There’s trouble in the Middle East. Not that there wasn’t always. But maybe this time it is different.
Libyan protesters lash out at new ‘monster’ in power, writes the Washington Times. “Many Libyans also are worried that the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that was banned by Gadhafi, is trying to hijack the country. The transitional government and local councils are packed with Islamists who wield immense power, they say.”
In Egypt, Signs of Accord Between Military Council and Islamists, according to the New York Times, which calls it good news. “Their accord seems to have reassured Western diplomats that Egypt is moving toward a more democratic government. But the growing realization that the deal may have already been struck without public debate is evoking a mix of resignation, resentment and relief from liberals and human rights advocates.”
Rising Strife Threatens Tenuous Iraqi Stability, adds another article from the NYT. “But while there remains hope that Iraqis can still unite, the country is far from the ‘sovereign, stable and self-reliant’ place President Obama described it as last month.” Al-Qaeda is claiming victory.
“The United States withdrew rapidly after being repeatedly attacked by our mujahedeen in order to save their military from a quagmire,” Al Qaeda in Iraq said in a recent posting on its Web site. “The American military withdrawal is a defeat in every sense of the word, but the war is not over because Iran is trying to establish a Shiite buffer zone in Iraq and extend its Islamic revolution to Medina and Mecca,” it said, referring to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia.
Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post says Rick Perry’s belief that Islamic terrorist influence in the Middle East is rising in Turkey stems from a lack of understanding. Diehl writes,”the reality is that, like it or not, ‘Islamist-oriented’ governments are about to become the new normal in a region dominated for decades by secular autocrats and pro-American generals.”
So the crude bias about Muslim movements that is baked into the worldview of many U.S. conservatives — that they are inevitably fundamentalist, anti-democratic, anti-Israel and anti-American, if not explicitly “terrorist” — has become a serious liability. If heeded, it will make it impossible for this administration and future ones to navigate the region’s new politics and preserve crucial alliances.
Some Islamic movements may turn out like Hamas and Hezbollah — implacably hostile. But others, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, are likely to weave through an ambiguous middle ground, trying to balance the need for Western investment and the secular aspirations of their populations with their religious ideology. The right way to respond to them is to be nimble: tolerate some turbulence, roll with some punches, push back against others and keep pressing leaders to stick to democratic principles.
In other words the best way forward is to turn necessity into a virtue. Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute writes that President Obama’s basic foreign policy can be summarized in one phrase: “to the rear, march”. So grinning and bearing it is about all that anyone can do.
Not that one kind of authoritarianism is much different from the other. The degree to which things are in flux was illustrated by the brief capture by Khadaffy loyalists of the town of Bani Walid. Suddenly some are nostalgic for the Duck.
But the new Libyan government denied any deep political motivation, claiming the fighting in the town was really a dispute over money owed for fighting or suffering in the last rebellion. “Monday’s firefight follows an outburst of opposition to the ruling National Transitional Council in the eastern city of Benghazi last week that prompted its chairman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, to warn of possible ‘civil war’ in post-conflict Libya.”
Perhaps the lack of money and political unrest are all different aspects of the same thing. The New York Times reports that Egypt, already broke under Mubarak, is now even more broke.
After a year of unending turmoil and military rule, Egypt faces an acute financial crisis that could undermine its political transition and pose a defining challenge to Islamists now coming to power.
With mounting debts, negligible economic growth and dwindling foreign reserves, the military rulers and the new Islamist-led Parliament now confront some difficult choices, beginning with an all but inevitable further devaluation of Egypt’s currency that could send the prices of food and other goods soaring.
The government may also soon be forced to overhaul the vast system of energy subsidies that now account for a fifth of government spending. Increases in food prices and reductions of subsidies have provoked riots here in the past.
Part of the difficulty, according to Spengler, is that both European and Islamic civilizations are going bust simultaneously. While Islamic societies never produced much of anything in modern times except oil the difference is that now even their customers are going under, literally exterminating their own societies with suicidal demographic and economic policies.
