The Garden of Remembrance
Many Pakistanis believe that Indian or American agents — not fellow Muslim countrymen — are behind the spate of bombings and attacks it has recently endured, especially the attack on a “highly secured” naval base. It is the latest example of an immutable condition in international politics: It’s Always Americas Fault (IAAF). This is in spite of the fact that the Taliban are desperately waving and saying, “we did it, we did it!”
YouTube Direkt
But who pays attention to what the Taliban says, because IAAF. Taking another example, the circumstances of Osama Bin Laden’s takedown are being being investigated by the UN, not in order to discover why the most wanted terrorist on earth was living a mere half mile from the Pakistani military academy, but to determine whether his human rights were violated by the SEALs. “The UN’s chief human rights official led calls by rights activist organizations … for Washington to explain whether U.S. forces lawfully killed Osama bin Laden.”
Admitting that taking bin Laden alive was “always going to be difficult,” Pillay nevertheless signalled the United States needs to explain more about what happened in the compound.
“This was a complex operation and it would be helpful if we knew the precise facts surrounding his killing,” Pillay said. “The United Nations has consistently emphasized that all counter-terrorism acts must respect international law.”
Amnesty International said it was seeking “greater clarification” about what went on, while New York-based Human Rights Watch said “law enforcement” principles should have applied.
“If he wasn’t shooting at the soldiers, the killing should be investigated,” Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director, said in Bangkok at the launch of a report on Thailand.
Thousands of human rights hours are spent straining at American gnats, with not a glance at the Pakistani camel. Countries invade each other all the time. They perform cross-border snatches all the time. But it’s often only a political problem if America does it. Hanin Ghaddar at Lebanon Now notes that Syria is arresting dissidents in cross-border operations in Lebanon. She writes:
On Thursday, The Syrian Council for Human Rights reported that Shibli al-Ayssami—a leading Syrian opposition member and one of the original founders of the Syrian Baath Party, who escaped Syria when Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970—went missing from Lebanon on Tuesday.
Ayssami’s daughter told NOW Lebanon that he went missing after going on a walk around 4:30 p.m. in Aley. He had arrived in Lebanon on May 19 from the US, where he resides. No one knows where Ayssami is, and all authorities contacted by his family were unable to deliver any information on his whereabouts.
So when will there be a UN probe of Syria? Probably never, because it’s always … you know the rest. Part of the reason for this constant refrain is that America is the most consequential country on earth. IAAF is the flip side of WCAS (Who Cares About Syria) … Who Cares About North Korea … who cares about suicide bombers? That’s only the poor man’s F-16. It isn’t logical but that is the way the press thinks.
As a child in Malate, Manila I grew up on one the great battlegrounds of the Pacific War. Within 3 miles or so of the route I walked to school, nearly 100,000 people had died: more fatalities than at either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Later, through some quirk of fate, I realized that I had also walked hundreds of times past one of the pivotal sites of the War on Terror: the Dona Josefa apartments on Francis Burton Harrison Street, from where al-Qaeda was beginning its preparations for 9/11. It was called Operation Bojinka, and it was a doozy. In some sense, 9/11 started in my old neighborhood. (The Canadian series “Mayday” depicted the attack on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, some fragments of which can be viewed on YouTube starting here. The Mayday footage depicts some locales from “No Way In” BTW, and the reader is invited to list at least two such places if he wishes.)
embedded by Embedded VideoThe Bojinka plot (Arabic: بجنكة; Tagalog: Oplan Bojinka) was a planned large-scale Islamist terrorist attack by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to blow up 12 airliner and their approximately 4,000 passengers as they flew from Asia to the United States. The term can also refer to a combination of plots by Yousef and Mohammed to take place in January 1995, including a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Murad proposed to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia in addition to a plan to bomb multiple airliners, which leads credence that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed evolved this plot into the 9–11 airliner attacks
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That a Third World City on the Malay Barrier has passed through three major historical events: World War 2, the Cold War (the People’s Power Revolution), and the War on Terror should be no surprise. All of us live on the edge of great events; and the major parts are played by those who are commemorated on Memorial Day. But there are other parts too and other histories, now but shadowed. Someday the center of the narrative may move elsewhere, to the Chinese mainland or back to Europe, or even to outer space. For the present, however, Memorial Day commemorates more than the history of a nation. It remembers the history of the recent world.
“No Way In” print edition at Amazon
As you once said, Wretchard, these guys don’t know when to quit. At some point, they’ll cross a line and won’t realize it at the time. But they will have pushed the “American Street” into full-on berserker Jacksonian Mode. That will not be a pleasant thing to behold. And when some dweeb at the UN or Amnesty International prattles about “law enforcement principals,” nobody here will pay the slightest attention.
It is not surprising that the usual international suspects should think “It’s All America’s Fault”. What is disappointing is that the Ruling Clique in the US should agree with them.
It has been argued that the Israelites had to spend 40 years wandering in the wilderness simply so that a whole generation could die off and be replaced by a new generation which had not been corrupted by their elders’ vanity. Of course, the current US Ruling Clique will not have the luxury of 40 years to renew themselves.
Belmont Club compared to most discussion forums is relatively rational. It’s interesting to go to financial forums like Zero Hedge that should be politically neutral and read the utter nonsense that passes for political opinion. Mindless moonbat barking appears to be drowning out all rational debate. The Internet was supposed to provide the alternative to the MSM where rational people could organized themselves and take back government. I fear that the Internet has become so inundated with insipid noise that the MSM with its left wing agenda will reign supreme by default. It appears that we must follow the historical pattern where there is a major war and most of the bad actors and stupid people are killed off. Human beings should be susceptible to reasoned argument but in the end, the argument that ultimately prevails is “Obey me without question or I will kill you!”
I would add to the IAAF, that the muslim world lives in perpetual schizophrenia
they party and pass out treats when the infidel is murdered in mass, but a second later deny a muslim had anything to do with it, then right after saying that they pass out martyr commemoration shirts with the face of the perp.
if I didnt know and understand just how ugly the commandments from mohamid are in the koran, sunnah and hadiths I would be mystified by the irrationality of it all.
in essence they have been raised by a system that constantly dehuminizes people and the human soul tries to escape that condition but islam is a strong evil and is designed to pull people back in or destroy them.
so they instinctually want to deny their co-religionists are the goblins responsible for the horrors being perpetrated, and the islamic goblin side of thier existance wants to celebrate it.
One of the reasons that IAAF is so attractive is that it gives world peaceniks the handle to utopia. If America can be removed from the stage, so the subconscious thinking goes, then history will stop. Great events and conflicts will cease. Take away the driver of current events and the nations will return to making homespun and singing in the villages. The world will return to Eden once again.
It’s easy to see why they might think this. All great events can be linked, given enough hops, back to America. But that is not the same as proving they are caused by America. Great events existed before the United States and they will doubtless exist after it. The world was never an Eden, at least after the Fall.
Every now and again this fact is recognized in the international demands for R2P. When trouble breaks out then It’s Always America’s Responsibility (IAAR) to fix things. They never stop to think that IAAF and IAAR are contradictory notions. But then “think” is not the same as “feel”. The same UN which believes America ought to have Mirandized Osama Bin Laden and which thinks the Death Penalty is barbaric would be the same UN which did nothing in Rwanda and say IAAR, which is another way of saying, It’s Never the UN’s Fault (INUF).
Someone once told me that it is crazier for a sane man to listen to the insane than it is for insane to be insane. So maybe the best policy is to do the right thing and let people “feel” what they want to feel. As to blame and credit, leave it to history.
rumcrook @ 4 said:
“… the muslim world lives in perpetual schizophrenia … they party and pass out treats when the infidel is murdered in mass, but a second later deny a muslim had anything to do with it, then right after saying that they pass out martyr commemoration shirts with the face of the perp.”
Islam is a nasty religion but my own experience has been that Arabs have an amazing contempt for the truth. When an Arab is trying to be courteous, he will always tell you what he thinks you want to hear (the actual truth is irrelevant). It amazes me that the Arab world can function at all given the baseline assumption is that you will always be lied to. I should add that one of the great strengths of Anglo-Saxon culture is the high value that we assign to the truth. It’s no accident that the scientific method has flourished within Anglo-Saxon societies. Also, this is one of the reasons why leftist ideology is such an insidious evil. Leftism is based upon the “big lie” and political correctness. By undermining basic honesty, the Left attacks the very foundation of Anglo-Saxon society.
One of the reasons that IAAF is so attractive is that it gives world peaceniks the handle to utopia. If America can be removed from the stage, so the subconscious thinking goes, then history will stop.
Not necessarily removed, but grasped – that being the point of a handle. It has a name you can take in vain, it has a symbol you can wave or burn. That it is not indeed the unmoved mover or indeed involved in all things earthly doesn’t matter, if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, if you have an idol, good or evil, you appeal to it for all things in the universe, and if that doesn’t work, you wail louder and sacrifice more goats, virgins, or virgin goats, as seasonally available.
Wretchard says “Memorial Day commemorates more than the history of a nation. It remembers the history of the recent world.” And the history of the not so recent world as well, for there will always be soldiers.
