The Inside Job
One of the Taliban’s favorite tactics has long been the “inside attack”, in which the enemy first gains your confidence or pretends to be one of you and then attacks from within. In 2006, a Canadian Civilian-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) officer sat down to talk to villagers “about access to clean water and other basic needs under Canada’s area of responsibility”.
After the soldiers removed their helmets, a common practice and show of respect, Abdul Kareem, a sixteen-year old boy, almost split Greene’s brain in half by hitting him with an axe. Kareem tried to hit again but was instantly shot -and killed- by other members of the platoon. The platoon then came under heavy fire while waiting for a US Army medical evacuation helicopter.
The Canadians had the advantage of combat power, training and goodwill. All of that lost to just one thing: duplicity. The sucker punch is an awesome thing. The inside attack has been widely employed in the past. An Afghan policeman killed 5 British soldiers in 2009. In 2010 a double-agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, blew himself up while attending a meeting inside a CIA installation killing 7 agency personnel. In April 2011, a man wearing an Afghan police uniform shot and killed 2 US trainers. In May 2011, “eight American troops and a U.S. contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at Kabul airport”. These are just a few examples, but there are many, many more.
Bill Roggio reports the Taliban has been ordered by its commanders to focus on “military centers, places of gatherings, airbases, ammunition and logistical military convoys of the foreign invaders in all parts of the country.” Their tactics would include “group and martyrdom seeking attacks,” or suicide attacks and assaults; “group offensives,” or massed assaults; “city attacks,” ambushes, and IED attacks.” Treachery is a favorite tactic of the holy warriors. Two days before September 11, Ahmad Shah Massoud, a US ally in Afghanistan, was killed by suicide bombers posing a Belgian journalists. Where the West sees journalism as freedom, the enemy sees journalism as a weapon. Sometimes literally.
John P. O’Neill was a counter-terrorism expert and the Assistant Director of the FBI until late 2001. He retired from the FBI and was offered the position of director of security at the World Trade Center (WTC). He took the job at the WTC two weeks before 9/11. On September 10, 2001, John O’Neill told two of his friends, “We’re due. And we’re due for something big…. Some things have happened in Afghanistan. [referring to the assassination of Massoud] I don’t like the way things are lining up in Afghanistan…. I sense a shift, and I think things are going to happen… soon.” John O’Neill died on September 11, 2001, when the south tower collapsed.
But then September 11 was itself the prime example of using America’s own resources against itself. All the enemy needed to carry out the attack was hatred, the trusting nature of its enemy and some boxcutters. All that America has learned since is that ordinary obects like boxcutters are dangerous. Maybe that’s the wrong lesson. The enemy advantage is not in material but in they way they see ordinary objects and relationships as opportunities for mayhem.
The effectiveness of the “inside attack” can go beyond tactical tactics to politics. The idea of ‘pretending to be your friend while really being your enemy’ might perfectly describe the role of Pakistan and other US allies. The Economic Times reports that Hillary Clinton has US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not given a clean chit to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) over its alleged complicity in Osama bin Laden’s sheltering in Abbottabad, her spokesman Mark C. Toner told reporters in Washington. That doesn’t matter. America will give Pakistan aid anyway, and Islamabad knew that from the beginning.
Perhaps the best characterization of the advantages of the mindset that produced September 11 and “inside attacks” was a line of script from Apocalypse Now. America is defeated by its “judgment”.
I remember when I was with Special Forces–it seems a thousand centuries ago–we went into a camp to inoculate it. The children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile–a pile of little arms. And I remember…I…I…I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it, I never want to forget. And then I realized–like I was shot…like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, “My God, the genius of that, the genius, the will to do that.”
Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they could stand that–these were not monsters, these were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love–that they had this strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time were able to utilize their primordial i nstincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment–without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.
Now Lee Smith argues that another switcheroo may be in the offing. The Arab Spring may be turning into the “Arab Winter”. With the US seemingly determined to “live in a fantasy world” and take both sides of history, a far more clear-eyed Iran may be preparing to take over the Arab Spring. With Saudi Arabia circling the wagons and the US unwilling to move forcefully against Syria and Iran, Teheran may see an opportunity to forge alliances with Muslim brotherhood factions in countries in upheaval. The first indication something might be in the works was the Fatah-Hamas unity deal brokered in post-Mubarak Egypt, something that would never have happened under Mubarak. Smith writes:
Washington is starting to realize that one of the values of the late Mubarak regime was its implacable hatred of Hamas. Cairo’s present rulers, however, can no longer afford such an ideological luxury … unless Washington antes up. The concern is not that Egypt will jump sides entirely and join the resistance bloc, but rather make trouble by flirting with Iran, like with its decision to end the blockade of Gaza. …
“The fewer Shia there are in the immediate surroundings, and there are virtually none in Egypt and the Palestinian territories, the easier that is to do,” says Kramer. “The Muslim Brotherhood has their usual reservations about Shia, but they’re not anti-Shia like al Qaeda. The landscape of the Middle East is too broken for coalitions to have only the like-minded. If Saudi Arabia and Israel could be in the American circle, the Brotherhood could be in the Iranian crescent. The Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood both have an interest in reconstituting an arc of resistance.”
Outside forces are picking up the pieces of coalitions that America itself is breaking up. Even Israel and Saudi Arabia, who might be allies against Iran in the same way Roosevelt and Stalin joined against Hitler in 1941, are being driven into their separate corners, but in each case away from America. Smith believes that Saudi Arabia will respond to the fall of Mubarak by funding repression all over the region. With the US taxpayer funding “democracy” and while their gas station payments indirectly fund repression in the region it to see which US funded program eventually wins.
In the Arabic-speaking states, there’s also a proposed expansion of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council to include one North African nation, Morocco, and another from the Levant, Jordan (which would gather all of the region’s hereditary rulers—sheikhs and kings and sultans and emirs—under one umbrella). The Arab press is awash with rumors that the GCC’s leading member, Saudi Arabia, has promised Rabat and Amman large influxes of cash so long as they resist Washington’s entreaties to reform—reform that, in the Saudi view, would pave the way for their own demise and eventually the fall of the House of Saud.
With Obama administration openly hostile to Israel, a region split between the GCC and a possible Iran/Muslim Brotherhood could compete for the favors of Hamas and Fatah against Israel. Israel may have not one, but two coalitions ranged against it with Washington on the fence. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Lee Smith suggests that far from regarding the Arab Spring as an enormous opportunity for America, the administration has actually seen it as a giant defeat. The soaring Obama speeches are mere squid tactics to conceal a tremendous sense of loss. “Given the Obama administration’s ambiguous statements regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other regional Islamist movements, it seems Washington is preparing for the likelihood of a region entirely remade in the image of political Islam, its Shia as well as its Sunni versions.”
Even in Libya Russia is looking to beat out the US at the tape when Khadaffy falls. “Russia abandoned one-time ally Moammar Gadhafi and offered Friday to mediate a deal for the Libyan leader to leave the country he has ruled for more than 40 years … With Gadhafi increasingly isolated and NATO jets intensifying their attacks, Russia may also be eyeing Libya’s oil and gas and preparing for the prospect that the lucrative Libyan market will fall into full rebel control … Medvedev said he is sending envoy Mikhail Margelov to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi immediately to start negotiating, and that talks with the Libyan government could take place later.”
Both tactically and politically the “inside attack” remains a potent force. When the enemy cannot get past the defenders of the walls, they simply send agents within and do their work with cash or treachery. It’s worked for the holy warriors before, maybe it can work again.
“No Way In” print edition at Amazon
It isn’t only the Taliban and al Qaeda who are successfully using the tactic of the Inside Attack, it is happening right here, at home.
INSIDER TRAITORS
A man I know, a cheerful man
A man of circumspection
Looked lost in thought and downright glum
At least on first inspection
I asked why he seemed so upset
He shook his head so sadly
And said the world that he once knew
Was doing now so badly
We’re taking sides right now, he said
With all the guys who hate us
Our president is doing all
He can to help deflate us
He’s filled the White House to the brim
With Marxists and Jew haters
I fear the country’s stock is rigged
By these Insider Traitors
Regarding the pile of arms and the use of American values against us, as some have pointed out, if Gandhi had attempted his tactics in the Ukraine, we would have never heard his name since he would have been killed as were Bandera and Rebet,just a dozen years sooner. Morally based resistance and change attempts succeed in moral countries. Believing that the coinage of the phrase “Arab spring” somehow will produce democratic institutions in the mideast is roughly equivalent to expecting pigs to fly after deciding to call their feet wings.
Excellent post. I am a huge fan of pseudo operators/moles/spies as a way to “Find, fix, finish, exploit, analyze,” or “F3EA,” enemy operations. If we want to destroy the shadow governments of the Taliban in Afghanistan, then we need folks performing ‘inside jobs’ for us and at an industrial level. The goal in Afghanistan should be to have an insider or groups of insiders operating in every region. And there should be well managed and highly efficient fusion centers to help in that F3EA process.
Another important aspect of these types of operations is that you need a good census of each region. You need to know who owns what land, what are all the families and their names, who are they related too, etc. An comprehensive census will certainly help make sense of the info gained from ‘insiders’.
Finally, I also really like the Judas Pig concept. Or basically insiders that do not know that they are being used. The Judas Pig concept comes from the act of biologists attaching tracking beacons on female pigs, and then releasing those pigs so that they can track their movements and find other ‘pigs’. So any technologies or methods that would help to set up Judas Taliban in Afghanistan, would be helpful….
Just an example of Islam’s greatest insight, to always take the low road and brag about it. They seem to have no conception of how that looks to anyone in the west.
That quote from Apocalypse Now is of the same type, it dooms the holder to living like a savage or death. But Islam loves death, and loves living like savages. Just so we’re clear. Crystal.
Alexander the Great, when once faced with the intricate–dare I say “oriental”?–Gordian Knot allegedly untied it by slicing through it with his sword. Simple, brutal, effective.
And I’m inclined to think this is how we will ultimately deal with Iran, in particular, and Islam in general. The mullahs, et. al. like offering up their own clever Gordian Knots. However one day, sooner rather than later, we will tire of their puzzles and games, hack through them with our swords, and be done with them once and for all.
