority [no hard data there, semi-informed conjecture off of the top of my head] is elective. You don’t have to vacation in California if you live in Nebraska. You don’t have to fly out to see aunt Tilly 3+ states away, etc.
Let us assume that as a result of a number of closely spaced airliner incidents [the calculus of this will be not dissimilar to that in the Three Conjectures, albeit with results affecting personal choices, not nuclear war] it becomes a rational assumption that the risk factor for flying is such that either alternative means of transportation or avoiding the trip become percieved as more desirable choices. Inagine the effect on the bottom line if there is even a 10% drop in elective flights.
Result: The airline industry goes Tango Uniform. It either disappears, or becomes similar to a Government Motors of the air. This, according to this regime, would be a doubleplus-good thing. Further, the amount of economic activity dependent directly or as a derivative of American domestic air travel will plummet. Consider what happened to Las Vegas after Obama decreed that business conventions there were evil. [Government bureaucrat seminars there are still virtuous.]. Another body blow, and once again Americans feel besieged and trapped. And after all, the ability of the proles to move around the country without the let, leave, or hindrance by the government is not viewed as a good thing by Statists. It is better that they be localized and dependent on the State.
Look to the sky for a while. And if something really nasty happens with an airliner, and the dog remains silent; you may want to ponder the ability or willingness of this regime to defend this country and its people.
Subotai Bahadur
140 SB
Excellent and my,my… aren’t you a wordy gentleman.
But every word worth reading by this old man of “distinction.”
Ha..
Papa Ray
Subotai said:
That made me laugh.
BTW, I think the first two were tests. Look for the real ones to come soon. But from sideways. To the simple-minded they will not seem to be related but they will be.
When I first started traveling on business in 1988, I was still single/young, and loved seeing my FF miles roaring towards that magic million miler plateau – now married w/kids, still travel on business, but I’ll rent a car and drive unless the trip is an emergency OR the drive is longer than 8 hrs by interstate. Before 9/11 I loved settling into one of those transcontinental (or transoceanic) flights – typically on the old L-1011 or (less frequently) on a 747 – and waiting for the food, flick, and if I was lucky, an hour or two of naptime. Fond memories. I was skinnier.
No more. Now I fly (when I fly) wide awake – sticking to regional airframes, I try to lay an eyeball on everyone who boards, taking note of certain details… ignore the wallflower at your peril.
If Whiskey’s right and Lord Zero is determined to allow another mass casualty attack on our country, then our best hope to thwart it is for the sheepdogs to remain vigilant.
May God have mercy on us.
Batman (#99):
Love this post (and many of your others as well). I think we are very close in our views, and had similar experiences in our education (I went to Yale 1965-1969; the “revolution” was on by then, but hadn’t yet infected the faculty to any great degree)…
I studied molecular biology and biophysics, but took a lot of English and German lit, and my roommate, a philosophy major who became department chairman at Norte Dame, educated me further…
Then I went to medical school…
On or about 9/11/2009 I was able to realize that I had been transformed from a classic (Cold War) liberal to (a bit to the right of center) conservative.
Jamie Irons
Marie Claude:
You ironically prove my point. In the late nineteenth century, the United States was clearly within the cultural orbit of France. By 1968, political factions in France were struggling to keep France out of America’s cultural orbit. The rise of America’s apparent cultural power in the twentieth century should be seen as a side effect of the decline, fall, and eventual death of western civilization, particularly the cultural power of France.
In the early twentieth century, American music shifted from imitating French fashion to imitating the fashions of American black people. Let’s face it. I may be fond of Jean Michel Jarre and Asterix, but I am a minority in North America and even Europe.
1898 is a major year for French history and American history. The Hearst newspaper chain pushed the United States into a war against Spain. The principal reaction in France wasn’t a celebration of any presumed justice in America’s war declaration against Spain or any admiration for America’s version of “mission civilatrice”, but rather a revulsion against crass American imperialism. Yet, the most important event affecting France was the Dreyfus Affair.