THE LEGIONS
Past green trees newly leaved, new green fields on either side, we marched. Distant white farmhouses, distant dogs barking nervously, cloaks against the misty Spring rain, we marched. North Africa the rumor, Zama the town. We didn’t care. We marched. And sang. Sang because we were young, sang because we were immortal, sang because we were Scipio’s boys.
All the silver’s for Centurions
The gold is for Triarii
And all the sweet young women are
For Publius Cornelius
Publius Cornelius Scipio. We would die, and they would call him Scipio Africanus. We marched, to the sea and the waiting ships.
BRADDOCK
The long swells laid many of us low, but finally, blessedly, we reached the bay and the river. Alexandria at last. We formed up on the quay, a bit unsteadily, still weak from the seasickness. Fifers leading, we marched up King Street, past capering boys and waving and cheering men and women. Braddock was but waiting on us, it was said, before pushing off for the great western forests. Fort Pitt was the rumor, and that meant a long campaign for the Forty-fourth Regiment of Foot, but that was all right, we were young and immortal. The long sea voyage and the longer campaign was a hardship on the married men, but for the rest of us women were a luxury of camp. But that was all right too, for we all loved the same woman, and her name was Brown Bess.
THE HITTITES AND THE PHARAOH
In the forest clearing we made camp, fires flaring into light, the smell of bacon on the cool night air. We thought of home, and of the coming days. The Cilician Gates was the rumor, then south along the coast to Aleppo, where was waiting King Muwatalli and the rest of the army. The weather, thanks to Tarhunna the Weather God, has been fair. Crown Prince Hattusili has told us the Pharaoh Ramses has left Damascus and is marching north, that the fight, when it comes, will be a hard one, for the Mizziri are accomplished warriors. We lay on our blankets, and in the growing dark came a voice, singing softly, an army song, a song a man sings when far from home and family, a song that reminds him of why it is he fights, why it is he dies. Welling up from the darkened field, the voices of the Tuhkanti regiment joined the lone voice, singing of home. Across the fields it spread, to the other regiments, sitting in the dark by their dying fires, until the night was filled with the sadness of young men thinking of mothers and sisters, wives and sweethearts, seeing their fathers in the fields, hearing the crickets and the birds and the wind in the plaintive leaves.
Hatti, beautiful Hatti,
Will I see thee once again?
Will I see the morning sun?
Will I see the evening star?
Hatti, beautiful Hatti,
I can see thee now.
The last line trailed away, the last notes faded on the soft evening air, until in the distance, from the direction of the Golden Aspens, another ubati took up the song, and once again the sad voices filled the night.
Hatti,beautiful Hatti,
I can see the fields aglow,
I can see the mountain snow,
I can see thee now.
We sang the final chorus, all of us, the entirety of the Kussara Division, our voices swelling on the final line. I can see thee now. The last sad notes faded into the night, and we rolled ourselves into our blankets and our thoughts, knowing that sleep will make us whole, knowing that tomorrow we’ll be soldiers again.
The coast road to Aleppo was clear, the Mizzri still far to the south. Rumor was if we hurried we would reach Kadesh before the Mizziri. The sea sounded very near at hand, and through a break in the trees we could see a beach.
OKINAWA
Curiously, the beach looked peaceful. Boats coming ashore as if on a summer outing, no machine guns, no mortars, no arty. Equipment rolling off and onto the beach, long files of men trudging up the beach to the exits, not a shot fired. It was surreal. I found the beachmaster, and he stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Okinawa,” he grinned. Inland, clear in the distance, lay a range of hills.
ZAMA
Purple hills shimmered in the heat hazy distance, the day growing hot. The muted sounds of birdsong and insect hum swirled around us. Across the field, drawn up in battle array, waited the Carthaginians. We raised our shields, and at the order, advanced.
Many Pakistanis believe that Indian or American agents — not fellow Muslim countrymen — are behind the spate of bombings and attacks it has recently endured, especially the attack on a “highly secured” naval base. It is the latest example of an immutable condition in international politics: It’s Always Americas Fault (IAAF).
It is unlikely, but perhaps some Pakistanis are motivated by the idea of retribution. If India was responsible for some recent attacks, it could be seen as retribution for the ISI-directed Mumbai Thanksgiving 2008 attack. If the US was responsible for some recent attacks, it could be seen as retribution for the Pakistani government two-timing the US government since 9/11.
The rubes and atheists are emoting America god-like power: a gross violation of the First Commandment.
Like Neolithic primitives, they live the mythic narrative.
Stuffy Renaissance notions of reality, truth and their congruence has hit the reset button.
So now they’re dancing around Gai’a, the mother god; and casting curses against the ‘jinn — aka America and her culture.
It is essential that one acknowledges their lust for the very distant past — since their values/ icons are of the Neolithic.
Hence, animal spirit worship of 25,000 years ago morphs into PETA. Indeed, one is to stop treating domesticated animals as pets; the term is too degrading.
——-
Thusly, we have the symbiosis between islam ( remapped paganism with totalitarianism ) and wiccans ( remapped paganism, old, old school ) and the media ‘priesthood.’ ( remapped paganism — with humanists as God )
All, in their own way, offer the submissive a route to perfection in mortal living. They are all examples of hubris atop the Maslowian pyramid. The aspirants intend to achieve self-actualization by submitting themselves to rote groupthink.
———–
When one guides all via social proof — one is de-humanized; schooled in the manner of fish. Such is islam.
But America is chaos every day.
———–
In medicine, attending physicians are extremely reluctant to admit that their patients might be exhibiting adverse reactions to their medications.
The literature is full of tales; when termination of medications of great scope cause the patient to be discharged from the hospital hale and hearty a mere 48 hours after cessation of therapy!
———–
America should consider the real probability that our financial assistance to Pakistan is the problem.
We are establishing a co-dependent, enabling role in her psychosis.
Islamabad’s disturbing schizophrenia exists exactly to extract our money; which is then turned to harmful ‘investments’ — oriented towards leveraging up our assistance!
We have a war-junky on our hands.
———
Which leads to the harsh conclusion that we need to de-tox Islamabad. The first step is to cut off the money.
Which leads to the harsh conclusion that we need to scale down nation-building in Afghanistan and stop using Pakistan as a supply corridor.
Which means that NATO needs to get out, entirely.
And America needs to stop educating Afghani girls. When adult men cannot read — any attempt to educate the females is a social disaster. That society has positively NO USE for educated women. NONE.
We also need to extract ALL of our female soldiers from the theatre. There existence is a running cultural insult to the Neolithic primitives there. They do live with “The Clan of the Cave Bear” norms. ( Pashtunwali — the way of the Pashtun )
We should also prepare for the collapse of the Islamabad regime — the true master of terrorism.
It needs to be de-coupled from the Commonwealth and isolated as much as possible — rather like the Soviet Bloc.
Without easy transits, the jihadis could not get back to Europe to blow up trains, planes and us.
———-
Even the slow witted types at the NY Times have finally figured out what I’ve posted all so many months ago: fracking works on oil formations, too.
Hence, American oil reserves are now exploding upwards — even on land. Any time one can recover drilling outlays in nine months or less growth will be explosive.
We look back on history with the knowledge that we will soon join it. The sacrifices people made in the past bids us consider whether we could take our present as seriously. In retrospect all legacies seem little things. We walk out into the street, perhaps finger medals in a drawer, we look at the faded pictures and say, “if I could return all this — the street, the freedom, the food in the fridge to give them back their days — would I?”
But then we soon realize that we are in the same position with regard to posterity. What we can give of our lives to our children may seem so little that they will scarce realize what it is. And that is because we will be in the air. In where the mailbox is, or what the law says and where the gravestone lies.
And only then will we realize how great was our grandparents love. They gave without knowing what we would receive, as we must give without knowing what our children shall cherish. No thanks were needed, or ever sought. And we give back our love whether they hear us or not.
Eggplant #6:
One of the greatest and perhaps the simplest reason we should be on the side of Israel is that, unlike their adversaries, you can actually talk to the Israelis and reach agreements with them.
Arab Spring it may be, but a characteristic of totalitarian regimes is that they go through purges periodically. Stalin comes in and Trotsky is denounced. Kruscheve comes in and Stalin is denounced. Until finally Gorbachev comes in and all previous leaders are denounced until Yeltsin comes in and Gorbachev is denounced as stupid. And Putin comes in and Yeltsin and Gorbachev are both denounced, and so forth.
This is part of a process where they absolve themselves of their massive crimes. They lack religion so they cry “The Devil, uh, I mean, the former premier made us do it! It’s not our fault!” The process among the Arabs and Islamic states is even less definitive.
The same thing happens here, but it is “The Great Leap Forward, uh, I mean The Community Reinvestment Act, failed due to unforeseen problems. But it’s the System that is at fault. If we revise Fannie and Freddie, that’ll fix it, oh yest it will.” But at least at the root of that response there is an admission of error and of needed correction, even if they are in fact merely iterating a silk purse into a sow’s ear.
Communists or Islamists, the answer is always “They made us do it! It’s not ur fault.” Or else it’s the old favorite “A CIA/Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Plot!”
blert @ 10:Which leads to the harsh conclusion that we need to de-tox Islamabad. The first step is to cut off the money.
