Al-Qaeda has taken revenge for the killing of Osama Bin Laden by blowing up 80 Pakistanis. “Bin Laden’s followers have vowed revenge for his death and the Pakistani Taliban said the attack by two suicide bombers on a paramilitary academy in the north-western town of Charsadda was their first taste of vengeance.”
‘We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,’ said Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban. He warned that the group was also planning attacks on Americans living inside Pakistan. The attackers struck as the recruits were going on leave and 65 of them were among the 80 dead. Pools of blood strewn with soldiers caps and shoes lay on the road outside the academy as the wounded, looking dazed with parts of their clothes ripped away by shrapnel, were loaded into trucks.
But according to the LA Times the Pakistanis are blaming America for these new tragedies. Alex Rodriguez, reporting from Peshawar says, “twin suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 80 paramilitary recruits in northwest Pakistan, in an attack that Taliban militants said was to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. commandos, could trigger new doubts among Pakistanis about the value of Islamabad’s already rocky relationship with Washington.”
Pakistanis have grown increasingly worried that they will bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks by militants angered by the May 2 killing of the Al Qaeda leader. U.S. Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden at the compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad where he had hidden for five years. Washington’s decision to carry out the mission without Islamabad’s knowledge or authorization angered many Pakistanis who saw the raid as a gross violation of their country’s sovereignty.
Reacting to news of the suicide bombings, Bashir Bilour, a senior minister for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, questioned whether, despite the billions of dollars that Pakistan receives from Washington in civilian and military aid, the country was paying too heavy a price for its role as a U.S. ally.
Why should they blame America and not the Taliban? Because. Whether it is intervening in Libya or not intervening in Libya; finding Osama bin Laden or not finding him; taking notice of Pakistan’s troubles or not taking notice of Pakistan; feeding the North Korean population or not feeding the North Korean population; inventing the Internet and then not giving the Internet to the UN; developing GPS and then not giving it to the United Nations — in all the uncertainty of the modern world — on thing remains constant: it’s always America’s fault.
John Burroughs argued that the tendency to blame others was the ultimate admission of failure. It was an acceptance of the inability to change one’s destiny and therefore the belief that someone else was in the control of it. The tendency to “blame America” is simply a restatement of the conviction that “I am helpless and therefore everything that happens to me is caused by the the most powerful object around”. It is fundamentally a religious analogy.
President Obama may be correct in believing that the more successful the United States becomes, the more it will be hated. Psychologically, the only way out is to make it seem smaller; the task of putting down the imperial burden requires becoming ‘just another country’. In that view, once the United States becomes no different from the Congo then nobody will ascribe events that transpire in Pakistan to it. American exceptionalism is the ultimate source of hatred directed towards it. Become unexceptional and the hate goes away.
The Atlantic Wire argues that the notion of “American exceptionalism” is at the source of many problems. It is a guilty phrase, the article argues, nothing more than racist shorthand for asserting that people like President Obama don’t belong, even though the electorate voted for him. It quotes the Guardian which accuses Sarah Palin of maintaining that Americans are better than anyone else. It asserts that the Tea Party is really a coded and doomed attempt at recovering the idea of national superiority. It noted with amusement arguments that Americans bridled at TSA restrictions out of some national attachment to freedom. “This skepticism of governmental authority is healthy. What is more, it is patently American. … The TSA passenger rebellion is merely the latest example of American exceptionalism and is perfectly in keeping with the nation’s ethos.” The Atlantic Wire goes on to quote Cathy Lynn Grossman at USA Today. “Republicans are making political hay by reviving this idea — as old as the first colonialists — that this is a land favored by the Lord with an exceptional destiny.” It cites Michael Scheuer as saying that American exceptionalism has led to four presidents straight trying to remake the Muslim world.
But the problem is that if the USA stopped, it would still be blamed for the mayhem that would ensue from inaction. Libya is a textbook example. It will somehow be America’s fault if it doesn’t save the tribesmen from the Duck of Death. Samantha Power in her book, “The Problem From Hell” argued that it was America’s responsibility to prevent genocides around the world. She notes with dismay that American policymakers have been reluctant to condemn mass atrocities as genocide or lead international military interventions to save them. Do you know who’s really guilty for all the genocides in the world? It’s Washington for not stopping them. It is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
But perhaps the biggest psychological reason America is blamed so frequently is not just from the religious habit of looking for a governing idol, but from the ingrained desire to look to the King. America has all the power of a Kingdom without a person sitting on the throne. It is an incomprehensible object for a world where the idea of self-governance doesn’t really exist. In those places things happen because the great and the good do things to commoners. There is always someone, besides oneself, behind an act. The average person is nothing more than an object to be acted upon by the powerful. Food appears on the table, policemen appear in the night, men die or men live because the King in a distant palace orders it.
Much of the world is comfortable with the ways of kings. Fear is a natural condition in that model of governance. As Machiavelli advised his prince, “it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.” Pakistanis do not blame al-Qaeda for killing them by the hundred because those are the natural actions of a wounded prince. America on the other hand, maddeningly acts as if events in Pakistan were the responsibility of its people, when everybody knows that all events are decided in Washington. By killing Osama Bin Laden America showed itself to be a greater prince than al-Qaeda? Why does it then not stop al-Qaeda from killing them and put food daily on the Pakistani table? You are a king; act like a king.