I’ll give you three guesses as to what kind of “swords” we’ll use…and two of them don’t count.
Interesting post (though only for those who believe that treachery exists, that evil exists, which probably limits its appeal….).
But it does raise an interesting question: What happens when/if you successfully plant a mole in a very critical yet exposed position, say the leader of an important country? Would that be considered a tremendous coup? Or would the exposed position of said mole essentially neutralize the mole’s value and render the mole worthless?
Further, would that mole only be able to operate successfully by, let’s say, confusing the hell out of everybody while delivering very “tangible” results.
Or by making it seem that the mole was everything to everyone?
Or would it be closer to the truth to say that, in the spirit of “The Purloined Letter,” the mole’s very exposure would shield him from scrutiny?
That because of such “exposure,” the mole simply could not fail?
Alexander the Great, when once faced with the intricate–dare I say “oriental”?–Gordian Knot allegedly untied it by slicing through it with his sword. Simple, brutal, effective.
The sword is in the mind. The clearer the mind, the less the sword must actually be used. In the last 50 years the West has lost sight of its primary interests. It’s no longer fighting its corner, but many corners, which effectively means fighting no corner.
The necessary condition to regaining strategic coherence is to think clearly. Simply lashing out with a physical sword is futile. In fact once clarity is regained it may not be necessary to hit out with a sword at all.
But there is no clarity. Ten years after September 11, there should have been fewer, not more radical Islamic mosques. Instead there may be one on Ground Zero. There should have been less, not more dependence on Middle Eastern oil. There ought to have been less, nor more reliance on Pakistan. Democracy should have spread, not contracted, in the Middle East.
Mention this and you’ll be shown spin, “law enforcement”, drones and engagement. Does that add up to a hill of beans by itself? If not, then maybe the West has only itself to blame. It didn’t want it to add up, because winning is a bad idea. A wholly unworthy one. So it will be no surprise if it doesn’t win. That would be alright if that is really what everyone wanted.
And there’s the rub. Because that’s not quite what politicians sold the public. What did they sell the public? A bunch of talking points which on close examination are nothing at all. The great thing about politically correct speech is that it makes it possible to speak at infinite length without conveying a single idea, or better yet, many ideas all of which are at odds with each other. Modern definition of soaring rhetoric is to be able to be able to utter nonsense plausibly. We live in a world where there are no more “false choices” just irreconcilable contradictions which we must simultaneously accept as true. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
5 MarkJ – Or to turn the tables, it’ll be like in the first Indiana Jones movie, where a black-clad Arab assassin menaces Indie with his dazzling swordwork, only to have the fed-up hero casually pull out his gun and shoot him.
Barry @ 6,
I see we’re both on the same wavelength.
The sword is in the mind. The clearer the mind, the less the sword must actually be used. In the last 50 years the West has lost sight of its primary interests. It’s no longer fighting its corner, but many corners, which effectively means fighting no corner.
Clear, and poetic, but I don’t think realistic.
The West, following Jesus, knows the value of peace and prizes it. We know the value of restraint. We have the strength and luxury of even now, not taking these goat herders very seriously. Will this end the “threat” of Islam? Perhaps not. They seem immune to being shamed with excessive virtue, though no doubt many on our side will insist on continuing to try, right up to the end.
But we’re no angels. If we went on a 30 day jihad and wiped out every suspected Muslim, bulldozed every mosque, burned every koran – we would not live in heavenly peace thereafter. I doubt Islam has any vices we don’t have on our own, just a different mixture.
My complaint isn’t that we haven’t wiped them out, it’s that we should turn up our responses a few degrees and make our points more clearly. I believe that would be sufficient, and would reduce the overall friction over a moderate term. Just make it clear to all in Islam that an indefinite and universal hudna is their best option. And if not – perhaps we should start stockpiling sufficient munitions, logistic and delivery systems to take a more kinetic path.
Our mind is clear, enough. We fight all sides, because that’s our nature. Don’t mess with our nature. We might do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Why exactly did the US enter WWII as we did? To help save the Soviets? Talk about taking all sides.
I think many here do not realize that we (America) are in a corner and it is a tight corner right now, we may be “Fighting” from many corners but our Country is in a corner, economically, Culturally, spiritually many of our strengthens are now weaknesses, there is a very real danger of physical, economical, political ruin, it is very real and very close, I am not saying we (America) can’t turn it around but currently we do not have the Leadership in the White House, Senate or Congress to do it, failure is an option and the button is getting bigger and brighter.
The latest danger to mankind is now the starting pistol. The Daily Mail reports:
This is of a piece with the thinking that boxcutters cause airplane hijackings. You go after the thing, not the person. Maybe you even go after the person, but never the training apparatus or funding that molds and indoctrinates the person. You spend billions of dollars searching millions of passengers for boxcutters and expect it to work. When it doesn’t you are surprised.
There is a similar idea internationally. If you could keep a number of apartments from being built in Jerusalem, if you could give back the Golan Heights to Syria, etc then peace in the Middle East is possible.
In the meantime many countries in the region are going to face a food crisis, which is going to lead to even more unrest. There are no jobs to be had because the regimes are so corrupt. Maniacs are acquiring nuclear weapons. But never no mind. It’s those apartments, those two-bit settlements — it’s them boxcutters that are causing all these problems.
There is something deranged about that kind of thinking. Yet there it is. The phrase the “sword is in the mind” is another way of saying that nothing will do anyone any good until sanity is restored. Once a man is sane he can use a stick of chewing gum to defend himself. As long as he stays crazy not all the weapons and cameras in the world are going to be the slightest help.
People who have truly taken America’s part are often abandoned to the foe in the name of some masochistic desire to punish ourselves and everyone who loves us. We can survive everything except insanity.
Great post W.
Nice capping poem Walt.
“Friend or Foe?” is the first most basic distinction to be made; all else follows from how this is answered. Not sure? Then you can’t do anything, at least in a democracy: “we know that they know that we know that they don’t know…” is way too subtle for a democracy making foreign policy.
It used to be that politics stopped at the border, but since Iraq, it is now acceptable,i.e. mainsteam, to make political alliance with national enemies for partisan political gain. “Why do they hate us?” Bushmcburton. ” We want to be friends” if only those Israelis would cooperate. So the National Will is divided; the one superpower becomes Hamlet, soliloquizing about what is nobler in the mind while the rough beast feeds and grows.
To be or not be eaten, that is the question, and it shouldn’t take another 911 to answer. We have evidence of Iran’s and Pakistan’s role in the twin towers attack. Declare war and annihilate duplicity with firepower, and watch the Arabs line up to sign up to be our friends again.
The British were big on this in Iraq. Don’t wear a helmet, wearing a helmet is adversarial. The Americans alienate the Iraqis with all their gear, especially their helmets. And we know effective the British were in their sector, but they did take off their helmets and don berets to talk to the locals.
Now the Canadians adopt the same posture. Do the Pashtoon locals remove their headgear? I doubt it. It is not local practice, I think, but more a Commonwealth hearts and minds myth.
Now during my time in Afghanistan I never wore a helmet, but at no time was I lulled into a posture that was less than full alert.
If you plan to drink three cups of tea, undo the flap on your pistol holster.
I trust you baby, but cut the cards.
My complaint isn’t that we haven’t wiped them out, it’s that we should turn up our responses a few degrees and make our points more clearly.
For decades the world lived with an Islamic world it could largely ignore. An Islamic world that actually wanted to be like the West. In 1950s Cairo being Western was cool. Movies from the period show women wearing Parisian fashions, not veils.
Then somewhere along the line the West went mad. And of a sudden Islam seemed to be threatening it everywhere. While some military action against terrorism is necessary, wiping out the Islamic world will only occur if we let the politically correct types create a crisis through their fecklessness.
The best way to get back to a world that we knew was possible is to regain civilizational self-confidence. To reach for the stars. To develop new and powerful sources of energy, technology and innovation. In a word, to be all that we can be, in a good, constructive way.
I claim that once we regain ourselves 90% of the problem will simply go away. But until that time, if all we do is look for boxcutters and apologize to those who even their community members don’t take seriously except when under duress, then there is no help for the West.
I caught bits and pieces of the President’s speech at the State Department when I was out driving around. It sounded to me like he said the Palestine nation would have secure borders with Egypt, Jordon, Syria and Israel…and Israel would have a secure border with Palestine. And I thought: hold on. Just Palestine? Because in 1967 Israel had borders with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon — and there was no “Palestine” at the time (the West Bank was run by Jordon). So I wondered: what sort of Israel did he visualize? Would it include the suburbs of Tel Aviv — or just Tel Aviv? And for how long?
President Obama said he’s been reading Thomas Friedman to get “new” insights. He seemed to think it an improvement over what he was reading before (The Left Rev. Wright? Samantha Powers?).
I have not read Friedman in years. Back when I did I found his conclusions counter-sensible. I was going to say counter intuitive but counter intuitive goes against appearance, feeling and unreasoned expectation. Friedman would marshal arguments that pointed to one conclusion but instead reach the same conclusion as Maureen Dowd — who reached hers making no pretense of thinking or investigating at all. Imagine writing on a topic and talking to the experts and synthesizing their arguments but then drawing your conclusions by talking to your friends down at the bar — who feel strongly, know nothing, and are drunk to boot. That, I do believe, is the “Friedman method,” though he probably hangs at nicer bars than I do.
Obama has counterfeit empathy. It’s not real, but he thinks it is. He’s been using it for years and he’s gotten good results on a small stage — skills he could apply on the large stage with the media’s considerable help. But now he gets blindsided because he does not anticipate what effect his words and actions will have on other players. Early on, when he took the money of the Chrysler bondholders (while calling them greedy) and gave it to the UAW, he gave no thought to how this would look to small and medium size businesses. (Uncertainty? No. They were uncertain before the confiscation — certain after). His speech on the Middle East suffered from too much Friedman, too much False Empathy and way too much Academic Leftism — and, of course, pandering to the Arab Wing at the State Department (is there another one?). As a result he got spanked by Prime Minister Netanyahu. The World Wonders.