Which leads to the harsh conclusion that we need to scale down nation-building in Afghanistan and stop using Pakistan as a supply corridor.
Which means that NATO needs to get out, entirely.
And America needs to stop educating Afghani girls. When adult men cannot read — any attempt to educate the females is a social disaster. That society has positively NO USE for educated women. NONE.
We also need to extract ALL of our female soldiers from the theatre. There existence is a running cultural insult to the Neolithic primitives there. They do live with “The Clan of the Cave Bear” norms. ( Pashtunwali — the way of the Pashtun )
We should also prepare for the collapse of the Islamabad regime — the true master of terrorism.
It needs to be de-coupled from the Commonwealth and isolated as much as possible — rather like the Soviet Bloc.
Without easy transits, the jihadis could not get back to Europe to blow up trains, planes and us.
Well they call it ISLAMABAD, so maybe that was our first hint???
But even if we agree with your main point, does it follow that we should stop disrupting things by educating females and sending ours there to insult their sensibilities? That we should stop using Pakistan as a corridor, as opposed to seizing a 100-mile wide corridor and settling it western-style? That we should stop nation-building, as opposed to being 50x more aggressive about it?
Was reading some article this morning about how Pakistani public is becoming disgusted with their military, it is starting to dawn on the populace that the scare-mongering about India amounts to nothing, India has ten times their economy and hardly even cares about Pakistan as a threat, military or economic, compared to China.
So, if Islamabad (after Riyadh) is the real center of terrorism, just maybe, as wretchard is always looking for some way the west could support the Arab Spring and help them spring (!) in the right direction, maybe the semi-westernized elements in Pakistan could be coopted rather than fought? Probably not, all factions are too much of a mess to know their own self-interests, but hey every problem is an opportunity, just some opportunities are too big for their own good.
It’s Memorial Day, and the topic is rememberance. What does Pakistan as a nation have to remember fondly – the British Raj? Their own submission to Islam a thousand years earlier? Both have them more as victims than victors. Have they ever won so much as an international cricket match? No wonder they cannot imagine themselves as primary actors.
RWE @ 12 said:
“One of the greatest and perhaps the simplest reason we should be on the side of Israel is that, unlike their adversaries, you can actually talk to the Israelis and reach agreements with them.”
Ashkenazi Jewish culture isn’t that different from Anglo-Saxon culture. We have the same values and often times speak the same language as the Ashkenazi Jews . If the Arabs want more equal treatment from the Anglo-Saxon world then the first thing the Arabs should do is learn basic honesty.
Changing gears…. We, the United States and western civilization are on the front end of some major hurt. Our economy is falling apart at the seems and the whole socialist/welfare state is just about to implode. Much of this has been due to basic issues like too many people chasing after too few natural resources and an aging population due to the baby boom. However a main driver behind this upcoming crisis has been a loss of basic honesty. Thirty years ago, the U.S. President should have made a televised speech before Congress where he plainly said that our economic system was unsustainable and we needed to make a major course correction while our economy was still strong. Of course the MSM and demagogues would have cut such an honest President to pieces. Only after we’ve hit the windshield and it’s plain to everyone that we’re in deep trouble, that future President (not Obama) will be able to make the honest speech and begin the process of economic revival. Perhaps the Presidential oath should be revised such that the first sentence is: “I swear by my holy honor that I will never lie to the American people. If circumstance requires that I tell a lie or say nothing, I swear to speak the truth or remain silent.”
RWE @ 12
Interesting post.
I am afraid the US has entered the period of decline where each succeeding emperor defaces the names of the previous emperors on all of the monuments.
Also maybe the IAAF is because America is basically the only country that will pay… another reason is because We (America) will prosecute our own and punish much harder in our criminal system than most other countries would do to their local “Hero’s”. Like with DSK, America is where the unthinkable can happen, you just have to be the squeakiest wheel to get heard and then there is a very great possibility you will get from America what you seek…
NATO ” boots on the ground ” in Libya—-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/western-troops-on-ground-libya
Here we go again–I hope we have a clear strategic intent and a definition of what winning looks like.
“Carthago delenda est”
Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields
In 1855 Lord Macaulay, writing about the site of the Battle of Landen (in modern Belgium, not far from Ypres) in 1693, wrote-
“The next summer the soil, fertilized by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies.
The traveler who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished,
-that the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to cover the slain.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae
blert 10,
Your premises while valid do not neccesarily support your conclusions. Why play the dhimmi by accepting islamic threats as a reason not to educate girls? We should threaten the foundations of their culture. We should drop Lady Gaga DVDs on Pakistani villages by the planeload.
What I really found interesting about the Bojinka operation was the sheer uninhibited evil of its plan. Consider: kill the Pope, crash 12 airliners, fly into buildings, kill 4,000 people and test bombs by blowing innocent Japanese in half. These guys are comic-book villains. Mwah-ha-ha. If you invented them for fiction, they’d be over the top.
And yet, they were real villains and the first thing they did after being caught or run down was to say, “I want my human rights! How dare you insult my beliefs”. With a straight face. I mean is that funny or what? When the hijackers of Flight 93 were fighting off the passengers they recited the takbir, “Allāhu Akbar”.
It takes a lot of confidence and self-belief to walk up to a civilization and say, “I’m going to kill you and you had better not insult me by objecting.” I don’t mind that too much, because what else would you expects villains to say. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
What is really objectionable is when the people who are supposed to protect you agree. Sure they deserve their human rights. I’m from the UN and I’ll see that they get them. How dare she? How dare she? And why would anyone say the takbir, why it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Out of pure respect that kind of statement should be avoided. When leaders say things like that, then you know you’re in trouble.
It is unreasonable to expect mercy or consideration from a self-sworn enemy. But the onus of believing you deserve to live should fall squarely on those who pretend to lead the West. It’s their job isn’t it? Or maybe not.
Victor, Modern weapon systems require support. Those Apache and Tigers need guys and gals to load the rockets, missiles and bullets on the AH. Fuel them up, keep the engine running and the radios radioing. The support personal need support too. Cooks, bakers, commanders to give them orders. IIRC, it take 100 to 120 men to support 1 AH.
I haven’t seen a TO&E since the early 80′s and things change. Back then 16 AH’s were a regiment. Plus 6 Scout choppers and 8 utility aircraft. UH-1′s at the time. UH-60′ were still not everywhere. The Air Regiment had a ration count of 1800 people. Or so. Things in the real world are never as tidy as they are at the Pentagon. Or the White House. So if NATO is going to operate Attack Helicopters (AH’s) they need support. That means boots on the ground.
I’m surprised NATO didn’t base their AH’s off a LHD. That is what the LHD was designed for. That would have been an interesting conference. If they still do it the same way, the Navy is in it’s last Quarter of the Fiscal Year. That means budgets are tight and careers depend on making it through on what is left. AH’s are expensive. Both to own and operate. They suck JP-5 through a fire hose (not really, it just seems like it). Worth it. An Apache is a serious big time killing machine. 4 on each side of the road and the terrs can just drive over to the Ducks house and Chicago 9 him. Anybody gets in the way and the AH kills them. End of story.
As far as the USA getting blamed for whatever, that’s kewl. It is better to be blamed by folks for what is being done to them then to be blaming other folks for what is being done to you. Would you rather be hearing Paki’s whine about drones chasing their leaders around or whining about ISI drones chasing Cabinet members around Potomac and Bethesda? I thought so.
“But the onus of believing you deserve to live should fall squarely on those who pretend to lead the West. It’s their job isn’t it? Or maybe not.”
No, it isn’t their job. They’ve resigned. It’s the job of the rest of us.
And Wretchard, I never knew of Rizal’s poetry until now. Thanks. Good stuff.
20. stoicheion
Thanks for the great insight.
The question still is in Libya and elsewhere –how does it end and how do we–America- win?
For the Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Binyon
Stoicheion @ 20: “Would you rather be hearing Paki’s whine about drones chasing their leaders around or whining about ISI drones chasing Cabinet members around Potomac and Bethesda?”
Those ISI drones don’t sound too bad to me. But we should not have to rely on Pakistan to take care of a problem that we created. The American people have allowed a Political Clique to grab control of our lives and pervert our institutions. Our bad! We need to fix it.
“It’s Always Americas Fault (IAAF)”
The American version is “Tax the Rich!”
“The question still is in Libya and elsewhere –how does it end and how do we–America- win?”
It never ends. History is and endless chain of self forging links. The current Lybian link ends when the Duck of Death dies. You liberals want to see events as discrete with only a vague connection at best. The Libya-USA connection isn’t very strong but it is there. “Millions for defence, not a penny for tribute.”
Things change. Among them is the tribute budget, which has bloomed into the billions. What happens there (in Libya) will affect a few Americans but not America. Flight 103 killed less Americans then the weather last week. Look it up. So terrorism sponsored by the Duck is a personal thangie, not a national one.
On the average about 1,000 Americans die every week on the highway and byways of our fair nation. The Total for 10 years of the War on Terror is about 9,000 lives lost. Or 2 months of driving carnage. Yet you don’t see anyone declaring war on driving. I wonder why?