The original American sin lay in its rejection of kings. The root of its feeling of exceptionalism was its pride in the belief in individual human responsibility and freedom. But not everyone shares this belief. Even in the 21st century it is still such an alien concept that countries as diverse as European welfare states and tribesmen in the Northwest Frontier intuitively reject it. They want a party, a ruling elite, an aristocracy to guide them, to give them a good life. They want to live in a word where someone is to blame; where you can write to a government department when your pension check comes late in the mail, but in more primitive countries where the rising of the stars and weathers of the world can be laid at the doorstep of someone.
And they see America in all its great magnificence, with its majestic warships plowing the seas, its otherworldly soldiers stomping with ease through the garrison towns of nuclear states, its magical inventions and vast land from sea to shining sea and ask: how can it not be their fault? It must be their responsibility for it cannot be the fault of ants. And ants we are.
In his last will and testament, Osama bin Laden described his determination to be a slave. OBL wrote, “he whom Allah guides, none can lead astray and he whom Allah leads astray, has no guide. And I testify that there is no God be he alone, ascribe no partners to him and I testify that Mohammad is his slave and messenger. We beg him in the highest to accept us in martyrdom along with the righteous of his worshipers and to perish us as Muslims.” He could not — could never see — America except as a pretender to the throne of Allah, coming to make him their slave. The idea that they cared not a fig for enslaving him would never have occurred to him. Neither would the idea that the sunken state of the Islamic world was their own responsibility have occurred either.
The world of Kings, of masters and slaves is not yet ended. Although the great issues that Abraham Lincoln described in the Gettysburg address have long been regarded as settled, they are not. The issue is still before the global parliament. Freedom is still in peril and perhaps will always be. Lincoln said, “it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us … that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” That is not and may never be a given.
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An interesting aspect of the militant bombing in Pakistan is that it seems that the militants couldn’t strike at the US so they blamed the Pakistani government and struck at them. Of course the relatives and tribesmen of those struck down may blame the US also but some of them will strike at the militants or their relations because it is the “traditional” thing to do and the militants are more accessible than the US is. The US will still be blamed of course.
A further example of “it is Americas fault follows.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2293056/pagenum/all/
Heh!
in “damned if you do, and even damneder if you don’t”, it runs the gamut of psychological crazy making guilt trips, because one of the corollaries is, “don’t be a superpower, but then again, BE a super-superpower to stop all genocides ’round the world”. outsource yourselves to every other failed state or culture round the world, in porportion to how failed they are.
Blaming the U.S. is a pathetic, feeble attempt to ‘cut us down to size’, all the while basing their premise, and conceding the argument at the same time, that we are the greatest nation on earth, and that they are not, as well as how much it bothers them how conspicuous that truth is.
Deny it at your peril.
“There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”
rr 1964
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/13/extra-extra-mullah-omar-arrested-in-pakistan.html
We should’ve used the Saudis instead of the SEALs.
Their unique military-religious capacity is astounding.
It’s worth a read.
” Pools of blood strewn with soldiers caps and shoes lay on the road outside ”
Religion of pieces.
let’s show them infidels by killing muslims
The biggest question facing U.S. leaders over the next decade or so is whether America’s global position will be enhanced more by
1/ successful foreign-policy initiatives, or by
2/ successful policy responses here at home.
We spending $100 billion a year on Afghanistan with no substantial contribution to American security.
In addition we give handouts of many $ Billion each year to Pakistan, Israel and Egypt with no return ROE.
That money could be better spent on productivity-enhancing projects here at home.
This case has is made by leaders military officers in the DoD in a recent powerful paper (writing collectively as “Mr. Y”)
Read the whole paper here-
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/A%20National%20Strategic%20Narrative.pdf
“As Americans we needn’t seek the world’s friendship or to proselytize the virtues of our society.
Neither do we seek to bully, intimidate, cajole, or persuade others to accept our unique values or to share our national objectives.
Rather, we will let others draw their own conclusions based upon our actions. Our domestic and foreign policies will reflect unity of effort, coherency and
constancy of purpose.
We will pursue our national interests and allow others to pursue theirs,
never betraying our values.”
We need jobs in America, in the end our power and influence depends far more on having a healthy, highly educated, politically loyal, and energetic society here at home than it does on shaping political outcomes in far-flung corners of the world.
No more handouts to foreign leeches and parasites in AfPak and MENA.
Enough is enough-
Why should they blame America and not the Taliban? Because.
Because if they blame America, America will not notice, while if they blame the Taliban, the Taliban will kill them. This is Islam’s oldest and bestest trick. American Exceptionalism doesn’t really come into it. Is it a matter of Osama’s religious fervor that he wants to be Allah’s slave? Feh. “Support mental health or I keel you” is about as far as the valid analysis needs to go.
“Islam or chaos” is their ancient game. American could be red or blue, across the ocean or in a far-away galaxy, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the Jews, crusaders, infidels. Or else it’s those perverted Sunnis/Shias (depending on where you sit). Something about the ten commandments and coveting thy neighbor’s ass, got lost in Mohammed’s writings. Covet the ass, blame the neighbor, and claim Allah’s mantle for every burp, fart, and murder.