W:
It’s not just Obama’s empathy that is counterfeit: it’s everything about him. His history, his education, his intellect, his historical knowledge — in short, there is nothing about him that is genuine. He’s the true empty suit. F
I agree that the West has gone mad. I think that the madness started in Europe as a legacy of WWII. Political Correctness started out as a mere symptom of insanity. Now PC has become insanity writ large.
I also agree that it doesn’t have to be this way but if the PC madness continues it will continue its idiot progress slam bang into a world class crisis. My generation grew up with self confidence in our civilization because it was in the very air that we breathed and in our mothers’ milk. Nowadays the atmosphere surrounding young brains is polluted with manufactured guilt, contrived moral equivalence, the substitution of imagined sensitivity to feelings for rational thought and antagonism for the past achievements of the West.
The discouraging part is that I’ve never heard of a bunch of loonies that stumbled upon a truck load of sensible pills. Heck, they probably stopped making sensible pills.
“Declare war and annihilate duplicity with firepower, and watch the Arabs line up to sign up to be our friends again.”
Absolutely. All we need is a leader that won’t compromise. Compromise means both sides lose. Lets go for the win.
The best way to get back to a world that we knew was possible is to regain civilizational self-confidence. To reach for the stars. To develop new and powerful sources of energy, technology and innovation. In a word, to be all that we can be, in a good, constructive way.
Amen.
Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.
Run up the ladder faster than the rungs break.
That’s the western way, and it has served us well.
(Why are there no Muslims in Star Trek? Because it’s about the future.)
But it’s not easy, and the road is never direct, it looks much better in retrospect than it does while we’re slogging.
It’s the curse of success that you lose momentum and indulge in eccentricities. That’s really the evolutionary lesson – nobody knows the straight path, so diversify and hope someone trips across the next great thing. Keep moving, like the metaphor in Annie Hall, don’t let your shark die.
And, we’re doing that, I guess.
Having Obama as president is about as eccentric an idea as one can imagine, is it not? I just hope we learn the right lessons from it.
Meanwhile we fiddle around with social media, and oddly enough, that seems to be the element that Islam has found the most distressing, and who woulda thunk it?
Ratko Mladic’s arrest should have inspired a retrospective of the Clinton policy of the 1990s. Susan Rice says she was deeply affected by the US decision — Clinton and Annan’s — to do nothing in Rwanda.
And well she should have been traumatized. Rwanda led to the War in Congo, which remains to this day the granddaddy of all non-world wars. The bad things that flowed from Rwanda are disasters that keep on disastering. What is ironic is that the policy prescriptions of the Clinton years — Somalia and Blackhawk Down, Rwanda and Kosovo — should be reincarnated as their supposed antithesis in the Obama administration by people who profess themselves horrified by them. Rice, Power and Hillary Clinton seemed determined to achieve something different but they’re employing the same old multilateral, UN-centric and indecisive tactics. The only obviously difference is that while Bill Clinton was merely diplomatically indecisive as a method, Obama is indecisive in both military and diplomatic spheres as a matter of principle.
What Rice and Power get wrong is that it wasn’t the absence of a military component which made the policies of the 1990s wrong. It was the policies themselves. Now they’re going to repeat the same mistakes except this time they’ll do it with a hat tip to “kinetic military events”. They are going to fire a whole lot more ordnance at the same old wrong targets.
The roots of the disasters lay in coalition politics for coalitions’ sake. Who can read the accounts of Rwanda, with its hapless peacekeeping mission standing around while Belgian paratroopers were tortured? Who can revisit the accounts of Blackhawk Down, with the Clinton administration withdrawing the armor support for the rangers because “it might send the wrong message?” and then read about Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon filling in for tanks? Who can forget that the UN Pakistanis and Malaysians had armor in Mogadishu, but not could not move out of their encampments without orders to save men tasked with protecting their supplies? How can anyone not remember how the Mladic and his men actually came for their victims in UN “safe havens”, in UN camps even, sometimes dressed in UN uniforms and using weapons taken from UN peacekeepers to do the dirty?
Why is it so easy to forget that as late 2004, “UN troops carrying side arms were confronted by the general skiing down the piste at Sarajevo’s former Olympic skiing resort but made no move for their guns; skiing behind Mladić were four bodyguards. Despite his Hague warrant, they decided to carry on skiing.”
Why? Why?
Maybe so we can forget that operation in Libya isn’t being carried on under Congressional authorization but a UN Security Council Resolution — for a “no fly zone” and that the War Powers Act does not have to be obeyed. Maybe so we can forget it’s the same old, same old. It is not obvious what Rice, Power and Clinton learned from the trauma of Rwanda. Maybe they are like the Bourbons, who remembered everything and learned nothing.
I repeat myself, but we survive anything except insanity. That we have in spades.
Re. #5. MarkJ
You wish. Before this might happen the country should regain a real sense of war as it occurred after Pearl Harbor, for example. And the powers to be together with Islams’ faithful are successfully doing their best to prevent it. Former are doing this by laying thick nonsense of PC, and the Islams’ practitioners using this are conditioning everyone by everyday “small” outrages (that by itself seems not to trigger an all-out war) but slowly and surely make kidnapping, killing, and intrusive pat-downs at airports to feel as normal everyday life.
“With Obama administration openly hostile to Israel,…”
Absolutely ridiculous statement. Mr.Fernandez, I am deeply shocked to see you buying into such nonsense.
Secondly, If Iran is such a big threat, according to the Israelis, why are Israeli companies still doing business with Iran? I would ask, why is Israel undercutting the sanctions the U.S. has labored to put in place? Evidently, we are supposed to do the heavy lifting, while Israel’s government looks the other way so that its companies can make some money.
“At least 200 companies in Israel maintain extensive trade ties with Iran, in full knowledge of the Israeli government, Israel daily Haaretz reported.”
http://www.iranian.com/main/news/2011/05/28/haaretz-200-israeli-companies-have-indirect-investment-ties-iranian-energy-sector
From the NYT:
Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.
The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?_r=1
Watch Obama take credit for the find and then kill the development. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
Lukoil has been a major investor in Libya for years, and Gazprom once offered to buy all of Libya’s gas output for decades if it could run the LNG shipments across the Med. I don’t think that happened but it’s interesting.
Israel is not perfect. But it’s been told that its borders should be redefined; that it may have to give up its capital; that it may have to admit millions of hostile refugees. That this message should be regarded as hostile by its Prime Minister and be unpopular in most of Israel should be no surprise. And yet it is; not only surprising but ridiculous simply because it is regarded as ridiculous.
Iran is not a threat because Israel regards it as such but because that country has been waging an undeclared war on the United States for decades. It seized a US embassy. It constantly sponsors attacks on US troops in Iraq. It has delared its antipathy to America openly, continuously and constantly. America is the Great Satan. The Great Satan. No I didn’t hear it either.
Yet these “big ticket” items — which should be obvious on the face of them — are not obvious to some. They think with a scale where the gnat counts as much as the camel. The essential is always muddled by some comparatively minor consideration or some remembered grievance and no clear conclusions, except for platitudes, are ever reached. To a simple question: who are America’s enemies and friends in the Middle East the answer of the administration is apparently ‘I don’t know’ or ‘it depends’ or ‘it is different people’.
It could be Iran. It could be Israel. Who knows?
The gnat counts, but not as much as the camel. The British Empire was defective; it oppressed Indians and blacks. But thank God that didn’t stop Roosevelt from joining hands with Churchill against Hitler. Because in the scale of yesteryear, some things were clearly worse than others. But Churchill’s dead. His bust is even gone from the Oval Office and we have Obama instead.
To the question, what is America’s strategy you get the almost pointless reply: “to end the cycle of violence”. The people who think like that are now in charge. We shall see where it goes. But I will predict that it will not go well.
The American Indian story. Brutality went on for hundreds of years. The American settlers worked, and farmed. And, they’d lose their scalps at harvest time.
Over and over this went.
Till the invention of the repeater rifle. I’ll get to that in a minute.
But first, when we built our railway system, the indians came in and stole the overhead wire for their bows.
And, the indians worshipped the buffalo. Buffalo roamed … and fed the indians. Even more than that. Provided fat for oil. Fur for clothes. And, when the repeater rifle came into existence, it didn’t take many disgrunted ranchers … to go in and kill all the buffalo. (Till the only one you saw was on the back of a nickel.)
Same ahead. Food will be increasingly more difficult to get in arid lands. And, the “muslem brotherhood” is watching catastrophe … without a clue! In egypt, they kill bakers, who charge a subsistence amount for the breads they bake. While the thugs go about and force egyptians to pay more for propane. Which is their cooking fuel.
Arab spring, my foot. Plagues! You can defeat them all with plagues! Lack of water. No electricity. And, the waves of births that come out like human fodder.
The MSM isn’t gonna carry enough water in for these lunatics to “coalesce around anything.”
As to the story, above, about vaccinating children against polio. Do you know what happens to these children if they are not vaccinated? Heck, there’s an outbreak of measles in massachusetts. Most of the “victims” chose not to have pediatricians vaccinate their children.
Jesus has nothing to do with this.
“That this message should be regarded as hostile its Prime Minister and unpopular in most of Israel should be no surprise.”
The issue for me was not whether or not Israel thought it hostile, but that YOU think it hostile. All evidence is to the contrary.
Openly hostile to the tune of 3 billion in aid a year? Openly hostile, when we stand alone and veto anything critical of Israel in the UN? Please.
I think it is openly hostile that a foreign leader announces before arriving, what he EXPECTS the U.S. to do or say, and then basically spits in the President’s face, and gets big applause from the Congress and some of our own citizens. Sorry, I do not care for some of Obama’s policies, but I draw the line at some foreign leader deliberately attempting to undercut him on our own soil.
I have no doubt Iran is a threat, therefore it is a bit jarring, don’t you think, to discover that Israeli companies, with full knowledge of the government, are undercutting OUR efforts? Doesn’t that bother you? Isn’t that hostile to us?