The whole issue of trade needs to be examined and debated;
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/05/31/what_must_we_defend_110033.html
It is an old military axiom that ‘he who defends everywhere defends nowhere’.
America is at a spot on our chain of history where we can no longer afford everything.
We need a national dialogue on what to spend on what. Hopefully, Congress will not extend the debt ceiling and force that dialogue to start.
By whining whatever the USA does, the 3rd world forfeits any right to be listened to in any future debate. Or at least the whinny ones do.
w@19:
What I really found interesting about the Bojinka operation was the sheer uninhibited evil of its plan.
The Bojinka videos are very sobering. The strange callousness of the main terrorist contained echoes of the IRA. I wonder if Ramzi Yousef had spent time with them, or if one terrorist is simply like another? Peas from the same satanic pod.
The attitude “It’s Always America’s Fault” is inherently polytheistic. Why? It ascribes powers to the United States that, according to Islam, ought to be ascribed only to Allah.
The United States is powerful, but it is not a deity and should not be treated as such. This leads me to wonder if it isn’t Islam that is the problem, but rather power worship, of which most of Islam may seemingly be a subset. Power worshippers feel they must either worship and obey the world’s greatest power as their god’s vicar, or destroy the world’s greatest power because it does not obey their deity (or a sock puppet for their subconscious whims).
If America can be removed from the stage, so the subconscious thinking goes, then history will stop.
Adolf Hitler thought something very similar about Jews. Likewise, anti-Jews regularly ascribed godlike powers to Jews, as if any group of human beings could be capable of doing all that anti-Jews attributed to Jews.
egg/14, re ”loss of basic honesty”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mqSXsNJzRM
mind-blowing. adults, the leaders of the nation.
***
w/11, here’s Guantanamera –the music of your namesake Jose (Joselito) Fernandez, lyrics of José Marti, Cuban freedom fighter, writer and poet killed in 1895 in the war of independence –here’s Celia Cruz saying, nothing can get you down while you Samba!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0rKmv-0Iw&feature=related
Wretchard wrote, “What is really objectionable is when the people who are supposed to protect you agree. Sure they deserve their human rights. I’m from the UN and I’ll see that they get them. How dare she? How dare she? And why would anyone say the takbir, why it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Out of pure respect that kind of statement should be avoided. When leaders say things like that, then you know you’re in trouble.
It is unreasonable to expect mercy or consideration from a self-sworn enemy. But the onus of believing you deserve to live should fall squarely on those who pretend to lead the West. It’s their job isn’t it? Or maybe not.”
Ignominious wrote, “As you once said, Wretchard, these guys don’t know when to quit. At some point, they’ll cross a line and won’t realize it at the time. But they will have pushed the “American Street” into full-on berserker Jacksonian Mode. That will not be a pleasant thing to behold. And when some dweeb at the UN or Amnesty International prattles about “law enforcement principals,” nobody here will pay the slightest attention.”
Well, I worry that the former American pioneer spirit has been eroded so badly that it may not be capable of the “full-on berserker” mode any more. Sixty years of amazing prosperity and three generations of deconstructionism and relativism has weakened us. The President says things that were unthinkable a few decades ago, and is applauded for it by the MSM. Drenched in the erosion of our core values, the young of today are, with the exception of those who join the military, generally agree with the MSM and its comic variants such as Jon Stewart.
If World War I was won “On the Playing Fields of Eaton,” who will win for us when children are not allowed to play dodge ball or tag on our playgrounds?
My medical students are embarrassingly ignorant of history and know next to nothing about philosophy. They can memorize and have superb technical knowledge but their critical thinking is riddled with the deconstructionism that has saturated our elementary schools, our high schools, and our universities for the past 40 years, if not longer.
When the s*** hits the fan and the economy collapses; when the price of oil goes through the roof; when retirement savings disappear; when medical care becomes scarce; I fear that the American public will not become more toughened but will, instead, turn European and beg for government alms.
Bacterial infection is usually fended off by a robust immune system; same with most viral infections; and some theorize that cellular mutations that might take hold as cancers are destroyed many times over by strong white blood cells and other immune mechanisms. It is only when the invader is extremely robust, or when the host is not prepared, or when the host is made feeble by some other condition, that severe illness and death ensue.
During most of the twentieth century America was strong enough — economically and in the spirit of its people — to withstand attacks, regroup, and fight the “invaders.” (please, it is a metaphor) We still have powerful military hardware and a superb but small fighting force. Our economy is still dominant but is in decline and weakening. And our national spirit is certainly not getting stronger despite the growing consciousness of those who visit this site.
Dominent nations are strong until they are not. The Hapsburg’s were strong until they collapsed. The Shah was strong until he wasn’t. The Ottoman Empire was strong until it was not. Whither America my friends? Whither America?
Alexis@28:
“It’s always Americas fault” is an attitude that is spread far beyond Islam. IAAF is is a basic belief of ‘progressives’ world wide, including ‘progressives’ in Canada and the U.S. To these people America is bad, period. They couldn’t live without that belief and it is one of the things that defines them as a person. On the one hand they despise America but I swear that if you brought an inflatable American into the same room they would pee their pants in fear.
Never mind IAAF, America has to focus on the donut instead of the hole. We all know that the problem is a lot of stuff has gone wrong. How to fix that is the main job, not worrying about insults from a bunch of people who long for America to fail. It’s time to put points on the scoreboard not yap at the opposing team.
b/30, re your middle passages:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/121566/
“Now, I ask you in all soberness if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this government into a government of some other form.”
The Obama Administration.
…-
“Barack Obama’s decision to play golf on Memorial Day was disrespectful and hardly presidential”
“The (UK) Telegraph ^ | May 31st, 2011 | Nile Gardiner”
“Can you imagine David Cameron enjoying a round of golf on Remembrance Sunday? It would be inconceivable for the British Prime Minister to do so, and not just because of the usually dire weather at that time of the year. Above all, it would be viewed as an act of extremely bad taste on a day when the nation remembers and mourns her war dead. I can’t imagine the PM even considering it, and I’m sure his advisers would be horrified at the idea. And if the prime minister ever did play golf on such a sacrosanct day he would be given a massive drubbing by the British press, and it would never be repeated.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2727479/posts
…-
“Bidens holiday in Hamptons (at the home of gay, bisexual, transgender-rights activist)”
“Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, spent Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons at the home of Internet pioneer and gay, bisexual and transgender-rights activist David Bohnett. The Bidens stayed at Bohnett’s sprawling Southampton estate and were seen lunching at popular 75 Main on Saturday before a relaxed veep happily accompanied his wife as she browsed at Alice & Olivia and Calypso.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2727473/posts
W says “It is the latest example of an immutable condition in international politics: It’s Always Americas Fault (IAAF).”
Is this condition related to the immutable condition in domestic U.S. politics: IABF …….. It’s Always Bush’s Fault?
RWE #12 says”Arab Spring it may be, but a characteristic of totalitarian regimes is that they go through purges periodically. Stalin comes in and Trotsky is denounced. Kruscheve comes in and Stalin is denounced. Until finally Gorbachev comes in and all previous leaders are denounced until Yeltsin comes in and Gorbachev is denounced as stupid. And Putin comes in and Yeltsin and Gorbachev are both denounced, and so forth.”
Totalitarian Regime……… and Obama comes in and Bush is denounced and so forth.
W: “It is the latest example of an immutable condition in international politics: It’s Always Americas Fault (IAAF). This is in spite of the fact that the Taliban are desperately waving and saying, “we did it, we did it!””
Unfortunately many people have allowed their minds to descend into the labyrinthine insanity of Orwellian Doublethink; such people can accept the lie (America did it) and the truth (The Taliban did it) simultaneously – with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously [the lie and the truth], and accepting both of them [Insanity]… with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.” George Orwell – 1984
I think it was Churchill who said; “A lie is half way around the world before the truth gets it’s pants on.”
Meanwhile, I’m hoping the ‘Arab Spring’ bounces over to China. Wouldn’t that be fun, at least the part where Slimy Samantha squirms. No R2P for the Chinese. They have no OIL.
People believe what they want to believe. It’s called ‘faith’. As a famous person who’s name escapes once said; ‘You cannot reason a man out of a position he wasn’t reasoned into.’ Or something like that. It takes an epic fail to change beliefs.
W: “What I really found interesting about the Bojinka operation was the sheer uninhibited evil of its plan. Consider: kill the Pope, crash 12 airliners, fly into buildings, kill 4,000 people…”
An important similarity (maybe the most important) between Islam and Marxism is the animalizing nature of their political ideology and legal systems. Islam brings out the animal nature of man – the Muslim is required to murder or enslave the infidel – murder the Islamic apostate – murder the homosexual – physically and sexually dominate a woman or harem of women – etc. etc. Under Marxism the “little people” – “the proles” are viewed and treated as subject animals – as the Pigs viewed and treated the non-pig animals of Animal Farm. A superior class of Caliphs and Imams vs. a superior class of Marxist Pigs – at the end of the day what’s the difference from the perspective of an inferior class less equal than others?
I heard a reporter the other day in Pakistan saying that at least half of the people she spoke to either did not believe that Osama bin Ladin ever existed or that was not whom we killed.