I draw absolutely no conclusions whatsoever about what America is or was or could be or should be, based on the rantings and violence in Pakistan. What should we do about it? Shove it in their faces with modern media, twitter and facetube. Laugh at them. Laughter and light are the cures for Islam. And some Christian missionaries to teach them the alternatives. Along with precision munitions, properly used. But I guess for now, we mostly rely on twitface and tuber.
John Boroughs’ blaming others while believing that humans are “helpless” to exert self-mastery or self-control, and thereby scapegoating all personal responsibility for any adverse result, is a feature of the determinist world-view. Standing four-square next to the determinist is the monist. The most famous people with a determinist’s world-view are Adolph Hitler, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. Determinism is also the world-view of all of the major Islamic theoreticians, including Abul Mawdudi of Pakistan, Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, Khomeini again of Iran, and of course, Ibn Wahhab of Saudi Arabia. The determinist world-view is one of six features common to all genocides and organized mass murders of the twentieth century. For all Americans and especially my fellow Protestants, it’s important to remember that both Martin Luther and John Calvin of the Reformation were determinists; rigid, hateful, even murderous (Calvin burned people alive). There is a direct link between Luther’s determinism in Germany and the determinist world-view of Hitler and Marx, such that the roots of the savagery of both communism and nazism (Left-wing and Right-wing Socialism) are Germany’s deterministic world-view.
The long-term enemy is not al-Qaeda or the Taliban or terrorism or Islam. The long-term enemy of humanity is the closed mind, and no mind is more closed than the monist mind of the determinist. To put this in some disquieting perspective, likely 90% of the faculty at any American university are monists, and perhaps half of the entire faculties in the social sciences in America are
determinists teaching thousands of students how to think like a determinist… just like Osama bin Laden (Qutb’s pupil) and the Pakistanis (Mawdudi’s compatriots).
One of the worse aspects of Pakistan is their english-speaking, educated elite. These people are living in a fantasy world, in which a “tiny” number of trouble-makers are causing harm. If they had a shred of dignity or compassion they would hunt down the people who just bombed their security service recruits. But no, they will preserve the killers, b/c they can be turned to kill others in the future, to the great delight of these “cosmpolitan” Pakistani scum.
They’ll like us better when they’re ruled by the Chinese.
“But the problem is that if the USA stopped, it would still be blamed for the mayhem that would ensue from inaction.”
Case in point is the lawsuit against the US for not bombing the rail lines to Auschwitz.
You see so much of this attitude every day. People investigating Bigfoot or sea monsters go on TV and demand the “The Pentagon” tell what it knows and Do Something about the monsters. The US Military is so powerful and competent that they must have a monster control division and if not they should.
All over the place, the cops get called for domestic disturbances where the wife wants the police to make her husband quit watching TV and drinking beer and cut the grass. We have even had a case where a woman called 911 because McDonald’s was out of chicken nuggets.
When they had that big power outage in NY City several years back some people called the UN and demanded that they do something.
And of course there is Global Warming, in which the USA is to be responsible for the weather.
liberals invested a lot of hope that obl would kill america.
the rage they feel is real.
@11 oldsj – They’ll like us better when WE’RE rule by the Chinese.
(They’ll like us best when we’re ruled by Islam.)
the pakis are horseless.
American exceptionalism has led to four presidents straight trying to remake the Muslim world.
Exactly how does seeking them to not kill or subvert us make us self centered imperialists? It is the Muslims who claim exceptionalism. They claim an exceptional right to dominate and change everyone else.
In the salons of Park Avenue and the saloons of New York’s Chelsea or Marin CA a new civil war may be fought out. There are those who seek to become the new governing bureaucratic aristocracy in an America modeled after France, these are the American ENArchs. Their opposition in the Democratic Party may be those whose vision of America is modeled on the post Thatcher Guardian image of Britain. The first continues to punch in its own opinion above its weight while the other is determinedly ‘normal’ and seeks to become an inoffensive minor country able to wield only “soft power” but presumably still heeded for the sage advice and moral rectitude that it can display.
Note that neither of these images need be based in reality. It is ony my contention that some self appointed elites in each subscribe to such images and that elements of the Left in America are drawn to these visions.
A rambling and somewhat incoherent meditation on the metaphor of the slave in Islam follows:
Why a slave? Slaves are beaten, broken, and chained. Slaves have no will but their master’s, and can disposed of without thought, without care. Why would a man choose such a heavy burden? Could it be as simple as one binding himself to what he perceives to be the strongest force? Yet the relationship of God to man as master and slave does not seem correct. After all, why should we be able to question and reason if the meaning of our existence is to not exercise those faculties? A slave must not question, but he may be clever in the execution of his assigned task. Bin Laden seems to think that after any deed, no matter how foul, he as a slave can shrug and say, “It was not my will, but my masters” and expiate all guilt. Here I think is the crux of the matter. Islam repeats that God is merciful and beneficent, but seems to lack the concept of an agape love. Islam says come, conquer and humble yourself before God and put on these chains. The Judeo-Christian tradition says come, conquer and humble yourself before God and be his brother. I think its an easy choice.