The European environmentalist who wants to shrink the world’s population to reduce carbon emissions will spend her declining years in misery, for there will not be enough Europeans alive a generation from now to pay for her pension and medical care. For the first time in world history, the birth rate of the whole developed world is well below replacement, and a significant part of it has passed the demographic point of no return.
But Islamic society is even more fragile. As Muslim fertility shrinks at a rate demographers have never seen before, it is converging on Europe’s catastrophically low fertility as if in time-lapse photography. The average 30-year-old Iranian woman comes from a family of six children, but she will bear only one or two children during her lifetime. Turkey and Algeria are just behind Iran on the way down, and most of the other Muslim countries are catching up quickly. By the middle of this century, the belt of Muslim countries from Morocco to Iran will become as gray as depopulating Europe. The Islamic world will have the same proportion of dependent elderly as the industrial countries – but one-tenth the productivity. A time bomb that cannot be defused is ticking in the Muslim world.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock: the “new normal”. If so, then business as usual is likely to be turmoil, deprivation and despair. And it will catch the Washington elites, once again, by surprise. It may even surprise Diehl.
The great intellectual failing of the Obama administration has been its tendency to see Europe and to some extent the Middle East as harbingers of a “fair” future rather than as canaries in a coal mine; to confuse danger with opportunity and conflate its PR operations with leadership. It wants to be like what is dying rather than countenance a life that is not to its ideological liking. Or perhaps it is calculation. After all, if there is no “long run” and the administration knows there is no future at all, then short-term optimization is actually a viable strategy. Spengler observes:
A swindler who has no expectation of encountering his victim again will take what he can and run; a merchant who wants repeat customers will act honestly as a matter of self-interest. By the same token, the game theorists contends, nations learn that it is in their interest to act as responsible members of the world community, for the long-run advantages of good behavior outweigh the passing benefits of predation.
Why not take what you can and run?
It can be argued that the administration by predicating its policy on short term gain and a fantasy future, is really acting as if that a real future were no longer possible at all. And therefore they are gittin’ while the gittin’s good. But eventually the word will get out. Once Hope and Change vanishes, it won’t degrade gradually, as any genuinely sound effort would adjust its goals when met with difficulty, but it will collapse utterly, in the manner of a bubble burst.
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I’m very sympathetic towards the people of Egypt, particularly the Copts. It pains me to see them walking off a cliff due to Islamic extremism. I’m hoping that some Egyptian Atatürk will appear at the 11th hour and save the day.
The Egyptians seem to have no clue how far they could fall should they be seduced by Islamic extremism. The human race will be much poorer if the Egyptians end up utterly destroyed, e.g. the Egyptians get nuked or the Aswan dam is blown away.
The reactionary equivalent to “Who is John Galt?” is – “George Bush did it.”
The world is losing a great artist in Obama.
From a recent article:
‘Critics say the military is keeping the status quo with a slight reshuffle of the cards but with the same authoritarianism and abuses by security forces, if not worse. They point to almost 100 protesters killed in military crackdowns since Mubarak’s fall, some run over by armored vehicles. Nearly 12,000 civilians have been tried by military tribunals, and female protesters have been subjected to humiliating “virginity tests.”
‘They say the revolution’s vision of “freedom, social justice and dignity” has been aborted in favor of an emerging ruling coalition between the Islamists and the military.’
“The difficulty for the activists is that a transition plan is in place, set by the generals and backed by the Brotherhood.’
‘Some fear handing power to the parliament would further strengthen the Brotherhood.’
“We would replace a tyrant with no popularity and a corrupt majority, with a tyrant supported by religious legitimacy and an organized majority,” said Abdel-Gelil el-Sharnoubi, a former Brotherhood member who since last year’s revolution has become a fervent opponent.’