Today one of the Egyptian military leaders admitted to ‘virginity tests’ performed on female prisoners during the protests. This same military leadership is being praised today by US progressives for opening up the Rafah crossing in Gaza. A decision they will no doubt regret.
One thing Osama did for much of the world was expose the festering ugliness that infects the middle east and most of the Muslim world. He intended to strike fear and awe of Muslim might into the American conscious. What he inspired instead was more like nausea and contempt.
Prior to 9/11 most Americans did not have a clue about Islam or the middle east outside of something about Israel where the Jews were now, or maybe that there were pyramids in Egypt. These days we know a lot more and none of it is good.
b @ 30: Dominent nations are strong until they are not. The Hapsburg’s were strong until they collapsed. The Shah was strong until he wasn’t. The Ottoman Empire was strong until it was not.
Well, those examples are not especially true. Philosophically I smell a sorites argument. Historically, the Holy Roman Empire slowly disintegrated over time, even the previous Unholy Roman Empire held together for centuries while things fell apart. Maybe the Shah’s exit was an example of moral strength, rather than savage his own population.
Much as we humans tend to decline slowly with age, it’s not a matter of preparation as such, and maybe even the decline is programmed.
Poetically, no doubt at some point mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
Richard,
Do you know and can you recommend good books about the Battle of Manila?
BTW, I became interested in the battle some years ago while researching a book I intended to write about the Provisional Tank Brigade that fought in the Luzon/Bataan campaign. Spent many, many fascinating hours interviewing (and recording on tape) veterans of the 192nd and 194th Tank Battalions, which collectively constituted the PTB. These were National Guard units, and Company B of the 192nd was composed of men from my area in Chicago’s western suburbs; and I spoke with these men in person. But I also interviewed veterans from most of the component units, all over the country, by telephone.This was not so very long ago (by my measure at any rate) and there were still a goodly number of veterans/survivors of the Bataan and Corregidor battles. For various reasons I never did write the book (there’s another story), although I still have all the tapes … anyway, the brother-in-law of one of the Bataan veterans was himself a veteran of the 1st Cav and had saw heavy combat in the Battle for Manila. I spent that day interviewing the Bataan vet and then the Manila vet, a wonderful two-fer. Incredibly harrowing stories by the Manila vet of fighting house to house, separated from the enemy in many instances by a plaster wall that both sides would fire through. From what he told me the fighting was of the same nature, and the same ferocity, as the fighting in Stalingrad.
buddy larsen,
For the work you did defending Israel in an earlier post, thank you!
What is missed in these gentlemanly disputes about “Palestine/Levant” is that it will be my mother, sister, brother, uncle and/or children killed and maimed when Hez and Hamas launch. I cannot be “objective”.
When, one day, the children of Ishmael and Esau start inflicting real suffering on the USA, we will see how objective others are.
Walt –
You might be interested in reading my article about chariotry tactics at the Battle of Kadesh in my article “Tale of Two Chariots: Hittite and Egyptian Forces Vied for Mastery of Wheeled Warfare” (Military History, May 2010). The editors, unfortunately, gutted my original submitted manuscript for reasons of length, thereby removing my analysis of the different technologies and tactics the combatant forces employed, but the article nonetheless turned out okay. My conclusion: Egyptians gained, barely, a tactical victory the Hittites won the war, regaining control of Amurru, which was their strategic objective. The Hittites also demonstrated superior operational and tactical skills.
FYI, I’ve published several articles about chariotry and chariot warfare–you might like ‘em. Presently writing a book on the subject under contract with ABC-Clio but looking to switch publishers. Will be refuting Robert Drews’ theories about chariotry and the Sea Peoples.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
In one famous kidnapping of an American citizen, Ion Perdicaris in 1904, outside Tangiers, by a local rebel named Raisuli, the US government gave this direction to its consul-general on the scene:
“This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”
That’s a perfectly clear statement of intent and was backed up with Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick,” a fleet of seven US warships and several companies of US marines, floating in Tangiers harbor.
Our reward for the capture of Osama bin Ladin for $25 million dead or alive was a similar clear statement of US policy.
If the UN doesn’t like it, we can withdraw our financial support.
Roughcoat…
Didn’t the Hittite victory trigger raving jealousy back at Court?
Which then devolved into a vicious civil war — destroying Hittite power almost overnight?
So that by losing the Pharaoh managed to prevail strategically?
Wasn’t it also true that the Hittites were so riven with factionalism that the battle, itself, turned on their own failure to exploit Egyptian weakness?
Inspired by Hangtown Bob (#34):
TAG. There’s Always a Goldstein.
westerncanadian – “To these people America is bad, period.”
I have come to believe that this is based almost entirely on bigotry. These people are intolerant, yea, hate middle America. They would pick the side of any who would oppose them. This is the backbone of the cold civil war. Hatred and intolerance by those who accuse thier foes to be full of hate and intolerance. Racism has been re-written into the code of law and equality is openly denounced as too little to late. The US government fuels hate speech and acts to punish a majority of Amercans based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious belief, and political affiliation. We had more equality in this nation 200 years ago than we have now. We are told; It is better this way.
#32
“Barack Obama’s decision to play golf on Memorial Day was disrespectful and hardly presidential”
Such a remark makes some serious assumptions…. But if it makes anyone feel any better, one could think of it as Barack giving homage to Ike….
And if it’s comic relief you need, here’s the Wizard of Credibility, himself:
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=223008
a/42, being north european and having beloved middle daughter married into your bunch, i can see both sides, and do not like the imbalance in the stakes of the game. You’re right –that’s what’s missing in the debate –the stakes.
j/40, Much as we humans tend to decline slowly with age, it’s not a matter of preparation as such, and maybe even the decline is programmed –”slow down, and smell the roses”? probably good advice –but things were largely crappy before the Pax Americana, and we are scuttling it by such tantalizingly tiny degrees that it always seems like heck, just a wee bit more effort and we could make that next payment on the world peace and prosperity insurance policy.
So Pakistanis think that we attacked their navy base, and Rosie Odonnell thinks that our government helped bring down the WTC.
Annoy Mouse 47: ” We had more equality in this nation 200 years ago than we have now.”
200 years ago the American people understood and believed in the equal rights of our Declaration of Independence. Our neo-Marxist leaders have now substituted the “social justice” of “equal outcome” from the Communist Manifesto. This so-called equal economic outcome cannot occur except through unequal rights to the fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness.
“In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend… The proletariat [lazy, tax-eating, non-disabled under-achievers] will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital [property] from the bourgeoisie [laboring, tax-paying middle class and entrepreneurs], to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state [Marxist Government]… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
When Karl Marx advocated “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” he failed (I believe intentionally) to account for the facts of lower human nature. The ordinary man desires to labor creatively for his property in the pursuit of happiness. The laboring man who desires the fruit of his own labor is not a greedy man – it is, rather, a natural sign of self-ownership and earned self-esteem. The proletarian man does not desire to labor, but desires the fruit of labor of the laboring man – that is greed. Karl Marx ignored or concealed the fact that the proletariat class becomes the greedy class – along with the Marxist ruling class – greedy for the labored-for property of the hard-working middle class. When the non-disabled man fails in his sacred duty to labor creatively he becomes needy for property, and must either beg or steal property to satisfy his need – or he can vote for Marxist-type government to do the dirty deed through unjust, excessive taxation of the laboring man. The needs of the lazy man are manifold – so under Marxism the laboring man must pay according to his ability – he must be forced to pay – he must pay without limits – because the lazy man has unlimited needs.
Marxist “equal outcome” is also a huge self-serving Orwellian lie because under Marxism – through excessive and unequal taxation – individual property is concentrated into the greedy collectivist hands of the Marxists. The individual is forced to in effect render unto Caesar that which belongs to God – all of course in the name of “equality.” George Orwell described the oxymoron – the internal contradiction – of Marxist “equality.”
“It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called “abolition of private property” [Communist Manifesto] meant in effect the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before… In the years following the Revolution it [The Socialist Party of Oceania] was able to step into this commanding position almost un-opposed because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization… It had always been assumed that if the Capitalist Class were expropriated Socialism must follow; and unquestionably the Capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport, everything had been taken away from them; and since these things were no longer private property it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc [Socialist Principles of Oceania], which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist program with the result; foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.” George Orwell – 1984
As George Orwell observed, Marxists are metaphorically the Pigs of Animal Farm – individuals who consider themselves “more equal than others.” The Marxist Pigs are enthralled with the idea of government (themselves) owning the fruit of the laboring “little animals” where all the eggs, apples, corn, etc. is placed into a commune – a communal pot under their exclusive control. The Marxist Pigs control communal property – they are the commune-ists. The Marxist Pigs, after gorging themselves with a lion’s share of communal food, require all the “little animals” to approach their communal pot, tails wagging, in order to receive their leftover rations; and they must lick the hand that feeds them. Pig (Marxist) government encourages the lazy proletariat animals to relax in the barn while the others work in the fields; with this they can set up a perverted form of “democracy.” The Pigs control all the property in the communal pot, so they are in a position to in effect steal property from the laboring animals (“from each according to his abilities”) and give to the lazy (“to each according to his needs”) in return for votes. The lazy animals have unlimited needs, so the laboring animals may be taxed without limit. The Marxist Pigs are the managers of this struggle between the working and lazy classes, and through vote-purchasing (votes purchased with stolen property) establish a self-perpetuating perversion of “democracy” which keeps them in power.