W said
” But thank God that didn’t stop Roosevelt from joining hands with Churchill against Hitler”
Roosevelt exacted a price from Churchill
1/ The Lend Lease deal
2/ The demand that England free all its colonies –beginning with India.
Americans-for historical reasons- do not like colonizers–then or now.
3/ Roosevelt joined hands with Stalin–evil incarnate
4/ America threatened England with bankruptcy and ruin if it did not end its colonial conspiracy with Israel and France in the Suez Crisis.
bibi was running his reelection campaign at the expense of American taxpayers in his speech to Congress.
It was the beginning of the of the last act in the Holy Land opera.
The issue will go to the UN in September and Israel will then be doomed to the fate of the old South Africa–by international trade boycotts.
End of Story.
Regarding ” inside jobs” these should be anticipated and prevented.
We do not have a clear mission in AfPak–
We should define a clear strategic intent consistent with American fundamental interests– or get out–fast.
We should look north to Alaska which has the natural resources we need and which we can also sell to the world at a huge profit.
If we stop handouts to Pakistan, Israel, and Egypt then we can invest those $ billions in Alaska with huge returns.
Also the new discoveries of huge shale oil reserves in Texas have increased the world oil reserves by 25% at least.
With oil at $60+ per barrel these oil drills can return a profit in 8 months.
Brent oil is now well over $ 100
America is now focusing upon its own self interest–about time.
Our immigration policy should encourage educated people with marketable and wealth producing skills to come here an renew American enterprise.
Our main national security threat is the state of our domestic economy–that must be our first priority
Thomas Jefferson, stated in 1799 that
“Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto”
Again in 1801 he said
“I deem the essential principles of our government are peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”
Let us get on to securing fundamental American interests and let us start at HOME.
“The issue will go to the UN in September and Israel will then be doomed to the fate of the old South Africa–by international trade boycotts.”
Guess again. China occupies Tibet and Russia Occupies some little pile of dirt and rocks that legally belongs to Georgia. Neither of those nations want the UN to set a precedent that might bite them in a few years. So at least 3 of the permanent members of the UNSC have good reason to veto any resolution on Israel.
I think your anti-Semitism is blinding you to the facts. They are still facts and you choosing not to see them won’t make them go away. The PLO terrorists will do more damage to the UN then Israel. An official boycott will be vetoed, an unofficial one ignored. Who is going to blockade the coast of Israel?
On tghe other end of tghose private free market transactions, hester, is an Iranian anti-war constituency that offers a bit of hope to Israel. If you look into history a bit, you’ll see commerce going on between countries right up to one or the other declares war. And no one can know how many wars happened or didn’t happen over trade restricted or not restricted, except that it’s at or about ALL of them.
The 3 billion is chicken feed –the gov’t flat ‘lost’ –meaning, it cannot account for, 100 billion last fiscal year. We sling billions in the dozens and hundreds at all sorts of things that actually harm us –EPA for example –while the pittance of aid for Israel is in the form of military equipment which the IDF then often adds all sorts of capabilities which redound to us. The place is a patent factory, far ahead of everybody on cybersecurity and (shhh) stuxnet levels of wizardry. We buy into all that with our deal, if you must keep it all hard-nosed.
As far as the personality atmospherics, i for one did not at ALL see what you say you saw on the Netanyahu visit. What you say you saw is what Andrea Mitchell, on the tv set minutes after each meeting, told the anti-Israel faction to say.
Lastly, your words, imho, perfectly exemplify a major theme of the thread, that to a fevered mind a gnat and a camel somehow balance on the scales.
Hester, your name, given your message, is a joke. Right?
@ 30
We dole out more than $ 3 Billion per year to Israel–that gives Americans the right to criticize the current regimes policy particularly as it threatens American interests–according to General Petraeus and many, many others.
The hasbara hacks are trying to push the formula as follows—
Criticism of the current Israeli regime = anti-semitism = Nazi = Holocaust denial = hate crime
Sorry buddy, it aint working, big time.
FM Lieberman has spent a fortune on that PR big fail—a lot of it American taxpayers money
—Enough is Enough of this nonsense.
Benito Lieberman can do what he wants– but not on American taxpayers money.
Where is Benito Lieberman these days?–he is quite as a mouse–wonder why?
18. westerncanadian
“I agree that the West has gone mad. I think that the madness started in Europe as a legacy of WWII. Political Correctness started out as a mere symptom of insanity. Now PC has become insanity writ large.”
Probably the better starting point for Euro madness was the Great Terror and then WWI. Look at the extreme pacifism that allowed the rise of Hitler and his believing he could launch WWII and win it when his adversaries had him outgunned and out tanked.
What we have now is the logical progression of that 1930s delusionary view of human nature. Most of these people cannot tell the difference between their delusionary consensus/mental projection and the real world and most of them would rather die than reject their desperate beliefs, a bit like the European Jews as the Nazis tightened the noose around their intellectual necks.
The sucker punch only works when the blow is decisive and the victim either cannot or chooses not to respond. Retaliation is ineffective if it creates enemies. That truism however does not mean that it is ineffective to destroy the conditions from which enemies arise.
If we really did respond to a Taliban outrage by going into a community and destroying the mosque and compelling all children to receive a tolerant modern education then the triumph of the West and the failure of the Islamists would become clear. We should flood liberated zones first with troops, hundreds of thousands of them, and then with missionaries schoolteachers and social workers. Such a policy would spread progress and like spreading inkblots constrict the realm of ignorance. Over time the benefits of modernity and the costs of Islam would become clear. My expectation is that they would fear the female liberationists more than the soldiers and it would prove a strong incentive for them not to attempt aggression. It would remove the incentive to attempt the sucker punch.
Unfortunately the enemy has been riding the inertia caused by the transfer of wealth to the bankrupt, financially spiritually morally and intellectually, Ummah over the last 75 years. Anything that can remove that artificial condition and restore the true relation between the communities should be attempted.
Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now was wrong. The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis and al-Qaeda, were not attempting to use loving well adjusted men to engage in targeted acts of terror for tactical purposes. They sought to create a new type of man, a monster who would kill on command and wait for the next command impassively. That is why totalitarian societies are different. It is both why they are a threat, they can harness great energies and have no internal moral limits, and why they are doomed to failure. There is a cost to reducing human beings to something else.
The point of terror is that it changes both the target and the actor. Totalitarians seek to widen the pool of responsibility. They claim that this makes them democratic because all are caught up in the struggle to which they surrender their identities.
A good American military officer, unlike Kurtz, attempts the hard job of keeping his troops sane loving fit citizens of the Republic while also molding them into efficient disciplined professional warriors.
v/33, The hasbara hacks are trying to push the formula as follows—
Criticism of the current Israeli regime = anti-semitism = Nazi = Holocaust denial = hate crime
Sorry buddy, it aint working, big time.
LOL –it ain’t working because it doesn’t exist. If it did, you could furnish an example –which you won’t do, because you cannot. In fact, you will ignore my comment, as you always do whenever i call you on any of your preposterous nonsense.
My #29 on the last thread was my elliptical comment on the concern trolls, red herrings, agents provocateur, Lubyanka liaisons and Turkish taffy that are flooding our threads.
Wretchard could you get PJM to remove the subscription pop-up that killed the Ajax editor? Last year you were developing a great suite of user tools that included an Ignore feature. Can that project be revived?
Political correctness is the result of the seed started by the minions of the USSR back in the day. It was intended as a type of virus that would destroy the victim through cultural rather than military means. They took the best aspects of Western culture and used them against it in a very good ju-jitsu fashion. Traditions of tolerance merged with guilt morphed into Intolerance that was unquestionable and that dealt very harshly with heresy.
But like the Berserkers in Fred Saberhagan’s series, they continue to fight a war that ended long ago.
re. #38
You give too much credit to an old USSR apparatchiks. PC appeared there for internal consumption among the least educated communists on the level equivalent to community organazers: certain words and phrases to denigrade designated internal enemies and elevate the party (and oneself within). After awhile it became a long lasting joke within the populace. And only much later they saw that it is working much better abroad among useful idiots.
Hester, you deserve a lot of thanks for your eye-opening investigative journalism on the subject of Israeli perfidy.
You link to an article in an Iranian ex-pat (I assume) journal —
http://www.iranian.com/main/news/2011/05/28/haaretz-200-israeli-companies-have-indirect-investment-ties-iranian-energy-sector
— that references an article in the English version of “Al-Ahram”(!)—
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/13000/World/Region/Haaretz–Israeli-companies-have-indirect-investmen.aspx
— that references the original article from “Haaretz” —
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-apparently-doing-nothing-to-enforce-international-sanctions-on-iran-1.364069
In the original “Haaretz” article, the following appears:
At least 200 international companies operating in Israel maintain extensive trade ties with Iran.
In the article in “Al-Ahram,” this quote is transmuted into:
At least 200 companies in Israel maintain extensive trade ties with Iran….
Shall we play “spot the difference”?
Once again, thanks for your efforts!
wretchard:
Imagine, just imagine, there were an imaginary device that could read the minds of people around you. This device would tell whether someone who seems to be a friend is actually a friend, and it would ferret out so-called “friends” who are actually enemies who plan to stab you in the back.
Although this device is imaginary, the ability to detect true intentions of others is the key to victory. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, victory comes from being able to read the mind of the enemy while hiding one’s intentions from the enemy.
There are very rough methods that can make Taliban-style treachery superfluous. Remember – the Mongols were quite willing to do what was necessary to destroy the Assassins of Alamut.
One effective means to destroy a treacherous conspiracy is to make the enemy suspect its own. For example, the Abu Nidal organization destroyed itself through its sheer paranoia. What if insults between rival factions of the Taliban escalated into a war of mutual extermination?
Perhaps the biggest problem facing us isn’t the treachery of our enemies. Perhaps our biggest problem is that the various factions of the Taliban trust each other so much that they can maintain a united front against us rather than turning on one another first. The glue behind the scenes is the ISI. Why isn’t the ISI in a civil war against itself?
S & T ARE against each other…
Section S = ‘insurgent’ ops = AQ; Taliban; et. al.