The first problem is expectations: “Freedom, Social Justice, and Dignity” are mutually incompatible desires. Social Justice means Socialism to anyone using the term. Dignity to many means not having to work at a job you think is beneath you, “working for chump change” as they deride it in the US black ghettoes.
And as el-Sharnoubi descirbes it, the military plus the Brotherhood equals a new and more brutal form of dictatorship. Now they can run over you with a tank and claim that Allah told them to do it.
Well, so much for Paul Ehlich’s malthusian theories. You were wondering how to deal with the Islamist threat? Just wait. The Muslim world will depopulate itself out of existence.
Re ““The United States withdrew rapidly after being repeatedly attacked by our mujahedeen in order to save their military from a quagmire.” I hate to admit it, but that sounds about right to me. I’ve turned against the effort in Iraq, and Afganistan. It’s all a waste. Nation-building is a pig a in poke, and so is COIN. I remain open to using the military to oppose those who are manifestly at war with us. But nation-building via COIN is not the way to use it.
There, I said it. And I do feel better now.
Now the way out of a collapse is to find a source of free energy to reestablish prosperity and sensible, but not tyrannical order. Tyranny is really an attempt at economy, but it is a false economy.
This energy will come in the form of freedom, innovation, productive people and fuel supplies. With that kind of energy at its disposal there will be the wherewithal to catch Europe, remake the Middle East by means pacific and generally fix things up.
But none of that energy will be forthcoming under a system of belief or ideology, that is dominated by Green extremism, redistributionism and political correctness. All of that presupposes energy, but it does not create it. Socialism is a means of spending. It was never about creating. Socialism is about redistributing the “stash”, never about creating a “stash” to start with.
The current ideologies of Europe, the Middle East and increasingly America are all about gittin’ and spreading around. The basic problem today is that there isn’t anything left to spread around. So the first thing that needs to be done is to free societies from the dead hand of bearded 19th century Marxists and their 21st century acolytes.
They will never relinquish their dream; however the hope is that the hard rock of reality — surely not the Republican Party, which will never do it — will rouse them to present reality. And with any luck we can pull the airplane out of the dive before it flies into the ground.
“And with any luck we can pull the airplane out of the dive before it flies into the ground.”
We can, and we will. Just a matter of putting the right people at the controls. And by right people, I mean us.
Won’t be easy, of course. Never is. Keep working on the outrun (a border collie sheepherding maneuver). Do it, do it, do it, over and over. She doesn’t get it, doesn’t get it–and then one day she does. Hard pounding all the way, we’ll see who pounds the hardest. Guts ball.
Spengler still seeing the plane crashing (is he right to imply that for the next few years at least there won’t be outside help to save it?): http://blog.atimes.net/?p=2013
#3
Sigh. “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”
“If you do not work you will die.”
Annoy Mouse @ 2 said:
“The world is losing a great artist in Obama.”
I beg to differ. Guys like Obama were a “dime a dozen” at the University of California, Berkeley back in the 1970s. When Obama first appeared, I immediately recognized him as a variation on Angela Davis (a remarkably common type). The only thing interesting concerning Obama is how the system malfunctioned so badly that he was elected President. That’s genuinely scary.
We were lucky in the case of Obama because he’s so incompetent that he’s mostly harmless. However the next crypto-Marxist who comes along maybe more skillful and a greater threat. After Obama goes away, there needs to be a national discussion about the malfunction that enabled Obama’s election. The MSM along with the financial industry needs to be put under a microscope and repaired.
wretchard @ 5 said:
“But none of that energy will be forthcoming under a system of belief or ideology, that is dominated by Green extremism, redistributionism and political correctness. All of that presupposes energy, but it does not create it. Socialism is a means of spending. It was never about creating. ”
I was meditating on this very concept this morning. Like so many things, socialism is a “pre-Peak Oil” concept. The world can afford socialism if it is awash with natural resources and not saddled with excess population. However after the economic crunch hits, the first things that go out the door are the utopian concepts like socialism. Heaven help us if the nuclear fusion problem is solved. The workers paradise might then be achievable.