Economic justice is the equal, unalienable, God-given right of each individual to his/her labored-for property in pursuit of happiness – not the Marxist so-called equal outcome of property. As pointed out above, equal outcome of property is an Orwellian lie – an Orwellian contradiction – the defining Contradiction of Marxism – because economic equality requires an excessive and therefore unnatural use of force. Excessive force requires a superior class of not-to-be-equalized equalizers – a class superior in rights – superior before law – and superior themselves in social and economic (property) outcome. Equal rights of every man and woman to the fruit of their own labor leads to economic inequality – which is natural and un-forced. Marxism, in Orwellian fashion, leads to even greater economic inequality – which is unnatural since it requires great force via gun-clinging government agents, courts and prisons.
It is sometimes amazing to me how so called educated and intellectual men will refuse to remember. The won’t remember military history, political events, or financial disasters of the past.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/267989/reflections-revolution-france-kevin-d-williamson?page=1
When a large percentage of a nations populace is illiterate what is the collective memory like? Oral traditions passed down, distorted over time. Fantasy, fiction, and ego stroking tales all having equal or superior standing to reality.
Re. #35. Hangtown Bob.
“Obama comes in and Bush is denounced and so forth.”
It is just a superficial similarity now. but we are getting there… fast.
Re. #40. Josh
“Poetically, no doubt at some point mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
Not entirely poetically. There are strong indications coming from what is now known about complex system that all of life manifestations (over all scales from viruses and bacteria to societies) thrive on the so-called “edge of chaos”, aka on the boundary between a full blown chaotic state where all activities are broadly random and crystal state where all activities are strictly regimented. Crystal structures are rigid, hard, and… brittle, the entropy and degrees of freedom are minimal there. Chaotic states are characterized by entropy maximums and minimally restricted degrees of freedom.
Roughcoat/43
Will be delighted to read your work on chariots. My own research for my sci fi novel HITTITE led to a study of Egyptian and Hittite chariots, and the tactical advantages gained by the Hittites with the wheels on the centerline of the fighting platform as opposed to Egyptian chariots with wheels at the back of the platform, resulting in heavier weight of firepower, 2 archers plus driver for the Hittite chariots, versus greater maneuverability but only 1 archer and driver for the Egyptians. So it was kinda like a Tiger vs a Sherman. The Battle of Kadesh in the novel is as realistic as I could make it, aided appreciably by the kindness of a professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago who lent me his thesis on the Hittite military. Will look up the May 2010 edition of Military History, and if you will tell me where I can find your other articles on the subject of chariots I will be much appreciative. A click on my name will take you to my blog where you will find my email address. I would very much like to hear from you. Never heard of Robert Drews, but will look him up as well. My completely uninformed opinion is that the Sea Peoples must have been the Minoans.
Blert/45
I do not think the Battle of Kadesh resulted in a vicious civil war in Hatti that destroyed the Hittite Empire almost overnight , though it is true that Hattusili had a problem with his nephew Mursili who became king after the death of Muwatalli (iirc) that resulted in Hattusili gaining the crown after a short civil war, but that was more or less standard for the times, and the Empire lasted for some time after that. The History Channel had a program on the Battle of Kadesh that was, in my opinion, seriously distorted in regard to the tactics of Muwatalli. The Hittites did in fact surround the Amon Division, including the Pharaoh Ramses, and Ramses only escaped when the allied contingents started to loot the Egyptian position.
Josh/40: I think you are actually making my point. We see the gradual decay only in the historical rear view mirror. At the time each of those entities were viewed, and experienced themselves, as strong — until they were not. Only after they fell did the slow decay become “obvious.”
This brings to mind a post that appeared here a while ago about the doubling of the lily pad. If the entire pond is covered on day 30, on what day is half the pond covered? Many folks immediately say day 15, which would be true if it were an arithmetic progression. But it is not. Half the pond is covered on day 29. The time between slow (and potentially reversible) decay and irreversible decay is very long. The time between irreversible decay and the end is very short.
That was my point. We seem strong to ourselves and to others, until we don’t. Many a tree rots at the root but remains standing for years until finally the right storm comes along. Are we on day 10 or 20 or 25 or 29 of our decay (following the lily pad metaphor)? I think we are at about day 27 or so. Perhaps you think it will take a lot longer. Maybe we will both be around to see it or maybe not, but my children will. Yet I still hold it may yet be reversible with huge effort and a revival of the spirit and leadership that made the country in the first place.
Some patients can be saved, even those in critical or grave condition. But there does come a tipping point. How close do you think we are to that moment?
grr @ 50: “edge of chaos”
Ilya Prigonine’s “dissipative systems”, Nobel prize in chemistry, 1977, “the poet of thermodynamics”. Well, I guess that’s where we be!
Which maybe answers batman’s question @ 57. Rene Thom’s “catastrophe theory” circa 1970, does not seem to have panned out. Yes, stuff sandpiles, but that’s not really news, just friction, as in war is the province of, but then so is life, and rust never sleeps, and hindsight is 20-20, and all those other good cliches, which are cliches just because they are (in some large part) true.
batman, we make the mistake of thinking things were ever easy, or are ever going to be easy, or should ever be easy. Some things get easier, like traveling across the ocean, or communicating across the ocean, but that’s not because the ocean got any smaller, things remain things, and you still can’t walk from Los Angeles to Tokyo no matter how small the virtual world has become.
It’s hard to keep any perspective with all these changes and technology zanging around, that’s just where the history and philosophy of science is so useful, and so underappreciated. Hey, when will medicine pull its head out of the nineteenth century and start working from a quantitative and causal model of the human body? Well, to answer my own question, first we need a somewhat complete and substantially accurate model of the human body to work from!
When will we have Hari Seldon’s psychohistory so we can crank up a model of how to optimize things and chart a path from here to there? Ha. About the same time as The Mule shows up to mess it all up for us, no doubt.
So, I tend to discount gloom and doom predictions.
At the same time, if forced to give an answer, I’d say we passed the tipping point about fifteen years ago, in case that answers any of your residual concerns. Remember, falling doesn’t hurt, it’s that sudden stop at the bottom.
Grrr #54
Yes……much too fast. It seems that the rule of law in this country, at least that applying to our “leaders”, is rapidly disappearing. Abrogation of bondholders rights (GE), selective enforcement of our nations’s laws (based on race) ie. AG Holder, casual dismissal of the War Powers Act by the President, members of Congress fleeing from their duties (no budget and actual physical fleeing to avoid a vote), refusal to enforce laws relating to breach of our border, and on and on and on.
#53 toadold
Great link! Thanks
Sadly, the folk making history are the least likely to read it. Like adolescent boys, they are immune to high-speed crashes, venereal disease and teen-pregnacy.
Roughcoat,
Have looked up your bio and writing, publishing and editing credits, and find them most impressive, esp your role as consultant and featured commentator on the History Channel’s Battles BC series, including “Ramses: Raging Chariots (The Battle Of Kadesh.) My comment that the History Channel distorted the tactics of Muwatalli at the battle was based on somebody (you?)saying that Muwatalli held his infantry back and therefore allowed the Egyptians to escape total destruction, a comment I thought not borne out by the evidence. I retract the comment, for it is obvious you know far more about the Hittites, chariot warfare and the Battle of Kadesh than I will ever know. Which is why I write novels and you write history.
Walt
Hey Josh, thanks for the good dialogue. I usually discount gloom and doom following the motto of the late, great Louis Rukyeser — “The stock market has predicted 12 of the past 3 recessions.” And I still think there is time — not a lot — but some time to turn things around.
I certainly do not think things were ever easier in earlier times. Nostalgia is not what it used to be, as they say.
But it does seem that there were certain eras that were much better and others that were much worse. I would rather have lived in Pericles Athens than some mud hole in the middle of Europe in the year 900. I would rather have lived in Elizabethan England than in Africa any time during the majority of time from, say, the year 500 to 1500. And I would rather live in America any time for the past 250 years than in Arabia between 1000 and 1400.
Nothing lasts forever other than what might be outside of time and eternal, like the deity. Predictions of the end of the world as we know it are generally wrong. Still, I can’t help but feel an ominous sense that America’s great run, and with it Western Civilization’s great run, is stalling and may end more suddenly and sooner than we think.
I have thought about favorable scenarios. Cold fusion providing electricity for the entire world at nominal cost; unlocking the riddle of dementia; true democracy and real liberty spreading across the planet; humility and reverence combined with religious tolerance in every land. But somehow it is hard to sustain such visions these days.
Dialogues on Belmont Club do keep me going. Thanks for all your insightful comments.
For those who have time, the novel Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, dating from about 1974 paints a memorable picture of what we can expect when all the systems we take for granted collapse. It’s one of the great defenses of technology, actually.
Might be helpful in considering what you’d want to preserve, or protect, or defend.