The Dreyfus Affair was important because it led to the rise of Charles Maurras and his ideal of “integral nationalism” in France. “Integral nationalism” sapped France’s cultural confidence, its ability to absorb foreign ideas and make them French, and France’s ability to use its cultural power to its own advantage. French culture became increasingly brittle and unable to assimilate the ideas of Salvador Dali or the wave of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Jewish physicists enriched America with nuclear technology during World War II; imagine what France could have done if it had attracted them instead!
The anti-Americanism of Action Française in the 1930’s is important because it provided a strong ideological template for anti-Americanism from the French Left after World War II. In the post-war period, anti-Americanism was a highly effective way for former members of Action Française to burnish their “leftist” credentials without changing one iota of their worldview. Yes, French Communists were anti-American after 1944 because they were loyal to the International. And yes, there were differences between the United States and France when France expected American help in reconquering the French Empire. Yet, French anti-Americanism should be seen less as a reaction against American power and more as both a reflection and cause of French powerlessness.
France’s inability to withstand Germany’s offensive in 1940 was primarily due to its lack of strategic depth. If I remember correctly, France had a bigger, stronger, and better equipped military than the United States in 1939. Yet, France lacked the strategic depth of the United States, the Soviet Union, and even the United Kingdom. Charles de Gaulle understood very well that France had very little margin for error.
The collapse of western civilization mirrors the decline of French cultural confidence. As late as the early twentieth century, rich Americans made a pilgrimage to worship at the altar of French cultural brilliance. American philanthropists would regard it as their patriotic duty as Americans to bring art to the United States, and by “art” they meant French art. When Wilbur and Orville Wright showed the world the worthiness of their airplane in 1908, they went to France.
Although France may eventually regain its cultural confidence, the damage of the twentieth century has been done. Although western civilization is gone, something can be created in its place. The question is not whether a new civilization can rise from the ashes of the old, but whether the people of France desire to be an integral part of a new civilization.
Is New Orleans jazz part of French civilization? Is even Quebecois French part of French civilization? There was a time when it was France that was the melting pot of the best of the civilized world. That time may come again. The question is whether France will seize the opportunity.
Ha, it’s not enough to do the terrorist’s work for them by urging us all to be terrified. You gotta take the Islamicist critique that the West is doomed due to decadence and corruption and one-up them–now it’s already a decaying carcass!
The West is fine. It’s America-haters like radical Islam and cultural right that are being swept into the dustpan of history… although I’ll admit that the latter still could do considerable damage in its death throws.
Alexis, I don’t follow your ramblings, seems to me that you forgot how the events were felt here, and that you only privilege the cultural aspects that appear significative to you.
You ironically prove my point. In the late nineteenth century, the United States was clearly within the cultural orbit of France. By 1968, political factions in France were struggling to keep France out of America’s cultural orbit. The rise of America’s apparent cultural power in the twentieth century should be seen as a side effect of the decline, fall, and eventual death of western civilization, particularly the cultural power of France.
Well I crossed the 1968 events as a young teen, It didn’t occur to us that we were rejecting the american culture, but our oldfashion habits of promoting our citizens, that were “notables” according to their family situation for ages. Of course, more liberties went on the board, among them, liberty of choosing frely our partner without benediction of our parents, liberty of having sex too, the majority at 18, liberty of associations, etc… remember under war of Algeria and before too, we were under exceptionnal rules of war, police (rather gendarmerie in the countryside) was everywhere, (not like today)
So this 1968 revolution was kinda a kind of liberty to breathe !
It was certainly not a rejection of America’s productions, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Trini Lopez… were in every french juke boxes and on radios.
Tt was the youth that expressed their vitality, and the rejection of the old smocks that made all these bloody wars
In the early twentieth century, American music shifted from imitating French fashion to imitating the fashions of American black people.
hmm, I doubt that the english language enabled you to sing or to make music like us. Your musics and texts are based on sonorities, while ours were based on texts signification, and our musics were at their service. Our artists had to make their proofs in cabarets, a bit like in Hamburg cabarets, where “chansonniers” were and still are priced, it’s a mixture of irony and humor on political persons and events.
don’t know about 1898, have you some links ?