My apologies concerning the previous thread. I reached my fourth comment, said I was done and then wrote a fifth comment in error. I’ll try to do better.
[#2 of 4]
We’ve been talking for a year or more on BC about how food prices and supplies have (along with the Internet) triggered the Arab Spring, so no surprise there. Even Egypt has lived on western largesse since 1974, because they made peace with Israel. Otherwise they would have been living on Saudi largesse, if any. Which the Saudis have only had (in grand oversupply) because of oil.
If the demographic implosion is now reaching dar al-Islam, excellent. It will be huge news for their culture, which developed jihad largely to get rid of excess population. And if that hits at exactly the same time that their oil revenues collapse because of fracking, well, it must just be the judgement of Allah.
As for Europe, apparently the byword at Davos this year is some realization of their long-simmering idiocy and cowardice. And for the USA? We are largely leading the world in financial idiocy in our 2008 collapse, still going on now. We have “solved” the problem short term with Bernankecare, which is basically a tax on capital that could never pass Congress, that even Obambus would never propose and probably would never understand. (unfortunately it taxes the capital of the 1%, even while handing it right back to them, so it is hard to say what the net result is, probably falls most heavily on the 2%-10% range instead).
After all, if there is no “long run” and the administration knows there is no future at all, then short-term optimization is actually a viable strategy.
I don’t think their rationality reaches what we might think of as either long or short term, they are ideology-driven. Obambus sort of thinks that “green energy” is a very long-term optimal program, and that the lack of evidence is mere short-sighted carping, but if you think Obambus’ rationality is challenged, what of the infamous Algore, the very source of some of these fantasies? All I can say, over and over again, is OMG.
Oh yes, to tie it all together, much of the rise in food prices was due to our hare-brained idea of using foodstocks for “green” fuel. And why not, what an excellent counter to the rise in oil prices from the Saudis et al. Meets greed and irrationality with more of the same. Let *them* say over and over again as well, OMG.
“And with any luck we can pull the airplane out of the dive before it flies into the ground.”
No doubt if voting had been possible the passengers of Capt Sully’s flight would have preferred not landing in the East River. It’s cold and your new shoes get wet and whathell happens to your baggage with the stuffed animals you brought for your kids? Nope, let’s not sit down in the river, Captain.
Subsequent simulations show that Scully could have made the runway. But if he had not he might have taken out an ice cream parlor holding a kid’s birthday party (as has happened) or a couple of busloads of nuns or crippled children or the Anheyser Bush plant in Newark.
He knew he could make the river and had the skill to do it so that the worst injury sustained by anyone was a broken leg. After the rescue they found him sitting quietly and drinking a cup of hot cocoa. He knew he could do it and did.
So pulling the airplane out of graveyard spiral may take a landing on the East River. In December. And we need leaders that can make that kind of decision and carry it off.
As that Far Side cartoon put it, “Nobody said that the salad bar was going to be easy.” Nothing’s easy.
Eggplant –
Qualis artifex pereo ~ The world is losing a great artist . Nero
Surely my sarcasm precedes me!
Josh – “It will be huge news for their culture, which developed jihad largely to get rid of excess population. ”
Not entirely sure about that but much of Western cultures sensitivities to life have sprung from the fact that fewer children are around and therefore are more valuable. As Golda Meier famously said, and i paraphrase, the Palestinians hate the jews more than they love their own children. When Islam values life as much as they value bragging rights in the here after surely we will have seen progress.
First it was overpopulation that was gonna kill us all (remember “Soylent
Green”?)
Now it’s declining birthrate.
In the words of Rosanne Rosannadanna (of Saturday Night Live fame):
“It’s always something!”
There is a long essay by Walter Russell Mead called The Once and Future Liberalism that discusses the dying of the Obama type world and what might come next in America.