Even in conversations.
@ 15. Langley
“I am afraid the US has entered the period of decline where each succeeding emperor defaces the names of the previous emperors on all of the monuments.”
Wrong fear, I’d say. It is both the strength and the weaknesses of republics to be schizoid and prone to mood swings. A weakness because taken too far consistent policy over a sustained period of time becomes impossible (Hence the reason the country club republicans are actually getting more grief than they deserve for carrying out policies layed down by Democrats and why Mr. Obama is not entirely a hypocrite for continuing WOT policies layed down by President Bush! Without a tacit agreement to do things this way we would be worse off than we are by following suboptimal policies consistently. ^_^;), and a strength because, unlike monarchies and tyrannies, we are able to throw up the personality needed for the moment that we are in (ie, the way Rome threw up Fabius when they could not take Hannibal head on and Scipio when the day came that they could). So in a way that’s not quite what to fear so long as the tacit agreement is kept on both sides.
But before there were the empires there were the Triumverates! And before there were the Triumverates there was Marius and Scipio. One can argue that this is where Rome’s decline began! Remember the leftist calls to put anyone connected to the Bush administration on trial? That represented a desire to play the game that Marius and Sulla played with one another and that, I think, is the phase of Roman history that we would be most in danger of entering. Wise foreigners would do well to note that these games did not end well for Rome’s neighbors. Those who groan about American “hegomony” now might well find out what real empire is should we really be unlucky and unwise enough to end up going down that road.
My wife and I have this discussion about the end of things often. She is fond of saying “well, if the world does end at least I’ll be dead so I won’t have to worry about it.”
And I reply “Oh, that’s only wishful thinking!”
The hard part about the end of things is that almost all of us WILL live through it, especially a financial collapse like this. (as opposed to real war) It’s just that life is going to be a lot harder and we’re going to all have to work to get by much more than we thought we would have to. And people who thought they had pensions will have to live in their childrens spare bedrooms and get used to eating ramen pretty regularly. And the US won’t be a world power anymore.
But we’ll all still be here – stuck with the memories of how good life used to be, before we ruined everything.
sr/52, re your para opening with “It had long been realized….”
***
BECAUSE THERE’S MORE MONEY IN IT? Alternet: Why The Democratic Party Has Abandoned The Middle Class In Favor Of The Rich? Also, the rich don’t get hung up on all that tedious middle class morality stuff.
Posted at 10:27 pm by Glenn Reynolds
***
Mr. WWS at 65,
Your situation discussion with your wife one of Herman Kahn’s great line in “On Thermonuclear War:”
“Will the living envy the dead?”
Actually, there are signs that the middle class is not giving up the fight and that the Ship of the Republic might right itself yet. Lett’s not succumb to defeatism. Americans have been in worst pickles before and came out ahead in the end.
mf/63, wondering if the title of the referenced book refers to that stained glass window from Fabian Society headquarters in England, designed by George Bernard Shaw, showing two people (Lucifer and God?) pounding on a red-hot globe to transform it, over the motto “The World Remolded Nearer to the Heart’s Desire”. Turns out the motto is Omar Kayaam, and that the Fabian’s actual motto, on the logo beneath a graphic of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, is “When I Strike, I Strike Hard”.
Re w/67′s ‘let’s not succumb’, beware a coming push by W.H.O. to throw the personal communications device into Lawfare, via ”BRAIN CANCER”. Here’s a nice link, an article from Reason magazine, about the grandpappy landmark ‘toxic environment’ case (imho meant to cash-flow the left, not address actual toxins, but that’s another story):
http://reason.com/archives/2004/03/24/happy-birthday-love-canal
(save it and send it to aunt polly and uncle bob when the cell phone furor heats up)
Towering Barbarian @ 64 said:
“Remember the leftist calls to put anyone connected to the Bush administration on trial? That represented a desire to play the game that Marius and Sulla played with one another and that, I think, is the phase of Roman history that we would be most in danger of entering. Wise foreigners would do well to note that these games did not end well for Rome’s neighbors. Those who groan about American “hegomony” now might well find out what real empire is should we really be unlucky and unwise enough to end up going down that road.”
I think that’s our end game. Economic collapse will make our democracy unworkable so a shining knight on a white horse will appear and establish himself as “Lord Protector”. Like the Roman Republic, the various symbols of our democracy will remain but they will be only empty symbols. After ascending the throne, the Lord Protector will take a look around and ask “What’s America’s strengths?”. It won’t be our natural resource or manufacturing base? It also will not be the strength of our economy or social institutions? We’ll have exactly one ace left in our hand and that will be our military power. This was essentially the situation the Roman Republic was in after Sulla made himself dictator. Any lingering doubt that the U.S. should establish itself as a worldwide empire will be removed after the Islamic nukes start taking out major cities in the developed world. Crushing Islamic barbarism will be the pretext for establishing the America Empire.
TB@64: Those who groan about American “hegomony” now might well find out what real empire is should we really be unlucky and unwise enough to end up going down that road.
Agree in spades with every single word. Extremism in the form of a charismatic leader is the danger. And neither side seems to ‘get it.’ The GOP insists on privatizing everything they can get their hot little hands on, and the Dems insisted on universal health care without essential reform of the delivery system presumably because money grows on trees. What happens when you squeeze the party of evil with the party of stupid? We’re about to find out.
I also agree with Josh somewhere else. We’ll pull through but the immediate future just plain s^cks. Washington doesn’t need charisma. Washington needs maturity.
Romney in 2012.
egg/70, this is a copy/paste off a lew rockwell site –but i was after the Lee/Acton correspondence and it’s well presented here:
Lord Acton (famous for his maxim that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely) viewed what he too called “the American Revolution” with alarm. He had admired the federative character of the original American polity as the best example of how an ethic of individual liberty could be reconciled with the independence of substantial moral communities, and he admired the Confederacy as the most advanced expression of such a polity. He thought the triumph of the Union was a disaster because it would encourage the trend toward consolidationism and nationalism that was transforming Europe into an order of French revolutionary-style republics.
The best Southern thinkers, though of course they could not have known just how strongly vindicated they would be after the atrocities of the twentieth century, understood this principle. Consider the lament of Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America:
If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity.
Likewise, Robert E. Lee wrote:
I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only are essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.
“Had the Confederate States of America survived,” Livingston argues, “the world would have had the model of a vast-scale federative polity with a strong central authority explicitly checked by the ultimate right of a state to secede.” It would have shown the world that an alternative existed to the modern state. Instead, movements for national unification (as in Germany and Italy) were and are portrayed as indisputably progressive and as fully in line with the forward march of history, when in fact the world would have been spared a good deal of grief had a decentralized political order remained the rule in central and southern Europe.
That is why the South’s failure so saddened the great British libertarian Lord Acton. In a November 1866 letter to Robert E. Lee, Acton wrote:
I saw in States’ rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy…. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
There can be no minimizing the abolition of slavery, and that it was an enormously significant result of the war. But one may certainly ask whether the abolition of slavery had to be brought about in a manner that resulted in 1.5 million people dead, wounded, or missing; overwhelming material devastation; the undermining of the concept of civilized warfare; and the destruction of the American constitutional order in a way that forever strengthened the federal government at the expense of the self-governing rights of the states.
***
(of course, only at certain sorts of times do these sorts of ideas become of interest)
BL 72,
The Old South was in violation of the Declaration of Independence (all men are created with equal rights to life, liberty and fruit of labor in pursuit of happiness).
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/
The North violated the Bill of Rights (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people).
http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/billofrights#amendmentx
The South’s violation has been corrected but not the North’s, and as a result many of our current Federal Laws stand in violation of the tenth amendment. In my mind the Civil War will not truly be over until the tenth amendment is enforced.
Buddy@72,
At Belmont Club, we’ve had this conversation before about the CSA. They wanted to set themselves up as 19th century Spartiates ruling over an empire of black African slaves and Hispanic helots toiling in the fields. If the CSA had won the Civil War, they might have enjoyed a few decades of prosperity until their slaves revolted or the economics of slavery broke down as it did in Latin America. It’s interesting to speculate how the CSA might have responded to Nazi Germany in WW-II. One can imagine the Northern United States and Canada aligning themselves with Britain while Nazi Germany aligned itself with the CSA and Imperial Japan. The CSA could have provided the Germans and Japanese with all the petroleum they needed from Texas oil fields. Consequently, WW-II would have had significant battles in North America. Certainly the United States would not have found itself left standing unscathed (superpower by default) after WW-II ended. It’s shameful to think how close a large portion of our population came to becoming genuine bad guys.
sr/73, i agree –and that’s what eggplant is talking about too. Of course we needed the federal behemoth at times in the 150 years since, but as Acton and the biographer were getting at, the behemoth may’ve created the need for the behemoth. we’re probably veering off into alt.history, but –well, so much misery has flowed from WW1, we’re still fighting it in truth, and it started almost carelessly — because by domino effect the combatants had all decided that mere mobilization was an act of war, because with no principle of subsidiarity a national leader’s railroad was all his across all national parts & pieces, every province and all the way up to the neighbor nation’s border, which went far toward making that neighbor an enemy. At a whim, the maximum leader could steal a march and out-concentrate you at a spot along the boundary, and wham bam he’s heading for your capital and you missed your chance to concentrate.
e/74, i hear ya –like the balkans, balkanized. That’s probably worse than being too big –but it would prevent the #70 worry about going ‘imperial’ –
buddy and eggplant…
Context…
Everyone needs to read Lincoln’s Coopers Union Speech…
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
AND…
Dred Scott… in particular the obiter dicta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
This travesty threw out essentially ALL of the political compromises of the antebellum period.