Jean-Francois Revel said it all in his great book ‘Anti-Americanism’. I highly recommend it.
Don’t blame John Galt
It’s all my fault
Walt
He could not — could never see — America except as a pretender to the throne of Allah, coming to make him their slave. The idea that they cared not a fig for enslaving him would never have occurred to him. Neither would the idea that the sunken state of the Islamic world was their own responsibility have occurred either.
Yes. The idea that we need not be socially linked at all, or that all social links which are repugnant to any party can be severed at will by that party, is a concept that is alien to much of the world. Indeed, it is a concept that perplexes and infuriates the coastal elites of America. But it is a very, very big part of American culture in flyover country.
We don’t wish you harm, but we can’t get along, so we wish to have nothing to do with you. Go away and do not trouble us with your presence again. Most of the world doesn’t seem to understand this concept.
There are some countries which believes that nobody will hate them because they are not the United States. Some Norwegians, for instance, saw themselves as “moral superpower” after the Oslo Agreement. A Wikileaks report quoted the US ambassador as saying they believed they were only slightly threatened by terrorism.
Norway’s prestige took something of a beating when they took over the chairmanship of the Sri Lankan peace process, which you may recall, degenerated into a restart of the war. Some have accused Erik Solheim of emboldening the Tigers to the point where they overreached, leading unintentionally to the destruction of the LTTE.
I do not know what happened in the Sri Lanka case, but in general, one of the most dangerous types of go-betweens are the kind who want “peace at all costs” because they can give each side the impression that concessions are just within reach when in fact they are irreconcilable. Fantasy replaces reality for idealism’s sake. The conference becomes a comedy of errors and when the mistakes are realized the sense of betrayal is worse than if the “peace process” never happened.
The negotiators can console themselves into believing they did their best, and only the unwillingness of warmongers on each side prevented peace. But sometimes they themselves did. The classic example of a peace process based on illusion was Munich. When that collapsed, you had World War 2.
Although it is a bitter argument to make, you can make the case that war sometimes solves things. Thus, “just wars” exist; and they exist precisely because not fighting them would be morally worse. That may seem like a strange proposition to advance, but those who object to it would be the first to claim that the Allies didn’t do enough to save Hitler’s victims. But how were they to solve anyone without employing the cruel instruments of warfare?
Ultimately, even “moral superpowers” must walk in the borrowed light of power. “We are not America, love us.” But if love does not stop the threat, there is still the option of blaming America for not saving them in the first place.
I suspect this blame game is just more Taqiyya to deflect and confuse certain players.
My hunch is that human greed got the upper hand and 0sama was greased with inside help. Hence, the scatter shot killings of Paki military personnel. When the price was right someone/group in Paki military took the money, disclosed 0sama’s location, and ran.
Where it goes from here I don’t know. It’s possible that the spoders might have gotten someone in on money ring but maybe not. Sure, 0bama could add a “few dollars more” for the well time execution of the operation to get him out of a political corner but who knows.
Maybe it was opportune to rub-out a few marginal people who knew something. Maybe it was designed to cover a long standing grudge between two factions with little to do with the raid.
One thing is sure; never take anything the Paki’s do at face value. They are masters of deception.
Meanwhile on the other side of the fence, the sound of smirking and the faint odor of snark.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/ISI-chief-admits-to-intel-failure-offers-to-resign/articleshow/8310115.cms
Hum, the Ajax editor doesn’t work. FF 3.6.16
When i lived in Turkey (by Allah the women are beautiful) it was routinely explained to me by students and Professor Doctors at the Political Science Faculty in Ankara that the CIA was the origin of what was wrong in their part of the world. More than that, i was counseled, even violence and events against the interests of the U.S. were orchestrated by the CIA to make people think that the CIA was not omniscient. I kid you not.
I kept in contact with some influential folks over there for years. When the British Consular offices and the Jewish Community Center were attacked in Istanbul, the President of the University of Istanbul College of Law wrote that it was obviously the work of Jews and the CIA attempting to embarass Muslims (PBUT). the former Director of MIT, the Turkish equivalent of our CIA, opined that it was certainly a joint operation of the Mossad and CIA. He explained that it could not be Arab terrorists because Arabs were too stupid to put together and execute such an operation.
In a letter to the editor, i pointed out that all of the indivituals responsible entered the country legally from Iran with Iranian passports, and exited the country through normal border controls, back into Iran, from which they have never been touched. This was siezed upon as proving that the responsibility was that of Kurds controlled by the CIA and Mossad.
I pointed out that the former Iranian Ambassador to Turkey, Mottaki, had been expelled from Turkey for instigating similar murders. Yes, but he was framed by Jews and Americans, it was written. Later Mottaki returned for a state visit to Turkey as the Iranian Foreign Minister. The papers were full of photos of Mottaki getting the big abrazzo from PM Ergodan.
Eventually, a respected journalist friend of mine, who was imprisoned shortly after, told me that it was objectively understood by the Turkish government that the terrorist event was conducted as an Iranian govenrment operation against jews and the British and that the Turkish government was not going to let that information into the public record.