New things will come in response to chaos and penury. I don’t think that the new things that come in the U.S. will be the same as the new things that come in Egypt. The supporting “skeleton” upon which each nation drapes its culture and economy is different. Look at poor Zimbabwe for a place where it gets ever worse, yet a new beginning never comes.
Who can write the future? (apology to Walt). All we can do is deal with the present in whatever form it comes at us. In N. America we might become a place where only justice and injustice are recognized and attempts to rectify injustice are strenuously made. Social justice, which tips the scales in favour of a list of group identities drawn up and anointed by our rulers, may have to fight to er, um justify itself.
Alternatively in N. America, maybe unfairly scorned food items, like kippers, will be given a dignified place at the grocery store. A new form of social justice?
THE CITY ON THE HILL
The shining city on the hill
Sits empty, dark and drear
The bitter wind howls silent
Through the streets with none to hear
Yet in the darkened houses
In the vacant malls and mills
Slip the wraiths of those who walked the streets
And walked the moors and hills
And wraithlike, with beseeching wails
They wonder what befell
The world they knew, the world they loved
And knowing none could tell
For all was bright with sunshine
In the city on the hill
And none could see the coming dark
And danced and laughed until
The day came that the little ones
No longer played and sang
For inconvenient children
Were not there when school bells rang
For the women of the city
Had the pill and life was free
And they opted for the good life
And they spurned the family tree
And so now the streets are darkened
And the schools and playgrounds still
And the ghosts of those who lived there
Roam the city on the hill
We ain’t seen nothing yet in the ME. The big wave comes when Egypt runs out of money to buy food for itself. And that tidal wave is coming soon.
President Obama was a huge vanity purchase by the elite, who may have seen him as the chance to make an entire vision “come true”. They underestimated the price of their dream. They can’t afford it. Nobody can.
The domestic liberals were trying to keep up with the European Jonses, little suspecting that the Europeans were themselves in over their heads. Now they’ve thrown away that clunky old day job, the kind that needed getting your hands dirty in filthy oil — and invested in the fancy computer to set themselves up to earn a living writing the great socialist novel — and found that it doesn’t pay.
So they’re stuck with the electric car doodad, a lot of hooey Green projects and a huckster in the lounge, helping himself to the last of the smoked salmon with the repo men banging at the door. But to admit defeat — to walk out that door and confess that they’re bust, out of dough, broke — boy that is going to take eating a lot of humble pie.
And if there’s one thing about the Left, it’s that they’d rather die and take everyone with them sooner than don sackcloth and ashes. Their own notion of self-worth; their feeling of moral superiority based on exactly nothing is the whole basis for their existence.
But the day comes when at last the last spoonful of ice cream and the final smidgeon of pate are gone. And what do they do then? What do they do then?
“While Islamic societies never produced much of anything in modern times except oil”
Hmmm, Marocco is different
Mediterranean vegetable and fruit are produced there, and sold into Europe, Renault lately opened a manufacture to product low cost cars…
Most of our textiles delocations went to Tunisia and Marroco, Algeria remains a rebellious country, until Bouteflika and his military powere are outed !
“…helping himself to the last of the smoked salmon with the repo men banging at the door.”
Hee hee, great imagery.
Wretchard @ 17
I am not sure how the Left will react, but I fancy the public will react something like this:
Abruptly, the sound ceased. Suddenly, the desolation, the solitude, became unendurable. While that voice sounded, London had still seemed alive. Now suddenly, there was a change, the passing of something – and all that remained was this gaunt quiet.
I looked up and saw a third machine. It was erect and motionless, like the others. An insane resolve possessed me. I would give my life to the Martians, here and now.
I marched recklessly towards the Titan and saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood. I began running along the road. I felt no fear, only a wild, trembling exultation, as I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster. Out of the hood hung red shreds, at which the hungry birds now pecked and tore.
I scrambled up to the crest of Primrose Hill, and the Martian’s camp was below me. A mighty space it was, and scattered about it, in their overturned machines, were the Martians – dead… slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things upon the Earth, Bacteria. Minute, invisible, bacteria!