Section T= anti-insurgent ops et. al. = cash collector…
T are the players interacting with the West/ CIA et. al.
S are the players interacting with the ‘product’ — aka the threat…
S = strategy team
T = tactics team
War on Terror = cash cow for Islamabad.
Bush = S L O W on the uptake….
Colin Powell & Condi Rice being founts of anti-knowledge; anti-truth…
Buddy,
While I normally agree with the sensible Daniel Larison over at the American Conservative’s Eunomia non-interventionist blog, I remain surprised that he approvingly quotes Matthew Yglesias who says Israel does ‘nothing’ for the U.S. Really, nothing guys?
I agree that Israel is all grown up now and does not need any American taxpayer support to defend itself, particularly not while the U.S. is bleeding out financially. I would end the arms buying subsidies (really for our own MIC, as you point out) save for the publically advertised option of ‘lend-lease’ rearmament (buy now, pay whenever) if it ever gets into an all out slugfest ala 1973 as deterrence.
Still just because Walter Russell Mead says Americans suspect politicians who don’t ‘get Israel’ of not getting God, doesn’t mean we have to swing to the opposite extreme. As an Orthodox Christian, I don’t believe in the Rapture, Dispensationalism, or all the other 19th century heresies (and incidentally, Buddy, you’ll find over at Chicago Boyz evidence that the ‘Prince of Rosh’ interpretation of Ezekiel as Russia invading Israel conveniently sprung up at the time of Anglo-Russian rivalry following the Crimean War). I don’t think the modern secular state of Israel is the fulfillment of all those Biblical prophecies since they’re missing the lion laying down with the lamb parts. But…would I want to be the American leader who presided over a bloody Mideast war or an attempt at a Second Holocaust on Judgement Day? No. Is there any geopolitical benefit for the U.S. in selling Israel down the river? No.
Wretchard is right that the Muslims who matter, the Paks and Saudis plus many Egyptians, will go on hating us all the same.
Is a minority faction among the Israelis preparing for the prospect of a shocking, swift decline in American power by reaching out to the Russians (perhaps offering American taxpayer-funded defense tech?), Indians, Brazilians, Chinese, et al? Yes. Does that mean monetary collapse will lead to military collapse? I don’t know.
I do know sooner or later though there will be an embarassing collision between Washington’s pro-Israel and anti-Russia lobbies. Perle’s statement that Jackson Vanik no longer effectively exists at a pro-Russia event back in April I think was more sign that the two lobbies no longer smoothly overlap as they always did when the Soviets were backing Israel’s military rivals. The Prince of Darkness, of course, has a permanent home in Paris — so perhaps he’s not too representative of the red-blooded Scheunemanns of the Beltway.
As an addendum, I will also add that I only trust the Israelis to protect Christian Holy sites, including those under the stewardship of the Orthodox, whether Greek, Ethiopian, or Russian. Most BCers probably remember when Fatah ‘gunmen’ turned the Church of the Nativity into a pissour and held the Arab Greek monks hostage.
I still say the way to deal with the Arabs is to kick them in the family jewels, hard; wait to see if they get the message, and repeat as needed. Crude but effective.
If they take hostages or attack missions, go Anglo-Saxon on their butt.
This is more or less how we used to deal with them, and it worked. The only thing they’ve ever respected from us is strength.
The other point I’d make is that people who are irreligious keep underestimating the sheer power of religious belief, even when it’s short of fanaticism. It’s deep-rooted, it becomes part of the character structure, and it can give its adherents an almost superhuman ability to dare and endure. And fanaticism is off the charts dangerous.
The Islamic nutters won’t sit down for tea: they have much bigger things on their minds. They don’t give a damn about water supplies, medicine, education, or any of that noise. Which is how that 16-year-old, slave to a demonic cult, can get up and split the brains of a perfectly nice young Canadian man who’s there to help him.
Yes, demonic. You’ll know them by their fruits.
Now during my time in Afghanistan I never wore a helmet, but at no time was I lulled into a posture that was less than full alert.
You must have been extrememly tired by the time you got R&R.
Outreach vs overrun.
…-
“USA/Islam: America Fetes Muslim Civilization”
“In a fresh outreach bid by the Obama administration to the Muslim world, US Secretary of State has launched an exhibition on achievements of the Muslim civilization through ages.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2726711/posts
…-
“Al Qaeda Gunmen Seize Yemeni City”
“Suspected Al Qaeda gunmen have overrun the southern Yemeni city of Zinjibar after heavy clashes with security forces left 16 dead, an official told AFP Sunday.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2726709/posts
“It’s worked for the holy warriors before, maybe it can work again.”
Till they tried it on the Mongols who had less patience and a different approach to weeding it out.
mr x/43, But…would I want to be the American leader who presided over a bloody Mideast war or an attempt at a Second Holocaust on Judgement Day? No. Is there any geopolitical benefit for the U.S. in selling Israel down the river? No.
(ellipse)
Is a minority faction among the Israelis preparing for the prospect of a shocking, swift decline in American power by reaching out to the Russians (perhaps offering American taxpayer-funded defense tech?), Indians, Brazilians, Chinese, et al? Yes. Does that mean monetary collapse will lead to military collapse? I don’t know.
That’s pretty much how i see it too. I can’t get into discussion of Israeli politics –sure the debate there, like the debate here, can be forever mined to support Lord only knows what all ideas.
I DO know that the five years 1975-80 were a disaster for the free world, and they kicked off with the American abandonment of a bleeding friend in the ARVN and the civilians they were trying to protect, followed by the long-playing shark banquet known as ‘the boat people’ while next-door the Cambodians were literally herded into Hell, from which a quarter or a third of them never returned –and the American demoralization known by the prettied-up sobriquet “Vietnam Syndrome”.
X@44
“…I only trust the Israelis to protect Christian Holy sites…”
Should I read that as “…I trust only the Israelis to protect Christian Holy sites…?”
A large part of our problem is that we mirror-image the adversary — we impart our own values on them. “If we believe in unicorns for X and Y reasons, it’s logical that they should, too.” But their brains are wired completely differently than ours. The sum of their cultural history leads them to other conclusions and means. We need to find levers that their culture understands and use those levers mercilessly and ruthlessly.
The most fundamental lever is personal survival. To use that lever, we need to go Roman on them. Clearly demonstrate that there is some crap we simply will not abide.
This really is a battle for civilizational survival. Until the West realizes this, we will continue to shadow-box.
no comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v4OMPhRDIM&feature=related
Some one above madea statement that food is a weapon. I agree I see no reason to feed or provide medicine to enemies, and savages. An example of an enemy would be North Korea, and savages would include Somalia, Iran, and Syria. I am not talking about the individual people as enemies but the Nations as a whole. If the citizens suffer it is the fault of their governments, we do not owe them anything even the ability to live. In places like Afghanistan it is more difficult. Maybe by destroying there cash crop, Opium, every year until they say I quit would help. The money from Opium funds crime, terrorists and the Presidents family. Both Bush and Obama have failed to take the hard(?) step and hit the Opium farmers fields at every opportunity. Why the farms? Because it is the easiest place to find the product. What about the farmers? Give them seed for other crops. What if they don’t like it? Who cares.
Buddy,
Back atch ya!
http://youtu.be/U7EPlqvMAfU
Wretchard #21:
Clinton’s decision – or non-decision – to not intervene in Rwanda was no doubt in part due to his decision to intervene damn near everywhere else. After cutting the DoD overall by almost 50% – which amounted to far more than 50% in some areas – Clinton started the Invasion of The Month Club. A very few years after Bill Clinton took office the downsized US Army reported that it was deployed in 100 countries. The Air Force was flying endless circles over Yugoslavia and Iraq, occasionally attacking Saddam’s forces, reconning Haiti, and sending in teams to destroy former Soviet Republic’s Backfire bombers and the Soviet nuclear testing facilities in Kazakhstan at the request of the local governments. The USN was working in controlling the seas while not trying to either get blown up or shoot back. Meanwhile, we were running out of cruise missiles because Clinton liked shooting them at so many things, African aspirin factories, empty terrorist camps in Afghanistan, Baath Party condos.
And I recall a U.N. official in the mid-90’s decrying the reduction in militaries that had accompanied the end of the Cold War. There was a terrible shortage of troops to intervene everywhere the U.N. thought necessary. Peace had broken out and it was a disaster.
The main reason for our budget deficits is that nothing is impossible for a man in D.C. who does not actually have to do it himself. And no one in D.C. has to do anything themselves.
#36 buddy larsen wrote to Victor,
“In fact, you will ignore my comment, as you always do whenever i call you on any of your preposterous nonsense.”
Yes, Victor is big on invective and small on corroboration. As you may recall, Victor made the claim of having seen ObL’s autopsy results. When I courteously demanded proof, he went off the radar.
The problem for Victor et al is an inability to rationally make an argument. Instead, they regurgitate agitprop.
32. Bob Murphy wrote:
“Hester, your name, given your message, is a joke. Right?”
No joke, Bob.
And just what IS my message, Bob?
Anti-Israel? Wrong, I fervently wish for Israel’s survival and prosperity, just not at our expense.
Anti-Semitic? Too despicable…a charge so misused and overused.
Such typical nonsense. Any criticism of Israel is met with the usual smears. My message is that we give NO country unconditional support and that U.S. interests should always come first. Israel would sell us out in a heartbeat if they thought it in their best interests. I have not forgotten the Lavon Affair, USS Liberty, Selling U.S. technology to our enemies, and Jonathon Pollard.
BiBi’s own words on how easy it is to manipulate the U.S. are on tape. The man is not worthy of the admiration heaped upon him by his ask-no-questions, make no demands, American supporters.
To Israel’s credit, there is more critical thinking and discussion about these issues within Israel’s Knesset than in our own Congress. The spectacle of U.S. Congressmen, slavishly toeing the AIPAC line is disgusting, and how any American can remain undisturbed by that is really scary.
Back to my original point, to characterize President Obama as “hostile” to Israel is pure nonsense. In fact, the facts show the President as having been a very good friend to Israel.