Apparently Israel and the UK are not going to do it either.
Folks, there is no reasoning with this attitude, not with the Muslims or almost any of the dhimmis that live in Muslim countries. Of course, i do know some fine people, very fine people, in that part of the world who understand very well how things work, but they tend to be remarkable poeple indeed.
typical muslim jihaadi response, killing anybody even other muslims is better than no killing at all.
allah needs to eat, it gets hungry
I thought that American Exceptionalism was first consciously expressed at some ceremony in Europe or England where each nation had some soldiers with their national flag who marched by the host nation’s King, and dipped their flag to the King and/or his flag. My impression is that the group from the US refused to dip their flag because Americans bowed to no-one, especially Kings.
I can’t find any historical references to such an event, but it’s implanted in my mind or my imagination. Has anyone else here heard that story?
The blame America thing is an example of people being upset because America just embarrassed Pakistan. Somehow that embarrassment makes some Pakistanis want to kill other Pakistanis. Less harmfully, other people just generally blame America for existing. That’s entirely their problem and should remain so.
Can we leave Afghanistan now?
What’s the point in remaining? I can’t see one. If the enemy can just as easily operate from Islamabad, Yemen, or Egypt what’s the point of fighting in Afghanistan? It’s just tying down our forces and killing our men. I’m fine with crushing America’s enemies, but I don’t see how it helps to remain in Central Asia when the main problem is the Arab Middle East.
And I just don’t see Afghanistan ever turning out well. Iraq had been a functional country in the past. Afghanistan won’t be one in my lifetime. Why waste our blood and treasure?
Back in the dark ages I remember a time when the coyote eradication program of poisoned bait, and intense hunting had actually but a big dent in their numbers. Then their was an explosion in the rabbit population, you couldn’t drive down the two lane highway without running over them. Of course a virus hit the rabbits and brought the population down. Color me cynical but that is kind of what happens with the tribes along the Silk Route and the Hindu Kusch. They have some good years get overpopulated for what the land and they go raiding their neighbors in the low lands. Eventually the lowlanders will kill off enough of them and get some relief. Now the problem is that the Stan’s are growing poppy (which the Russians hate), have some nukes, and the Chinese are feeling all Mongolian and want to expand into the Stan’s for minerals and strategic locations. If we pull our member out of the porcupine to quickly we run the danger of getting quills in the wedding tackle. The area will always toss up problems but it needs to be bitch slapped a bit more before we leave, in my ill informed opinion.
Lord Acton #20:
Yes, I recommend it as well. The quote on Page 52 from the founder of the French newspaper Le Monde is worth the price of admission all by itself. (Now the rest of you will have to go get the book).
John #28:
I think we did not need to do anything more in Afghanistan than what the Bush Admin acccomplished and it would have been preferable to do far less, such as issue demands to the govt there after 9/11/01 and then blown the place up when they refused to comply (and I mean to use nukes). The evidence is overwhelming that what OBL wanted most was an American invasion of Afghanistan, and no one would benefit more from that than Pakistan. Unfortunately, the current Administration has made Afghanistan a symbol for their own political purposes and getting out now would be seized as proof of our defeat.
“American exceptionalism is the ultimate source of hatred directed towards it. Become unexceptional and the hate goes away.”
False Logic;
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index
Slimy Samantha’s IQ is somewhat short of room temperature. I don’t care how many credentials she has.
Wretchard @ 28 said, “There are some countries which believe that nobody will hate them because they are not the United States”. And one of them is Canada, where I spend my summers.
The snide casual anit-Americanism in Canada is astonishing. In fact, the whole Canadian identity is little more than “We’re not Americans”. They love to preen about how they are the world’s peacekeepers when they are actually 33 in numbers on the UN list.
In the early 2000s, they had a foreign minister who talked about Canada’s “soft power”, but that soft power didn’t do much for a female Canadian journalist who was arrested by the Iranians and beaten to death in prison.
Wretchard also said “…war sometimes solves things”. Yep. Ask Carthage, or the Germans or the Japanese.
“The area will always toss up problems but it needs to be bitch slapped a bit more before we leave, in my ill informed opinion.”
Which is why Predators were invented. Somebody needs to write an Ap for that. When some businessman (or woman) is waiting for the meeting to begin, he/she/confused could log into Predator.com and hunt 3rd world goat herders over his cell phone. Charge a small fee and pay for the Predator.
I argue UAV’s a lot. I just don’t see Congress paying for Cylons. Plus they are very vulnerable to air-to-air. The counter argument which I cannot refute is making a Sport out of hunting 3rd worlders. Have contests and prizes. Create wealth while killing terrorists. Let the Jihadis know that their high point in life will be as a target for American teenagers and see what that does to recruiting. Kill enough of them and Predators.com will have to start an ad campaign to increase the number of target….Um, Terrorists.