Directly the Invaders arrived and drank and fed, our microscopic allies attacked them. From that moment – they were doomed!
http://youtu.be/3tPDRv21hgY
Like the President said, it’s too late now. And if it ain’t already, I’ll make darned sure it is.
Translation: I’ve burned the bridges, bet the farm, taken the airplane past the point of no return. Just you watch. Hold my beer. I tell you it’s in here somewhere.
Al-Qaeda is pretty reliable as a PR firm. I haven’t lost faith in Iraq because expectations were never high to begin with, for three competing regional agendas plus roaming militants plus Iran. I’m not seeing a definitive event happening that suggests the cause is lost, and I suspect that due to our presence in the past years, in some ways they are in better shape than much of MENA (and had little choice in the matter, yes I know.) There are still stable places like Kuwait, Jordan, SA and UAE wielding influence, unlikely to be run by ideologues any time soon.
Supposedly by now all of these countries were to be at each others’ throats due to water issues – a good reason to bet against any Brotherhood remaining so for long.
Afghanistan – I have no idea, but I think it has a future as a penal colony.
The egyptians, and arabs in general, are too in-bred to rescue themselves. so away they will go, never to bother the world again.
Is it me, or do these gop primaries show that the Republican coalition is breaking apart? If it is, that has to be good for the country — in that the death of the gop will make room for a new party better able to run the country (than the gop or dems)
Tcobb @ 16 said:
“We ain’t seen nothing yet in the ME. The big wave comes when Egypt runs out of money to buy food for itself. And that tidal wave is coming soon.”
That scenario is very scary and virtually certain to happen (probably within a year). Egypt is poised and ready to do a full repeat of what happened in Iran after the fall of the Shah.
Obviously what happened in Iran was very bad. It lead directly to the Iran-Iraq War where almost a million people were slaughtered and almost a trillion dollars squandered. The only good thing that came out of that war was it weakened both sides sufficiently that they were less of threat to the rest of world (Imagine how formidable Iraq under Saddam Hussein would have been without suffering those losses).
Unfortunately, Egypt under a theocracy will be much worse than Iran. Bad things that are almost sure to happen:
1) The Copts will be slaughtered and/or forced to flee Egypt.
2) The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel will be torn up and hostilities resumed.
i) Israel will be forced to retake the Sinai peninsula in order to have a buffer.
ii) Reconquest of the Sinai means the Suez canal gets shutdown permanently.
iii) Failure of the Egyptian and Israeli Peace Treaty means diplomacy has NO
positive track record for the MIddle East. Negotiation with Moslems will have
been proven futile with war the only option.
3) Egypt has long been the intellectual beacon for the Islamic world with the Al-Azhar University one of the ultimate authorities concerning Islam. That whole process becomes corrupt after Egypt falls under control of Islamic extremists.
4) Some of the world’s worst Islamic fascist bastards were Egyptians, e.g. Mohamed Atta and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The process in Egypt that produced those two villains will be supercharged after Egypt becomes an Islamic theocracy that is also an economic basket case.
5) Many of Egypt’s priceless historical treasures will be destroyed because they are “unIslamic”.
I find myself wondering how Egypt can be saved. I fear the only way is to crater Iran. If Iran is reduced to a smoking ruin then maybe the Egyptians will see that this is not the path that they should follow.
[#3 of 4]
W@17: “Now they’ve thrown away that clunky old day job, the kind that needed getting your hands dirty in filthy oil — and invested in the fancy computer to set themselves up to earn a living writing the great socialist novel — and found that it doesn’t pay.”
It’s not even that good. They invested in a Cray mainframe (using the credit card, natch), so that they could respond to that WORK AT HMOE AD ERN $176 AN HOUR!!!!1! ad. Don’t need a Cray to do that and the ad is bogus anyway, but those are piddly details that the Fed and congress can work out later.