Imagine if 9/11 never happened, either we were a little more serious about airport security in the first place, or al Qaeda just stuck to truck bombs and the like (yes I’m aware there were a number of other airline hijacking plots that were disrupted, and perhaps even some that succeeded).
Saddam Hussein might still be head of Iraq – still with a no-fly zone?? We would never have heard of Afghanistan, never have flown Predators over Pakistan. Probably never taken the initiative to go after al Qaeda for the Cole insident or the embassy bombings or attempt to bomb LAX or the Shoe Bomber or all the other minor incidents.
Well, 9/11 did happen. We’ve spent a lot of money and fired a lot of bullets, and probably killed 250,000 Moslems, maybe a couple of times that. Could have had that same head count for maybe 0.000001% of the expenditure, but I guess the forms must be fulfilled. But I digress.
Is their strategy really working out for them?
@ 56 Allen.
You are misinformed.
1/ I said that the story that OBL had severe renal disease requiring dialysis was a false lead put out by, probably ISI, to throw us off the trail.
Years ago OBL was treated for kidney stones and a minor back injury.
You can read all about this in Peter Bergins book “The Longest War”
Bergin interviewed OBL face to face
http://www.peterbergen.com/articles/details.aspx?id=480
2/ If you do not believe we conducted an autopsy on OBL then you are not only misinformed but you are also naive.
3/ The hasbara strategy of
–criticism of the bibi/lieberman regime = antisemitism = Nazism = Holocaust denial = hate crime
Is well documented by Goldberg here -
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/a-cornucopia-of-hate-mail-obama-and-goldblog-edition/239253/
The habara strategy is a big fail costing many $ millions all wasted
FM lieberman is in charge of it and he has been strangely quite and absent of late
Blast from the Past in #37 rather pointedly took to task those of us who usher these threads into pointless bickering that never moves the needle (clearly they see nothing that bothers them in the topic of the last para of #49, which represents yours truly’s entire ‘argument to self-interest’, meaning argument against interest –the ‘help a friend’ argument –has no chance at all), so i’m gonna quit being a ‘concern troll’ and merely ask hester and victor where, more or less, they come down in the span between the current policies of USA and Achmade Nijad the Iranian?
My thought on my own question:
They will not find a sensible answer, because although the two policies are far apart, there doesn’t seem to be any continuum, and mileposts, where one could place a marker.
Ergo, the two policies seem to be in different systems, on different planets, so to speak.
Ergo, the question, if treated honestly (and that’s a BIG ‘if’ as you will shortly see, if and when they answer), honestly meaning incorporating the fact that mass cannot occupy two spaces at the same time, means, one must pick one policy or the other, or just be noise –which needs no answer as it just wants to hear itself.
We often overlook important fundamentals in the events unfolding on the stage of life. Take a simple sporting event for an illustration. Though tainted of late with pharmacological scandals, professional cycling, as in Tour de France, has an interesting lesson. They ride much of the race side-by-side with their chief rivals, often making polite conversation across language barriers.
Unlike other sports, say football, you don’t get to reach out and touch someone. Deprived of that instant gratification of the primal urge to harm your opponent, they conserve energy for that grueling ascent of the mountain pass where light weight climbers will notch the pace up until others are collapsing over the handlebars.
Islam offers a unique opportunity among the religions and systems of governance. Just get some religious leader to issue a fatwa and you can wreck all kinds of havoc and mischief, especially if the source of the offense happens to be a Jew or some nationality that refuses to countenance the wanton obliteration of Israel.
Some see the unfolding history of mankind as a sort of random walk, governed only by the laws of nature and self-interest on a small or large scale. Others see the inexorable progression of the divine decree of an omnipotent God.
There are no facts that can sway. There is only the resonance in the soul of man that results from understanding of tiny fragments of transcending truth.
What’s the cause of the present turmoil all around this globe? If you only analyze the weapons and strategies of belligerents, you miss most of the calculus.
It is the consummation of the struggle for the soul of man. What is behind the scenes renders irrelevant who has what weapon and what strategy. Of paramount importance is the response of believers to the external stresses. Will they rely on the devices of man, or will they turn to the immutable essence of God?
Don’t fall victim to sloppy thinking. Faith does not mean that you cease human endeavors. David did not lay down and rest when Absalom invaded Jerusalem. He continued to fight the the best of your abilities, deploying a hastily formed spy network to uncover the strategy of Absalom and Ahithophel.
PS, wasn’t it Orwell who used the phrase ”functional equivalent of fascism” to characterize the position of those who in the eleventh hour still refused to recognize and accommodate the new situation that Herr Schiklegruber had in the late 1930s made real?
Something like that is how the question in #60 is not sophistic Manicheanism, but just plain old practical ‘what do we do now?’ planning.
3. Matt
Finally, I also really like the Judas Pig concept. Or basically insiders that do not know that they are being used. The Judas Pig concept comes from the act of biologists attaching tracking beacons on female pigs, and then releasing those pigs so that they can track their movements and find other ‘pigs’. So any technologies or methods that would help to set up Judas Taliban in Afghanistan, would be helpful….
……….
You hear about the taliban executing traitors in waziristan because they believe that the US drone strikes there could only have come because of inside information. That is they believe in inside jobs. They believe their own would kill them just as quickly as their insiders kill the allies.
Maybe there were traitors but more likely there were “female pigs” who performed the same service as Bin Laden’s courier who inadvertently led the US to bin laden.
How quickly the Paki ISI placed Zawahari’s courier in protective custody after bin laden was killed.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-18/news/29556092_1_qaeda-senior-al-bin
The habara strategy is a big fail costing many $ millions all wasted
Because it hasn’t convinced you? Now that’s a darn shame…. A tragedy.
But wait. All those big bucks seem to have convinced Congress, hasn’t it (filthy Jew-loving buggers, eh?)? Taken them all for a ride, right? Down the garden path….
So tell us. Has it been wasted money? Or has the Zionist Entity been getting some bang for its buck? (Keeping in mind, that if Hasbara is effective, it’s merely the worst kind of propaganda, right?)
But wait (again). We all know that Congress doesn’t really represent Americans, right? Of course we do. Or maybe they would if they wouldn’t be so easily be duped by the Jews, taken in by the shysters, deceived by the crafty Zionists.
(Nor does Stephen Harper represent Canadians. Hell no!)
In fact, most Americans seem to have been duped by those low-down, duplicitous, despicable fascists. O! if Americans only knew what you know (and Walt and Mearsheimer, and Juan Cole and Buchanan. And Hester. If they only knew….)
Spread the word, Victor! Shout it from the mountain tops!! You already have an audience of earnest, concerned Americans in Dearborn, in Berkeley, in the universities across this Great nation. Hester, tell them the absolutely right way to appreciate the Zionist State. How it should really be loved, supported, endorsed. Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em about the USS Liberty and how Israel has been subverting US interests from day 1. Explain to them how there is absolutely no benefit for America to support the Zionists. How it is detrimental to American interests. That it is the cause of America’s decline. Show ‘em the love. The tough love, the necessary love, that’s so essential for Israel’s survival.
But do it before it’s too late!! Do it before the 2012 elections. Before the Democratic Party is decimated. Before the President becomes just the merest figment of a sordid, dim memory—better off forgotten, yet cannot be—a political tornado that swept America off its feet and then swept through the American body politic.
Do it quickly. Do it now. Just do it!
“U.S. interests should always come first”
As they do. Your problem is you have a vision of US interests that is skewed from the standard of most Americans.
That is good. The 1st amendment is one of the Constitutions greatest strengths. Or to paraphrase Gen. Patton. ‘If everybody is thinking the same, nobody is thinking’.
The line of thought since about 1958 in America is that having at least 1 Democracy in the ME is America’s foremost interest. ALL other interests are secondary. ALL.
I had good friends on the USS Liberty. I could have been on board myself.
Cowardice asks the question – is it safe?
Vanity asks the question – is it popular?
Expediency asks the question – is it political?
But conscience asks the question – is it right?
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or political; but because it is right.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.
Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 – 1968)
America abandoned the moral principals that made it America back in the 30′s when the Final Solution was allowed to go forth ( yes, I know it wasn’t named that yet). Isreal exists as atonement. WE owe the children and the survivors of the holocaust our support. That is the primary interest in the relationship between Israel and America.
One more quote then a question.
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 – 1968)
You might be correct. Or you might just be anti-semantic. If you are correct, you will have evidence or at least data supporting your position. Where is it?
s/65, if i may, in the interests of fairness and social justice, lend a hand to hester and victor and present, as per your request, some data supporting their position (specifically, hester’s on obama’s results, and victor’s on threat levels).
Wonder how al-Zawaheri is gonna look in that snappy black uniform with the high boots and the collar with the twin silver lightning runes next to the grinning skull?
Buddy #62:
I believe the quote by Orwell in 1940 was approximately, “Pacifists in Great Britain are objectively pro-fascist.” In other words, if they got their way and enough people in GB did not fight the Nazis would win.
This was indeed the basis of the “Peace” movement of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. That two fingered symbol and that little circle with the upside down Y really meant “Submit to Communism.”
I came up with my own symbol. Hold up your middle three fingers, which is the Peace sign with the 1 finger salute through the middle of it, which also makes a “W” and that stands for War.
H@57: BiBi’s own words on how easy it is to manipulate the U.S. are on tape….To Israel’s credit, there is more critical thinking and discussion about these issues within Israel’s Knesset than in our own Congress. The spectacle of U.S. Congressmen, slavishly toeing the AIPAC line is disgusting,…
Overall I’d say there’s a couple of points there – at least one, which is the distinction between process and policy.
Undue influence over Congress members is a problem, whether the subject is energy subsidies or Israel.
Acting on behalf of a long time ally (albeit a difficult one) isn’t – or shouldn’t be – the same as acting as a proxy for foreign agendas. Having mutual enemies is not the same as acting as a single global entity. The argument for greater independence of thought (and I note it’s coming from the younger generations) is not the same as course reversal, but it certainly opens the door to additional possibilities that shake up the status quo, which is sometimes the only thing that can be done (ref the ‘dice throwing’ and ‘swamp cleaning’ in Iraq.)