They (the world) blame’s America because they have been taught and shown by America’s own Leadership and Cultural elitist that blaming America is what (every) one does… When you blame America you get American empathy followed by accolades and pay off’s this has been happening since JFK but was accelerated under Jimmy the wonder Prez… Now with Jimmy II it is only twice as bad… of course our (US) respect the world over has been overwhelmingly expressed every where our bowing Messiah has gone! I mean you can now proudly say “You Are an American” and Michelle “0” will finally stand right next to you (That is if you’re a self hating Liberal/Progressive or and Rapper that sings of Murder, Stealing and all other law abiding type activities)
Nothing on earth would be more lethal than a United States ruled by islam.
That would be like Rome with atomic weapons.
Wretchard also said “…war sometimes solves things”. Yep. Ask Carthage, or the Germans or the Japanese.
please remember that islam and arabia were shadow collaborators of the nazis during ww2 but somehow managed to escape the “correction” the axis received. in the scheme of things this instance should still be considered the present and should not have been “grandfathered” into the peace agreements as they are still at war with us.
The cruelty and viciousness of the weak of the world is astonishing. We are taught to feel sorry for the weak, and to help them. But the weak should be shunned and avoided, while kept under vigilant observation for the inevitable attack. It’s not an actual fight that the weak actually want; they prefer the anonymous sneak attack.
Look at the similarities between jihadis in the Islamic world, and our inner-city gang-bangers in the US.
Both groups have no real-world skills, and live in devastated communities that they don’t lift a finger to improve, and in fact, actively destroy.
Both are victims of some perceived vast oppression.
Both are condoned by their larger communities.
Both spend most of their effort screaming and threatening and being offended.
Both have charismatic charlatans that energize and provoke the base; jihadis have their imams and radical clerics, inner-city gang-bangers have rappers and Al Sharpton and other “community organizers”.
Both are obsessed with conspiracies and bogey men.
Both have their own type of pop-culture media message; they have the mosque and home-made jihadi videos on the internet, we have Reverend Wright and rap music. Both media share the same general message: “I have been ‘dissed’, so I am going to f*** you up.” It’s like nasty little girls screeching at each other.
It would all be puerile and silly and obnoxious if it weren’t for the fact that, on occasion, one of their wack jobs actually follows through on one of their big boasts in an effort to wrench some “respect”, or to exact revenge for some imagined “diss”. And usually they end up killing their own, because they lack the vision to look outside their own self-created slums.
Islam’s goals have always been to convert or defeat (make into dhimmis) the infidels, and if all else fails, kill them. So, the U.S. is hugely powerful AND they’re all infidels and crusaders? Then defeat them from within. Use our strengths to bring us down, make US serve them. So, why not sell us oil, and also jack up the price whenever you can. And since our culture seems god-less and corrupt, with all that freedom and no submission to allah, use the self hate of our liberal intelligentsia against them, as propaganda.
But they don’t understand that individuals with free minds, who can think for themselves, are the most dangerous weapons ever invented; that’s ultimately why they hate us and fear us, and why it’s all our fault. As Wretched said, since we have the freedom to think and act, but they are just slaves submitting to allah’s will, of course it’s our fault.
Another demonstration that Pakistan, the concept of the nation of Pakistan, is rotten at the core.
For 10 years the people of Pakistan, and more particularly, the commoners who make up her military and police, have borne the brunt of the the poor choices made the by power elites. This corrupt community of interests between the ISI and the Army shows how evil things are in Pakistan. Both the ISI and the Army pursue policies to create unrest in Kashmir and to create so called “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. And at the same time the Army (and Frontier Corps) prosecute combat operations in the tribal areas with the objective of pacifying uncooperative tribes. I.E., tribes who will not bend to the will of the radicals and Taliban. Concurrently, the civilian government sits idly by, incapable of exercising control over the very forces creating instability in Pakistan.
I am bothered that the leadership of the Pakistani Army would rather tolerate the death and injury of their own soldiers, than deal with the ISI. This is not the tradition they were trained into by the British. Somehow, over the years (perhaps because they have not tasted victory in their entire history) they have abandoned their commitment to caring for the lives they are entrusted with. If the Pakistani Army performs poorly, it is because the soldiers know they are nothing more than pawns.
If you can not depend on your soldiers, you will fail. It’s past time that the generals realize they can either be for their soldiers or for their bone headed strategic conception. This is going to end badly for Pakistan. The only thing that matters now is “Who has the keys to the nuclear weapons bunkers?”
jl @ 28: Can we leave Afghanistan now?
well.
at this point, it’s all about saving face.
the net answer is, yes, it’s time to go.
I’m not particularly pleased with how we have conducted events in Afghanistan or Iraq, but I suppose both are qualified successes, get roughly a gentleman’s C as a grade. The lesson: annoy the United States on a single day, and we will come and mess you up for the next ten years.
This is very much how Israel conducted themselves in Lebanon a few years ago. Their warplan wasn’t great, their execution wasn’t great – but they made their point and things have been quiet now for some years.
walt @ 19: now and then I love your stuff, and this little one is great!
t @29: the ecological view of Arab/Islam is even harsher, living in the desert they nearly always have surplus population that may as well be employed in low probability of success jihad, since they’re only going to starve to death otherwise. put that into your moral hookah and smoke it.
Main article: “It quotes the Guardian which accuses Sarah Palin of maintaining that Americans are better than anyone else.”
We’re not?
It reminds me some old comic book char. that got so upset with his teacher that he killed his classmate.