First: What evidence exists to support the assertion that birthrates are declining in the Islamic countries? The birthrates of Muslims in Europe seem much higher.
Second: Why do you conclude that just because birthrates are declining now in Europe and elsewhere that they will continue on that trajectory? Clearly, when rapidly growing populations were the concern, the projections drawn from that data proved inaccurate, as human behavior changed. Why cannot changes in human behavior occur to reverse the declines in population?
”the reality is that, like it or not, ‘Islamist-oriented’ governments are about to become the new normal in a region dominated for decades by secular autocrats and pro-American generals.”
Translation; Obama has lost the entire middle east. No, he did not lose it to democracy. There is no Islamic George Washington.
Historically, a theocracy is the most stable form of government, falling only to outside forces. Protestants vs Catholics is sort of a grey area since they both profess the same faith. Conflict between the two sects led to secular government so it has been argued that the Christian theocracy fell thru the efforts of Christians.
I expect it to be several generations before the Muslims of the Islamic crescent shed their new despots.
Meanwhile the bombers moon is fast going. If the IAF is going to bomb Iran, they need to do it soon. The window of opportunity is closing fast.
Wretcherd, traditionally they start a war. Not sure that tradition is sustainable in the 21st century. On the other hand, there are enough conflicts ongoing to allow teh won to choose the “Short Victorious War’ that best matches his re-election ambitions. After all, It’s not like the anti-war crowd is going to march in lockstep with either Newt or Mitt. That fact alone offers opportunities.
24) why do you value the people of egypt over the people of iran? the latter are way more modern and capable. the loss of every egyptian is of no consequence to the rest of the world, they peaked 3500 years ago.
cjm @ 28 asked,
“why do you value the people of egypt over the people of iran?”
I’d prefer that no one got hurt and we could all live together in peace.
Is that going to happen?
If it boiled down to somebody getting wiped out in order for the Moslem world to be saved and I was given the choice of
1) Iran
2) Egypt
I’d opt for
3) None of the above
However I will not be given that choice. Instead the Iranians are going to jump up and down and say:
“Choose me! Choose me!”
Since the Iranian clerics want the honor of being martyrs, my hope is they will be given their wish before Egypt destroys itself.
[#4 of 4] I’m done.
Annoy mouse 12
Golda said something more like “we will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate the Jews”
It is a universal prescription for peace. Concentrate on long term goals. All of those efforts and sacrifices we make so that the next generation has a better life than we did. Ask most parents what they would choose for their children.
That stuff no longer matters. Whom has and can pilot the latest block F-16 keeps the peace.
Palestinian negotiators are walking out again. That seems to be the best they can field.
There is a growing anger and frustration with the current “elite”. What is somewhat spooky is not just comments on financial, political, and various industrial blogs about the damage they have received from Obeymeones policies, it is other indicators. Not only have firearm sales increased but training in there use is increasing in volume and directions that are somewhat spooky. I was looking around for some premium parts for a rifle build project, and I kept running into the words,”sold out, out of stock, back ordered” and etc.
An extremely popular DVD is Magpuls Extreme Dynamics “The Art of the Tactical Carbine.” While it is aimed at law enforcement and military use there are an awful lot of Joe Blows buying it and paying for courses like it around the country.
Imagine this not at a bank but at an ” Elites headquarters for instance.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL9fnVtz_lc
In “Canticle for Leibowitz”, the post nuke war novel, the author had the survivors tracking down and killing anybody suspected of being excessively educated, blaming them for the catastrophe.
A booklegger was somebody who saved books–to monasteries usually–and had a dangerous job.
Wonder what kind of reception the “elite” will be getting if things get really, really bad.
You can’t convince folks that it’s their own fault when the elites’ fingerprints are all over pretty much everything that’s gone wrong, if only buying the chumps’ votes with the chumps’ own money. The chumps aren’t going to figure that out.
it was the best of times, it was the worst of times
My prediction is that someday some lunatics, they may not even know who is behind them, will blow the Aswan High Dam. The safest thing to do would be to dismantle it. It would be the Ecology and Economy friendly thing to do.