President Reagan used to tell the story of a young psychiatrist, careworn and exhausted after listening to patient after patient share the troubles of life with him during their sessions, marveling at a much older colleague who saw the same kind of patients and heard the same kind of troubles, yet was sunny and at peace with the world.
“What’s your secret?” asked the young psychiatrist.
“Oh,” said his colleague, “I never listen.”
Andrew Exum, a former US Army officer, an American scholar of the Middle East and a Fellow of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
Exum participated in General Stanley McChrystal’s review of the American strategy in Afghanistan.
Exum makes the point very well—
” Any young scholar who wants to do policy-relevant work on Israel or the Palestinians needs their head examined.
In the discourse, at least, you’re either a gun-toting, jack-booted Zionist pig or an Islamist suicide-bombing anti-Semite.
And sometimes both at the same time.
No thanks.”
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/05/why-blog-avoids-israel-and-palestinians.html
I never listen.
Ah, so that explains it.
File under: “The truth will out.”
ybr/68, i believe that America should enter no alliance that can’t be broken off if the ally comes under attack. Think about it. It’s the only logical position.
Should that ally have built his defense, that is to say, his hope for a defense that deters what his enemy himself promises to be an eliminationist attack against not just his government, not only his nation, but his race itself, around the alliance, well, America’s interests come first, you know.
Call me when it’s over –maybe we can squeeze off one more “Morning in America” before our lease expires.
As a follow-up on the process vs policy distinction, one can tease apart two psychological components to the ‘pressure Israel’ rhetoric.
One is the leaning towards independent thinking, as opposed to the go-along and keep-the-wave-making-to-a-minimum approach (which is not at all psychologically dissimilar to Palin’s ‘competitiveness.’)
The other is the Question Authority directive that seems alive and functional in the younger politically inclined set.
Where it will lead, if anywhere, I don’t know, but the point of this group is missed if they are subsumed under anti-this or pro-that policy rhetoric. (Which is not to excuse the more subtle players emerging onto the scene whose skill at situational transformation might ultimately prove lethal in a world where taking and keeping sides is essential.)
My 4th a last post on this topic. The valiant Subotai is correct.
I didn’t make my point. Maybe the MLK quotes threw everybody off. Support of Israel is a moral imperative. That transcends any political or economic factors. Two things stand out in American exceptionalism. The Constitution and the moral foundation of America.
EVERY time America has strayed from it’s moral foundation, WE have paid the price.
An immoral price is always to high. ALL moral prices are a deal.
None of the evidence I asked for addressed the moral issue of allowing the final solution come to pass at last. Israel isn’t a economic issue or directly a political issue. It IS a moral issue. Do we stand aside and allow the Islamic Fascists to finish what the European fascists started? Remember, those who stand and watch a crime without attempting to stop it are as morally culpable as those committing the time.
Only Amoral people deny that.
So I ask again, where is your evidence that allowing Islomofascists to finish the genocide of the Jews is a moral act.
NOTHING else matters.
Barry Meislin wrote:
“Spread the word, Victor! Shout it from the mountain tops!! You already have an audience of earnest, concerned Americans in Dearborn, in Berkeley, in the universities across this Great nation. Hester, tell them the absolutely right way to appreciate the Zionist State. How it should really be loved, supported, endorsed. Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em about the USS Liberty and how Israel has been subverting US interests from day 1. Explain to them how there is absolutely no benefit for America to support the Zionists. How it is detrimental to American interests. That it is the cause of America’s decline. Show ‘em the love. The tough love, the necessary love, that’s so essential for Israel’s survival.”
Oh . dear. Dearborn? Berkley? You have at least one thing in common with many of the denizens of the those Lefty enclaves. Intolerance for any opposing views.
Post 4.1 ‘time’ should be ‘crime’ Typo. I miss the editor.
s@73: Israel isn’t a economic issue or directly a political issue. It IS a moral issue.
What type of issue was Rwanda?
bl@71 & s@73:
If peace cannot be obtained, and the defense of Israel is a moral imperative, then the country should be moved, lock, stock and barrel.
Victor says: “Exum makes the point very well—…”
He does indeed, Victor. Sad, really. Jeffery Goldberg, who can accurately be described as “pro-Israel” writes of all the hate mail he received:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/05/a-cornucopia-of-hate-mail-obama-and-goldblog-edition/239253/
But times are changing. More and more Americans are seeing the other side of the issues.
There are more dissenting opinions in the newspapers and other media. No amount of ridicule or smearing as anti-Semitic will stop this.
65. stoicheion
“America abandoned the moral principals that made it America back in the 30′s when the Final Solution was allowed to go forth ( yes, I know it wasn’t named that yet).”
That’s WAY too strong a statement.
America, in the thirties, did not have God like power. We did not have a world dominant navy, air force nor the atomic bomb.
Further, the Shoah got rolling, really rolling, only after June 22, 1941. This was at the height of German military power. Simply no one could stop Germany — at that time.
America in no way suffered a lapse in morality.
Zionism existed long before the Shoah. Afterwards, its appeal and practicality to survivors was overwhelming.
Secretary of State, General of the Army George Marshall was so opposed to diplomatic recognition that he quit in protest when Truman overruled the Arabists at State. So, even at its birth, State was political — and not right.
It was Germany that paid serious money — as atonement.
American funding started as private charity — overwhelmingly Jewish Americans. ( Golda Meir, et. al. )
Calling American funding, especially Jewish American funding, ‘atonement’ is bizarre.
78/Hester
Victor says: “Exum makes the point very well—…”
He does indeed, Victor.
There is a profound difference between making a point well, and making a valid, relevant and truthful point. It’s doubtful, however, if you guys, and Exum, will ever figure that out. As Thomas Sowell pointed out, reality is not optional, and the consequences of it cannot be postponed indefinitely. What he chooses to do with his blog will have absolutely no effect on reality.
YBR @ 77 – Yes, that’s the answer. If their neighbors insist on their obliteration, let’s just drive them from their homes! That will teach them a lesson and solve all the problems of the world.
Who do they think they are – to want to live in peace?
66. buddy larsen
After clicking on your hyperlink my return to the BC was redirected to a malware screen!
Evil lurks there.
blert –that was a Bing search page –full of links to news stories about Egypt’s new na*zi party –must’ve been an ad –instapundit has a post up right now warning that pajamas is having trouble with malware ads –anyhoo maybe w is around and can kill the link –this comment will fill out the content anyway –
…like to mention to hester that there’s a whole lot of trends running the wrong way these days, and ask her why on earth anyone would want to augment rather than oppose them.
…and two Rwanda don’t make one Rwanda any better.
Rwanda makes the point about defense criticality in a tribal war situation anyway. And all the bad guys had was edged weapons.
Victor,
No, Victor, I am not misinformed. Progress notes are not autopsy results. Autopsy is postmortem; progress notes, not so much. In your excitement, you erred. I will forgive. Take care.
e@81: Is their strategy really working out for them?
If their neighbors insist on their obliteration, let’s just drive them from their homes! That will teach them a lesson and solve all the problems of the world.
What it would do is completely reconfigure the ME calculus. Not to mention putting the Israel somewhere safe(r).
Ref to stoi@65 who writes: The line of thought since about 1958 in America is that having at least 1 Democracy in the ME is America’s foremost interest. ALL other interests are secondary
That concept needs to be reconsidered. It doesn’t seem to be working.
Wretchard’s point about the absence of “for the duration” constraints on increased security measures that threaten a permanent curtailment of personal liberties is equally applicable to the relevance of the ‘planting democracy’ theory of diplomacy in the ME, which is to say, it hasn’t worked, and we gave the effort a fairly long duration, so are we to assume another 60 years duration may be required before it ‘works?’
Right now the Jewish State is essentially a very expensive outpost of democracy positioned in an implacably hostile environment. The benefits of ‘persevering’ in pursuit of ‘moral obligation’ do not balance against the costs of ‘living in peace’ with neighbors who have no desire to reciprocate. There is no duration in that calculus.
No. I believe that the conflict is being intentionally prolonged to further the interests of various political and financial agent provocateurs. If Israel wishes to continue being a pawn in that game, that is a decision to made by a sovereign state.
As a practical matter, I would not make any adjustments to Israel’s FMF before looking very closely at a few other foreign aid allocations.
“I DO know that the five years 1975-80 were a disaster for the free world, and they kicked off with the American abandonment of a bleeding friend in the ARVN and the civilians they were trying to protect, followed by the long-playing shark banquet known as ‘the boat people’ while next-door the Cambodians were literally herded into Hell, from which a quarter or a third of them never returned –and the American demoralization known by the prettied-up sobriquet “Vietnam Syndrome”.”
Yes. Senor Equis whole point is that we may drawdown with some honor left intact, with the reachable goal of preventing Afghanistan from ever again becoming a base for a major terror attack on the West or anywhere else (that implies working with the Russians, Chinese, et al — and welcoming them in on the Heartland mining and oil and gas).
Or we can continue to waste hundreds if not thousands of fine young men and hundreds of billions more trying to create a respected Afghan central government when this has only existed for less than a generatioon (1950s thru late 60s under the old king) in Afghanistan’s 3,000 year history. And have our Pakistani ‘friends’ keep killing our guys with their IED schools for the Taliban or tell the Paks to go to hell and the next time they blow up Mumbai we’re not going to give a damn if the Indians get medieval on them.
It’s why I’ve named my BC handle in honor of George Kennan, a realist if there ever was one who dealt not only with the smooth, polished representatives of the Third Reich in Berlin but also Stalin’s henchmen intimately and could state that the root cause of Soviet expansionism was as much pyschological/historic as ideological.
“Further, the Shoah got rolling, really rolling, only after June 22, 1941. This was at the height of German military power. Simply no one could stop Germany — at that time.” Yes. Paging Samantha Power, it was only possible to stop the Holocaust faster by allying ourselves with the evil that was Josef Stalin. The Russians tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht and all the Democratic propaganda about the genius of FDR as a wartime leader is secondary to that principal fact.
bl@84: …and two Rwanda don’t make one Rwanda any better.