French culture became increasingly brittle and unable to assimilate the ideas of Salvador Dali or the wave of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Jewish physicists enriched America with nuclear technology during World War II; imagine what France could have done if it had attracted them instead!
uh, not, Dali was attracted by Paris for meeting the DADA group, Breton was the leader of the group that made the manifest of surrealism.
It was rather because he run away with the wife of Paul Eluard a surrealist poet that hewent back to Spain, besides he was friend with Garcia Lorca too and they were making their “suurealist movies near Barcelona.
As far as the foreign jewish refugiees, yes they were the first to be sent to the concentration camps. But hadn’t France not suffered from the 1930 depression, hadn’t she not wellcome Spanish, Italians, Zcechs, Polish… political and economical refugiees, these foreign Jews would have mixed into our society too. The problem we didn’t want to accept them, because Germany was imposing us to give them refuge, probably if they had come like the Spanish or the Italians a few years before, they wouldn’t have been noticed too.
Well, you had Einstein, I doubt that our institutions had enough means to pays his researches. Though, most of the physicists, that help you, came after 1945 from Germany.
I am not aware of the “strong anti-americanism” of 1930, links please
when France expected American help in reconquering the French Empire.
Uh not, De learnt the bitterest way that he would have nothing to expect from the Americans ; if we wanted to keep our empire it would be with our means. Though Indochine war wasn’t only a colonial war, it was an anti-communist war too, mainly sponsorised by the Americans, because at the end of WWII, we were broke. (in the link that I provided on the CIA pilots that helped the French in Dien Dien Phu, one pilot clearly said it was a war against the communists)
We had a large army of non-professionals, while german soldiers were already trained and motivated .through their youth association.
Also, we had tanks, planes, and infantry, but, never the “three” had a chance to train together, which wasn’t the case for Germans’
French cultural decline happened after the end of Algeria war. The new artistic movements were initiated in New York since WW2.
France will regain its confidence when we will have solved our “identity” problem, and our confrontion with mediterranean culture.
“De Gaulle learnt the bitterest way” ment
Marie Claude:
Concerning 1898, here are a few online references.
The year of the war, 1898, was, says Roger, the catalyst of French anti-Americanism, when popular opinion of all political stripes was united in condemnation and created a discourse that imprinted itself on the subsequent generation.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj03-2/grantham.html
But in 1898, it becomes serious, because this is the moment at which, says Roger, French anti-Americanism cohered; it stopped being the noisy opinion of various oddballs and achieved critical mass. The event that caused the coherence was the American declaration of war on Spain, followed by the invasion of Cuba and the landing on the Philippines. A threshold had been crossed. If Spain, why not France?
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article385766.ece
Also…
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/723682.html
Some parts of “The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism” by Philippe Roger can also be found on Google Books.
You may also wish to read “French anti-Americanism (1930-1948): critical moments in a complex history”, by Seth D. Armus; “The rise of integral nationalism in France”, by William Curt Buthman; and “Anti-Americanism”, by Jean-Francois Revel.
[When I refer to the fall of western civilization, I am not talking about the fall of civilization in “western countries”. Instead, I am referring to the fall of the primacy of western cultural norms, principally (a) the exaltation of the Latin language, (b) the exaltation of Greek philosophy (often but not exclusively embedded within Christianity), and (c) the primacy of European and European-inspired culture. Western civilization can be said to exist where the Latin language and Greek philosophy function as tokens of status (and are an exalted part of the university curriculum) and where European culture is ascendant.
Imagine a place where mosques went into disrepair, Arabic was neither spoken nor respected (and if Arabic speaking, a vernacular dialect were used as the written standard), the Koran were ignored completely by the society, Islam were regarded as a quaint old-fashioned custom, and the popular music of the region were imported from India or the United States. Would such a place really be part of Islam?? My answer is no.]
uh Alexis, from your first link, “omelette norvegienne”, isn’t it a bit silly to label that as antiamericanism, cuz
voici la vérité “vraie” sur la création de l’omelette norvégienne
Pour tous l’histoire est simple
le chef Jean Giroix mis un jour sur la carte du restaurant de l’Hôtel de Paris”a Monte-Carlo datée de juillet 1895 sa nouvelle création :un nouveau dessert appelée au début omelette “a la suédoise” puis ensuite “a la norvégienne “pour symboliser cette osmose entre feu et glace ce fut pour tous les clients une extraordinaire attraction gastronomique.OUI MAIS…..