PS. It was long time ago when my son was “in” comic books and I “read” them as well.
edit function doesn’t work for me for some reason: input box is empty, but allows type ins. “Save” and “cancel” buttoned are dimmed and do not work. I cannot kill the edit window either. Have to resort to screen update to get rid of it.
Should I get some s/w? I have w7 laptop.
Wretchard quotes Machiavelli. If Machiavelli were alive today, he’d be quoting Wretchard.
From the link@7:
The United States needs a national strategic narrative……We need a story with a beginning, middle, and projected happy ending that will transcend our political divisions, orient us as a nation, and give us both a common direction and the confidence and commitment to get to our destination.
What is the “narrative?”
In one sentence, the strategic narrative of the United States in
the 21st century is that we want to become the strongest competitor and most influential player in a deeply inter-connected global system, which requires that we invest less in defense and more in sustainable prosperity and the tools of effective global engagement.
What does this mean?
1) From control in a closed system to credible influence in an open system.
2) From containment to sustainment.
3) From deterrence and defense to civilian engagement and competition.
4) From zero sum to positive sum global politics/economics.
5) From national security to national prosperity and security.
What does the new world look like?
A narrative is a story. A national strategic narrative must be a story that all Americans can understand and identify with in their own lives. America’s national story has always see-sawed between exceptionalism and universalism. We think that we are an exceptional nation, but a core part of that exceptionalism is a commitment to universal values – to the equality of all human beings not just within the borders of the United States, but around the world. We should thus embrace the rise of other nations when that rise is powered by expanded prosperity, opportunity,and dignity for their peoples. In such a world we do not need to see ourselves as the automatic leader of any bloc of nations. We should be prepared instead to earn our influence through our ability to compete with other nations, the evident prosperity and wellbeing of our people, and our ability to engage not just with states but with societies in all their richness and complexity. We do not want to be the sole superpower that billions of people around the world have learned to
hate from fear of our military might. We seek instead to be the nation other nations listen to, rely on and emulate out of respect and admiration.
That’s a meatier agenda than R2P.
The agenda is “internationalist” to the core.
The proponents are aligned with George Soros,Maurice Strong et al and their vision, not just for the USA, but for the world.
Socialism does not seem to quite capture the “richness and complexity” of the Internationalist Agenda.
Conservative thinking does not seem particularly well poised to provide an alternative vision competitive in “richness and complexity.”
“I can’t find any historical references to such an event, but it’s implanted in my mind or my imagination. Has anyone else here heard that story?”
Yes, in a book about Patton. Patton was an aide to Pershing, who refused to allow his troops to dip the flag while rendering honors during the victory parade in Paris following WW1.
IIRC, the rest of the story went that a French General standing behind Patton remarked that now there would be war between England and America. Patton, who went to school in France and spoke French as well as any American, turned and told him, ‘we beat them last time, we will beat them next time’ or something like that. America won WW1. Germany quit because they were starving. France and England weren’t starving because America was feeding them.
Also from the link@7:
Moreover, the U.S. is experiencing its latest round of “declinism,” the periodic certainty that we are losing all the things that have made us a great nation. In a National Journal poll conducted in 2010, 47% percent of Americans rated China’s economy as the world’s strongest economy, even though today the U.S. economy is still 2 ½ times larger than the Chinese economy with only 1/6
of the population. Our crumbling roads and bridges reflect a crumbling self-confidence. Our education reformers often seem to despair that we can ever educate new generations effectively for the 21st century economy. Our health care system lags increasingly behind that of other developed nations – even behind British National Health in terms of the respective overall health
of the British and American populations.
Of the four examples of ‘declinism’, education and health care remain unsightly blights on the developmental landscape of this country. Both are in serious trouble. (The Dems get credit for trying on health care – if only they had been able to execute.)
Economic competitiveness and viability I leave as a separate subject that has been rather well deconstructed on this board, leaving me with the impression that resolving the “political differences” may require more than a common “narrative.”
BS on the ‘crumbling roads and bridges.’ The deterioration of physical infrastructure correlates directly with specific urban areas where the tax base emigration left nothing for ‘sustaining’ the facilities. The problem is – as it has always been – human. Except for the pockets, our transport infrastructure is just fine – and our water and sewer is awesome.
I see the edit function is still down.
we are not fighting a – foe – in any sort of- misunderstood – sense
neither us, nor them
we are fighting a fundamental difference – in perception – of life on Earth –
A messy – and not a trivial thing – but as History is our Record – has turned out well enough – so far – more or less –
could be better – yes – but it isn’t – what we got is not bad – keep going.
what we have is momentum -
YBR, the USA could accomplish more by reducing the force of gravity by 40%. Think of the energy savings. Secondary mammalian characteristics will remain firm and perky into their 30′s. Men could wear speedos into their 40′s. Cornflakes won’t get soggy as fast.
Why don’t all you moonbats get started on a campaign to push Congress into passing this legislation. The sooner the better.
OT but for my own interest (and probably of no interest to anyone else) I found the “won’t dip the US flag” event that I believe gave the original meaning to American Exceptionalism. It happened in 1908 at the Summer Olympics in London, England and became part of the U.S. flag code in 1911.