I can’t help the feeling that if the trends we’re seeing in the MENA region continue, they’re all going to end up being re-colonized within the next few decades (if the oil holds out of course), probably by the Chinese.
“As if a real future were no longer possible at all.”
There may not be, consider –
1) We SPEND 45% MORE than we earn.
2) Debt to GDP is 100%+.
3) 10,000 Baby boomers are retiring everyday on SS.
And NO-ONE in the Administration and Congress has what it takes to even slow down the spending, let alone stop it.
If the Eurozone blows up, the shock wave will destroy the TBTF banks again and force Obama to deliver ANOTHER bailout, that will go down well with voters.
There is a good chance that the can, after years of kicking by BOTH democrats and republicans is about to finally slam up against the wall and stay there, triggering an economic collapse at least as severe as the 1930′s depression with a not zero change of full blown hyper inflationary collapse aka Argentina 2001.
Today we are the United States, tomorrow we are Greece, the next day we are Argentina in 2001, the day after that?, Zimbabwe?, Somalia?.
Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Syria, Palestine and more. Why can’t you warbots figure out that the US is in far over its head? Does it matter if it is the the Clinton or the Chicago wing of the Democrat party that makes these idiotic policies? So many lies have been told over so many generations that no one in government knows the truth any more, and they certainly cannot articulate the goals of all these undeclared secret wars.
And talk about over extended lines of communications, even Custer would blush at the absurdity of the US presence in Afghanistan with all the PX’s and popey chicken franchises all supplied by transport lines through Russia and Pakistan, with Iran right on the border making trouble.
Oh that’s right, America is obligated to defend Spengler’s beloved Israel because of the holocaust, and if you argue about these stupid policies Spengler will ban you and call you an antisemite, just like Kristol and all the Neocons. Amazing how similar they are on this to Obama and the Democrats with their accusations of racism.
And the one candidate who wants to pull the cork on this cesspool of wasted US wealth and lives is ignored by the heavily Jewish inspired media. Quelle surprise.
37. ConfederateH : While I would agree the holocaust was a motivating reason why Israel was created, we can’t just say, “Oops, sorry Israel, please cease to exist- the Arabs don’t like you.” That’s like the guy that knocks up the girl and walks away because, “She should have kept her knees closed.” What is the difference between a pregnant woman and a light bulb? You can unscrew a light bulb. So what is your solution?
@38. SpeakEasy
“we can’t just say, “Oops, sorry Israel, please cease to exist- the Arabs don’t like you.” That’s like the guy that knocks up the girl and walks away because, “She should have kept her knees closed.” “
Bullsh!t, I am not obligated to pay taxes to support Israel any more than I am obligated to pay reparations to “afro-americans”. Israel was created by Balfour in exchange for Britain getting the Jews to support selling out Germany instead of Russia in WWI. Very similar to how Britain got the US to intervene, if I might say, but I digress.
There are loads of put upon minorities all over the world, yet few of them expect the US to risk nuclear war for their benefit and even fewer get billions in military subsidies every year. It is time for Israel to defend herself just as it is for Germany, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and any other tit-sucking country around the world. These subsidies are just like welfare subsidies in rust belt cities. They do no one a favor.
@39. ConfederateH
It should be noted that the other put upon minorities do not have atomic bombs and all three legs of the strategic triad to deliver them and in addition are not trying to take over their neighbors. Israel is very much a liberal democracy, a very rare thing in that region and is useful to us for that reason. Finally Israel is very capable of defending itself. However, since we do not consider it in our national interest to see mushroom clouds rising over the Islamic capitals in the region it is in our national interests to give them the political and economic support so they do not get desperate enough to shift into the Massada mode. And if you believe if threatened enough they will not you are much more optomistic than I am.