Comme toujours dans les créations culinaires il faut rechercher les origines bien plus loin dans le temps.
Nous devons ici remercier le Baron Brisse qui dans sa rubrique culinaire du journal La Liberté vers 1866
racontait cette anecdote:
Lors d’un passage a Paris quelques années avant La mission de l’Empire de Chine était de passage a Paris , hors a l’époque il était de bon ton que les échanges se fassent a tous les niveaux donc les chefs cuisiniers chinois a l’invitation de leurs homologues français s’installérent aux fourneaux du Grand Hôtel a Paris et devant les yeux de leurs collégues français médusés leur montrérent une recette faite depuis la nuit des temps en Chine :Cette recette était en fait une glace vanillée et aromatisée au gingembre pratiquement congelée (a cause du sanglage glace et sel)et cette sorte de boudin glacé était enveloppé d’une fine couche fine d’appareil a biscuit (comme une génoise) et que l’on passait au four
voila l’histoire réelle .
Vous lirez dans d’autres ouvrages que le physicien américain Rumford clama dans toutes les cours que c’était lui qui en était le créateur ,alors qu’il n’avait en fait que découvert son principe:Celui de l’inconductibilité d’un blanc d’oeuf battu
as far as for the german sheepdog, we probably call it alsacien sheepdog, because it was known to us coming from Alsace, no specific anti german bashing was intend there
Well this article sums up all the fantasies that were launched to justify a “real french bashing” though in the last decades
About the feeling of mistrust that the French had toward America, they were justified soon after the victory in Yorktown, when America restarted its discusssions with the common enemy England, without warning the French
We can’t hold the elucubrations (rantings) of a JF Revel seriously, he was hardly going out of his golden bedroom of the academie française
Roger, unknown, but seems it isn’t more lightening than the Revel’s rants, no serious facts investigation there
2nd link : error 404
from the 3rd link :
After 9/11 “anti-Americanism has been, and remains, the most strident.”
MERE BS
cuz our paper’s, just after 9/11, edited in their first page “WE ARE ALL AMERICANS”
I couldn’t read further, as the will of making the “Thierry Messan” “reverse psychology” is evident !
now check
http://www.revue-interrogations.org/article.php?article=19
a few pics of our papers
Anti americanism became the leitmotiv after that Bush decide to ignore the UN votes, and when he said ” you are with us or against us”, and that Condi said “punish the French, berate the Germans”
as we say here it was our response du “berger à la bergère”
http://www.amazon.fr/LEnnemi-am%C3%A9ricain-G%C3%A9n%C3%A9alogie-lantiam%C3%A9ricanisme-fran%C3%A7ais/dp/2020406438
OK, some of Roger’s discrourses might be justified, but as argumentation to his writing, we could oppose the american writings such as of Marc Twain’s, and of many others, that witnessed more on the “ununderstandings” that our both populations have on each others
But Roger is wrong in telling that our society was built on stratifications that only were rejecting “americanism”, our society was also opposing to what is foreign, like any other nations, it is so that a nation is built and that you can develop a patriot sentiment
Roger and Revel were surfing on the wave, being sure that their books would find an audience
Sergey@121,
INFLICT FREEDOM?
Kerry@130,
Nicely writ. However, let’s put the blame where it belongs. As an atheist for the last 50 years, I would take exception to your use of “atheism” as the principle culprit. Amoral? Yes. Lacking of core values? Yes. Materialistic? Yes.
I maintain those traits are natural outcomes from the most cowardly philosophical position; ie, agnostic. Rational athiests are moral. Agnostics see no need.
While I may not (still cannot) see iTOi with religion, I’m surely not out to waste one iota of energy restraining others from believing what they wish. But for Islam – totalitarianism, in any of their forms.
Rational athiests are true allies of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddists et al; essentially everyone who’se not Muslim. It’s a survival deal, not a debate.
Alah commands you to ally yourself with Muslims.
PBUH