According to Wikipedia – ‘The flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This tradition comes from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American team flag bearer, Ralph Rose, refused in support of an Irish boycott over Great Britain’s refusal to grant Irish independence, and teammate Martin Sheridan is often stated as famously proclaiming that “this flag dips to no earthly king.”[1] This tradition was codified as early as the 1911 U.S. Army drill regulations.[2]‘
Every country at those Olympics, except America, dipped their flag. America was the exception. By now there are 15 million different societal definitions of American Exceptionalism, but I like this one from 1908 best because of the cocky insolence from the new ex-Colonial power amidst a sunset gathering of the old Imperial powers.
stoicheion @46
Just saw your comment but can’t edit mine @51 (Ajax!%*&) to acknowledge it.
W:
“The original American sin lay in its rejection of kings. The root of its feeling of exceptionalism was its pride in the belief in individual human responsibility and freedom. But not everyone shares this belief.”
And even in America, too few are aware of the basis for American exceptionalism. That’s the purpose behind Fundamentals of Liberty (fundamentalsofliberty.com). Most BCers are already aware of the themes, but this website can be a useful resource if you don’t feel like starting from scratch to explain the “fundamentals” to your friends and relatives.
W and 20.Tcobb:
“[bin Laden] could not — could never see — America except as a pretender to the throne of Allah, coming to make him their slave. The idea that they cared not a fig for enslaving him would never have occurred to him.”
“We don’t wish you harm, but we can’t get along, so we wish to have nothing to do with you. Go away and do not trouble us with your presence again. Most of the world doesn’t seem to understand this concept.”
Our current international struggle is similar to the Cold War, which was NOT a contest between 2 powers bent on world domination. Yes, the Soviets wanted to control the world. But America wished for little more than to indulge in sex and drugs and rock & roll. Let this serve as a warning to the Jihadis – threaten our sex, drugs, rock & roll and America “shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe…”
s@50: Work on your reading skills – or not. I don’t care. I do not support the general thrust of the paper from which I quoted.
Testing edit function. Will add second line if it works.
I was also observing that the mysterious poster who comments with machine-gun repetitious meme-like ‘narratives’ is more likely aligned with the internationalist agenda of a George Soros, as well articulated in the paper. If he’s a Turk national, I’m Elizabeth Taylor.
YBR…
I’ve noticed the same.
Cheers.
I suspect that he is ‘global man.’
It’s like “The Day the Mind Stood Still.”
Creepy… all that cant.
46. stoicheion
ALL histories of WWI are warped because the combatants refused to acknowledge Spanish Flu; indeed, that’s how it got its name.
It was Spanish Flu that destroyed the German Army…
And the American Army and the French Army and the British Army….
These horrific loses were attributed to ANYTHING but Spanish Flu.
The Flu killed as many as the WHOLE WAR — and did so in only MONTHS.
Yiikes!
It then went on to destroy Poland, Russia et. al. and be an integral part of the nightmare of the Russian Revolution.
UNTIL the medical story is integrated into the military tale — it is impossible to figure out what happened.
August 8th, 1918 was the “Black Day” of the German Army. It also corresponds to the height of the Spanish Flu.
ENTIRE frontline positions were being wiped out by this flu! The Germans figured that it was biological warfare; especially those boys in the front lines.
No one told the Germans that the Allies were suffering just as badly. ( obviously )
These hideous losses coupled to the Battle at Belleau Wood crushed the morale of the German Army.
Significantly, Adolf Hitler was in the hospital when the flu was at its zenith — in a daze. When he came-to the Great War was over. Hence, his delusion that the German Army was defeated on the home front. He was entirely clueless.
The severity of Spanish Flu cannot be communicated by words. One must live in Hell to understand its scope.
Health in the morning became death in the evening — for the hale and hearty!
My Great-Uncle experienced it and was traumatized for life.
He survived Ground Zero — in Kansas — and had the displeasure of burying his best chums for days and days.
In shear body count, Spanish Flu killed more than the Black Death!
( Just as fast, too! )
The speed of healthy youth to prompt corpse is EXTREMELY shocking. Terrifying, really.
No one knew of Delta-32.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5
My Grand-Uncle surely had a double DNA dose.
( Like many family members — he never seemed to have a sick day in his life. Star Trek, the original series, addressed this twice. )
When we read “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, we say to ourselves that the Grand Inquisitor must be a satire, no one could possibly believe that. When we contemplate the state of the world we wonder if Grand Inquisitor was a mere realist.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html#toc85
Yes! “The Grand Inquisitor”: and the people said, “Make us your slaves, but feed us!” The Inquisitor told Jesus that most people were to small and timid for the “terrible freedom you offered them,” so he and his fellow priests subverted the gospel and replaced it with “miracle, mystery, and authority.”
Simone de Beauvoir addressed a kindred phenomenon in The Second Sex: saying that women cling to our inferior and subordinate status because we wish to be “exempt from the risks and decisions of history-making.”
And another instance: the jailbirds who deliberately re-offend so they can return to the miserable safety of a guaranteed “three hots and a cot.”
This is why the immigration stream is so important — we want those who have that fire for freedom in their blood.