It caused the Southern laws to be applicable in the North — virtually without restraint.
That is, if a slave was taken north…
The master could carry on as if he were in the Carolinas….
—–
But the worst of it was that Northern Courts were to toss out State statues and obey ‘Federalized’ Southern slavery laws — especially WRT to re-capture of ‘property.’
Needless to say, said property could NOT testify — and that no Southern Court ever failed to find for the enslaver.
In reality, ANY poor captured African American was sent ‘down the river’ to injustice.
Manumission be damned.
——
I must agree to the obvious tragedy of the War to Preserve the Union. I’ve blood ancestors from Gettysburg.
The excessive concentration of powers and authorities are of DEEP concern.
The Wan is on a trajectory to destroy the Democrat Party.
Given enough goat-rope ‘it’ will Mule us into oblivion.
——-
Jews, I can’t figure them.
I love ‘em…
Do they love themselves?
How in heaven does ANY American Jew look past the radical, communist, muslim, Jew-hatred of the Wan?
——
Giving the Wan a pass on his in-your-face Jew hatred…
Why?
How?
——
Innocence by association?
——
By their deeds one must know of evil…
Shafting Bibi…
How calculated can a bastard be?
The timing…
And then, the groveling….
——
Both the Nazis and the Soviets were astoundingly effective in swaying the naive…
World: wake up.
Whether or not the republic created by the founders, or the confederacy was the highest form of government held in check by virtue of states right trumping national sovereignty is at least given respectful debate here at bc, with both sides given their due, and both sides are presented in a way that highlights the question of what is the highest best government one can reasonably expect at given times throughout history.
And with that said, I think Mubarek was about the highest and best government one could expect (from that region) and be practical about it at the same time. Tourism is the only industry in Egypt, and Mubarek’s Egypt kept the peace treaty with Israel for thirty years. his admin was the legacy of Nassar’s original revolution, but however, highly modified for reasons of sanity. No real natural resources, not anymore. No state oil wealth to empower himself with. He had the same band of crazy domestic nazi’s to deal with as did the Shah of Iran (who maintained an Israeli embassy before the “revolution” and the Ayatollah). Not bad for a nation that once became a powerful empire based on the bedrock of it’s wheat production ability to feed it’s advanced civ.
Mubarek was, and is about as good as it will ever get there. And Ghadaffi, well, we know of his role and fingerprints in the Berlin disco bombing, the TWA Lockerbee bombing, and plenty of other exported terrorism, but what had he done recently, in the past five years, to get up out noses? Hadn’t he been effectively defanged by the implementation of bush doctrine in general, and GWT in particular?
I think, the poorly, if un-thought-out strategy was that if both Tunisia and Egypt could fall with only the help of CNN, then Libya was supposed to be a cake walk, according to Samantha Power, the idiot. Once Ghadaffi saw what was going on to the west in Egypt and the east in Tunisia, he knew he wouldn’t take it lying down, and I don’t think he thought that the U.S., (europe and U.N. maybe), but not the U.S. would renege on newer, better, more recent relations unless he knew that having women involved at Obama’s admin and state dept were going to be trouble. He would have been right if he’d noticed that in advance.
I think Power thought that Libya was weak (she was wrong), and with NATO and euro partnership would put Ghadaffi”s head on her wall. Far too much trouble to come to the aid of dissident’s and revolutionaries in syria, because that is complicated by Syria’s client state status with Iran.
IOW’s, how better to pl*ck something up than by opening a new theatre in Libya? Really? How better? We need to deal with Syria, Iran and Pakeesdan, and probably in that order, not afghanistan, and Libya, nor Egypt, nor starting by back slapping Tunisia after the fact.
Syria has always been a national security interest problem, since ’81. Even Bolton isn’t getting this right, from what I hear him say on tv.
From Salon:
Bush on Israel:
In reality, Bush had used very similar language during a West Bank visit in 2008. “There should be an end to the [Israeli] occupation that began in 1967,” he said, stressing, yes, “mutually agreed adjustments … to reflect current realities.”
Olmert on Israel:
Then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said much the same to the Israeli Knesset in 2008. To achieve peace, he said, “we must give up Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and return to the core of the territory that is the state of Israel prior to 1967, with minor corrections dictated by the reality created since then.”
Obama on Israel:
Obama emphasized that an equitable solution would require that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves … and Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat.”
Obama on the Palestinians:
“For the Palestinians,” he warned, “efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. … Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.”
[emphasis added]
gf/78, among so many other untoward results of our Amerigooglinsky Maladministration’s semi-thought thru efforts in Egypt, ten million terrified and depressed Copts agree with every molecule of your comment.
risk analysis, assuming sine fides punica in “quote-enclosed” phrases.
“territory-for-peace” risk: (Israel, extraordinary) (PA, ordinary)
“Peace-for-territory” risk: (Israel, ordinary) (PA, ordinary)
All of which reformulates the problem to that of identifying and supporting ways and means to transform fides punica into bona fides, which is of course fundamental to any process of conflict resolution.
It strikes me that the Petraeus objective is to establish some credible bona fides on the ground with some unarguably difficult players who may be said to act not out of any faith, good or bad, but in response to the more mercenary stimuli of commerce, which is to say, bags and bags of money, in exchange for reduced violence.
So the Petraeus risk assessment becomes: Coin (be)fore Peace.
The Israeli strategy under Netanyahu: Peace (be)fore territory.
It’s a slightly odd reversal of historical roles – usually the Cowboy profile is the warrior in the field, and the one with clenched teeth and cramped handwriting sits in political office. I suspect the two personalities at the top clash. The Obama administration is brokering cooperation between Petraeus and Netanyahu while trying to further the sputtering peace process. I am glad I am not a direct part of it, but to condemn Obama for following the Bush (and Olmert) policies is disingenuous.
ybr, you are aware, aren’t you, that this summer, leading up to a UN pronunciamento on pali statehood in September, every anti-Israel force in the world, from the Code Pink cloud-cukoobirds and the Ayers/Dorhn Chicago ideo-mob cesspool to the Turks with the blunt-force trauma surprise for the Israeli ship-cargo inspecting force which boarded the previous flotilla, uniting under the ‘pro-palestine’ rather than the ‘anti-israel’ banner, plan boots-on-ground and ships-on-sea mass people’s attacks on the borders (soveriegnty) of Israel? With the idea of provoking enough violence to launch the White House’s “R2P” sufficient to insert a UN force into the chaos and force a confrontation Israel can only lose –if not immediately than soon enough?
If you are aware of all this, and still think GWB would’ve made the speech Obama made two weeks ago, then, child, all due respect but you need to have a talk with yourself.
Gaffe Prices @ 78 said:
“… I think Mubarek was about the highest and best government one could expect (from that region) and be practical about it at the same time. Tourism is the only industry in Egypt, and Mubarek’s Egypt kept the peace treaty with Israel for thirty years. his admin was the legacy of Nassar’s original revolution, but however, highly modified for reasons of sanity. No real natural resources, not anymore…. He had the same band of crazy domestic nazi’s to deal with as did the Shah of Iran … Mubarek was, and is about as good as it will ever get there.”
Gaffe Prices’ analysis is accurate. I like the Egyptians but it disturbs me that they are insusceptible to democracy and only governable by classic tyrants. I guess this is due to their religion. Islam manures anything that it touches, including the proud Egyptian civilization. I find myself wondering whether the Egyptians need to go through the experience of living under a full blown theocracy before they can be ready for true democracy. However the price for doing that would be extreme, e.g. the Copts would be slaughtered and much of Egypt’s priceless history would be vandalized due to being unIslamic. Also it’s not clear that the inoculation that comes from living under a theocracy provides permanent immunity from Islam. The Turkish people were on their knees after the Ottoman Empire imploded. The Ottoman Empire was a full blown Islamic theocracy where the sultan was also the caliph. Atatürk tried to cleanse Turkish society from Islam but it come back like a bad case of syphilis. Maybe only the nuclear fire followed by massive population reduction can cleanse Islam from the Middle East. That’s a horrible conclusion.
bl: ybr, you are aware, aren’t you, that this summer…
No, I’m not aware of what Code Pink et al have planned for this summer. Not in the loop. Cite? I’d be more circumspect about the R2P thing. IIRC, and I do, I was the first to specifically describe one suspicion behind the policy vis a vis Israel by following a link left by a concerned poster. It has since been hyperventilated out of proportion. I will not live long enough to see that happen. Neither will you. And you’re dangerously close to ‘nazi-jigaboo-dyke’ territory.
You wouldn’t suppose that would have anything to do with the world being close to ‘nazi-jigaboo-dyke’ territory, would you?