No, but it brings into question the operational response, just as some commenters are doing.
The violence coming out of Africa is primal. The violence coming out of the ME is layered with a thin veneer of institutionally-imposed restraint – rhetoric confined by an awakening of the power of public information networks.
The number of Muslims (1.2 to 1.5 billion) is almost a hundred times the number of Jews (13+ million) and yet the Jewish state (containing about half that at 7.7 million) was planted in the heart of Muslim territory.
I’m not a big fan of externally-imposed transformations. They generally don’t work that well in the human petri dish.
Tcobb@38
(Feels like not to far off-topic….)
Watched this – http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/oppenheimer/ – on the execrable PBS tonight.
http://www.conservapedia.com/J._Robert_Oppenheimer is an anodyne to the handwringing; thank goodness for Venona. I then watched 1948′s “The Iron Curtain” – the Gouzenko story. It felt like I had just taken a shower.
conservapedia excerpt:
“In June 1997, the KGB museum in Moscow featured an exhibit of ‘leading atomic espionage agents and espionage documents.’ The exhibit featured Oppenheimer’s image, displayed along with a photograph of convicted Soviet atomic spy Klaus Fuchs, and a shot of a Manhattan Project laboratory site. ‘Oppenheimer and other top scientists cooperated with us,’ former KGB official Yuri Kolesnikov told reporter Michael Chapman of Human Events. They weren’t Soviet agents, Kolesnikov said. But they ‘gave us information about the atom bomb,’ first because they were fearful that Hitler might defeat the Soviet Union in World War II and later because ‘Oppenheimer and the other scientists wanted to create a balance of power between the United States, which had the bomb, and the USSR, which didn’t.’ ‘Oppenheimer was not a Soviet agent like Fuchs,’ the museum’s director told Chapman. ‘But, yes, he did cooperate with Soviet intelligence. That’s why his picture is here.’ ”
Funny PBS wouldn’t allude to this exhibit…
DennisC, that’s because PBS is another in a long list of tax-payer funded betrayers of America, with an internationalist POV that governs all their material. Occasionally they get something right, by which I mean “objective / neutral rather than conspicuously doctrinaire.” But that’s usually the result of finding data the truth of which does not negate or weaken their normal editorial slant. Much like Wiki, except that Wiki’s bias is normally evident mainly in subjective-political articles, not so much in, say, chemistry, physics, etc.
Meanwhile, WE really do need to cease pissing away our precious energies on debating the obvious, and spend a little more time on developing creative ways of nudging attitudes and policies toward a greater sanity, with full confidence that this is in fact possible.
Preparedness is one thing – I endorse and encourage all forms. But I have no joy in anticipating and trying to prepare for the troubles toward which our culture is hurtling. Events of the last decades are a blend of many of the insanities at the heart of the run-up to the American Civil war, combined with those leading to WWII. It doesn’t take any prophet to see that we’re blundering steadily to another vast bloodletting, which will result from the adventurist, provocative, delusional, haphazard, and vicious ideologies of those currently yanking on the levers of power, inside the U.S. specifically and the West generally.
Some folks are waking up to the dangers. But it looks like far more than half of the population of the supposed western countries are asleep.
What will it take for them to wake up?
“After the soldiers removed their helmets, a common practice and show of respect”
Well there’s your problem!
Respect humans, not hominoids.
These “sucker punches” are close to home. 0bama commonly employees these “sucker punches” on the taxpayer via is midnight bill signing and his infamous “auto-pen.”
Richard, you are lucky that you are in Oz and don’t have to suffer these “sucker punches” by our deceitful race-bating sorry excuse of a President we call Barky. I’d swap Barky 0bama for John Howard any day.
YBR @ 86 – Yes we can contemplate what it would be like to return to the time before 1948, but alas, what would that avail? It might be of more use to ask the liberals to move to some socialist worker’s paradise rather than remain here to subvert this great land.
Obama suggests a solution with his moral imperative arguments. Just give up now and accept the unfolding disaster of a welfare state with its squalid disaster of an economy. No productivity and prosperity, but everyone with have some fragment of health care.
We’ll no longer be a competent military power, but, hey, health care’s free for all.
Apparently his moral imperative is the tyranny of poverty for all.
The concept that I’m stumbling to enunciate is that the solution is not to give up in the face of pure evil. Not to abdicate the real moral imperative to suppress evil in all forms. What else are we here for?
According to a certain commenter, the US needs to “put American fundamental interests first”, which involves, inter alia,
(i) cutting Israel loose
(ii) preparing for the economic and military threat from China.
Which leads me to wonder, what would I do if I were a Chinese agent? True, my country has made impressive gains, both on its own and through widespread industrial espionage, but how do we progress from here?
Well, I could notice that there is a certain country in the Middle East with a majority Jewish population. This country is a proven technological powerhouse (including military technology), but due to its small size, it needs angel investors. This role is currently played by a certain North-American superpower, but can you imagine what a coup it would be if I could drive a wedge between the two? That would mean that this small country would find it extremely difficult to turn down an offer of cooperation with China. They would get to continue surviving, and China, in return for a modest fraction of its foreign currency exchanges, would immediately gain first-tier technological and military capabilities. Victor-y!
@94. Eternity
Russia is as likely a patron for Israel as China is–perhaps moreso since China is dependent on oil imports (and thus both tied to the ME and interested in lower prices) while Russia is not.
Furthermore, IIRC about half the Jews in Israel are immigrants from the FSU. Many of those still have family contacts left behind, speak Russian at home and not Hebrew, and deal easily with Russians. Now, being of Jewish decent was considered a black stain in Russian society (both Tsarist and later Soviet), to the point that even today attempting to do genealogical research on the Jewishness of one’s relatives there is a good way to no longer get invited over. Still, just like the Germans were responsible for a great deal of the Russian/SU agricultural and industrial technology, their Jews were responsible for a great deal of financial, political and intellectual thought. Those who survived purges are spread throughout Russia–just as they are in America.
Back to the point: what do you want to wager that among those 3 mill+ ex-SU Jews in Israel are more than a few KGB agents or individuals under KGB influence? Now, compare that to the number of likely Chinese agents or sympathizers. One of these is not like the other….
On an eschatological note my own thinking regarding “Rosh”, “Gog and Ma-gog” and all that has evolved further even in the last few years. It is entirely possible that the references to specific peoples are more indicative of areas of modern Turkey. “Gog”, of Gog and Ma-gog, appears strongly to be not a person at all, but a demonic prince–possibly over a specific spiritual/philosophical doctrine. It’s also important to keep some distinctions between prophecy that applies to Tribulation and pre-Tribulation events, and the final act of man’s play, the abortive rebellion against the ruling Christ summarized most clearly at the end of Revelation. In short, Mr. X @43 has a point.
–JC
JC, I have no strong objection to your first paragraph. I chose China as my example due to it being mentioned in the original comment.
Regarding the rest, you have a point, but you very much overestimate the percentage of Israelis who are immigrants from the FSU (mostly Russia).
The vast majority of Israelis are native-born, and at least half are of Mid-Eastern origin. This last fact is conveniently ignored by anti-Semites such as Helen Thomas who want the Jews to “go home” (an age-old demand; apparently “home” is always somewhere else from where they are). So when a certain commenter habitually refers to Israeli Jews as those “Russian settlers/colonists”, not only is he demonstrating his ignorance, but he is echoing anti-Semitic tropes. One suspects that his usage of “Russian” is meant to appeal to our presumed Russo-phobia. (Which has the advantage of dragging Mr X into the Zionist camp
)
(This last paragraph is in no way aimed at JC.)
“Teheran may see an opportunity to forge alliances with Muslim brotherhood factions in countries in upheaval.”
But, but, the Shia and Sunni will never get together to fight a common enemy. All the experts said so.
“…-“USA/Islam: America Fetes Muslim Civilization”“In a fresh outreach bid by the Obama administration to the Muslim world, US Secretary of State has launched an exhibition on achievements of the Muslim civilization through ages.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2726711/posts”
This administration has turned into a shill for Islam (and Socialism, if you take into consideration its approach to Honduras).
It may in fact be easier for Israel to work with China than Russia or America, as there’s none of the Abrahamic baggage (Christianity and Islam) that marks the latter two’s treatment of Jews in general and Israel in particular.
94. Eternity
“Which leads me to wonder, what would I do if I were a Chinese agent”
If you followed Totten’s blog for the past couple years, there were a number of occassions in the comments where it became painfully obvious that Victor is Turkish, though apparently educated in England.
While that does not preclude working for China, it is more likely his interests are tribal – the withdrawal of US power from the Mideast gives the Turks room to expand their influence. They were the last colonial power to dominate the region. They also get annoyed when Congress talks about the Armenians and Kurds.
If you want to see the work of serious Chinese propagandists check the defensetech blog comments.
95. JC in KZ
Agreed China is unlikely as her big oil suppliers are KSA and Iran.
Russia is also unlikely. Historically Russia and the Soviets were massively anti-semitic. In the past 60 years Russia armed Israel’s enemies so they could pursue wars of extermination. And who built Iran’s reactor again?
Israel does sell some drones to Russia, but they also sell to Georgia.
FYI Israel has about 1 million Jews of Russian origin out of a population of 7 million.
America is the most likely nation to ally with Israel based on shared values, similar political systems, and a shared sense of exceptionalism coupled with responsibility to help others. Americans also lack the historical antisemitism of the Europeans and Russians, and get back value from working with Israel on defense technology. Also America has significant political influence (or we did anyway) with the other major players in the mideast. Russia and China do not.
India is also a potential ally, but again has none of the political influence and lacks the ability to project force into the region.
Maybe pajamas writer Charlie Martin will chime in –iirc, he’s a Buddhist Jewish Amerindian (no joke) who has probably looked at Judaism and Buddhism as they vibrate off each other. At first glance, both emphasize the individual responsibility for correct earthly behavior, based on a cluster of commandments that are always no more and no less complex than the individual cognition contemplating them. can’t see any absolute disagreement on how to cooperate with different faiths –no Christian love-conversion trope or suspicion of trope, no Islamic raw emotional tension overt or covert.