After all these years of dealing with the lying, two-faced Palestinians, why do we never learn that we can't deal with these terrorists? Why do we keep going back for more? Surely, we would have learned by now that by inserting ourselves between the Israelis and the Palestinians we are providing hope for the terrorists and prolonging the agony.
RIYADH (Reuters) - Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh urged Arab leaders meeting at a summit in Riyadh on Wednesday not to compromise on the Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homes in what is now At the Arab League summit, kings and heads of state will revive an Arab plan for peace with Israel in an effort to end a conflict with Israel seen at the heart of the region's problems.Haniyeh, who is also leader of the Islamist Hamas movement, told Reuters in an interview, his group would not oppose the Arab plan, but would not give in on the Palestinian refugees' right of return.
"What concerns me more than anything else ... is not to compromise on the fundamental Palestinian rights, foremost being the right of return," Haniyeh said shortly before the summit opened.
It seems to me, that the Bush Administration took the right tack in ignoring Yassir Arafat in the year preceding his death. Then, something changed. I suspect it was Saudi pressure for the US for intervene so as to not look so pro-Israeli. Bush obliged and our negotiating partner is now not only Fatah but Hamas. Lovely, almost as lovely as the situation in Iraq where we're stuck in the middle between cutthroat Islamic fanatics of both sects and bloodthirsty former Baathists and other criminals. None of whom care who or how many people they kill or maim.
And he shall be a wild-ass of a man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and over all his brothers shall he dwell. Genesis 16:12Were truer words ever written? The bloodletting will go on until the end of time and the sooner we extricate ourselves, the better.
Deuce,
ReplyDeleteMoney can't buy love, but it can buy lobbiests and politicians. As Doug has pointed out, follow the money to Dubai.
Whit: The bloodletting will go on until the end of time and the sooner we extricate ourselves, the better.
ReplyDeleteNot until the end of time, whit, only until the end of human history, which will come, it looks like, sooner rather than later. Nature bats last. There is a wildland park near Seattle that is on the site of what was the largest coal-mining operation on the west coast only 100 years ago. Now about the only thing that tells you humans were even there is that funny moss-covered rock is too rectangular to be a natural stone, it must be the foundation for the steam hoist.
The problem here is...OIL; black gold, Texas tea. Petro dollars are funding the Islamists. Saudi petro dollars to be more precise. Without that oil money what would these fanatics be? Camel jockeys. With our money though, they can and do make a lot of havoc.
ReplyDeleteUntil we recoqnize that fact and deal with it truthfully...we're screwed.
I have a Judaeo-Christian worldview, so I will stay with the "end of time" which according to the Bible will come before the "end of man."
ReplyDeleteBut hey,I'm not calling for you to be stoned.
Genesis 16:12
ReplyDeleteWondered who would be the first to cite the verse. Congratulations Whit.
Is 16:12 the antecedent to Huntington's view that Islam has bloody borders.
....From Nigeria to Sudan to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Philippines, some of the worst, most hate- driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam.
On the northern tier of the Islamic world, even more blood - in Pakistani-Kashmiri terrorism against Hindu India, Chechen terrorism in Russian-Orthodox Moscow and Palestinian terrorism against the Jews. Also, the Albanian Muslim campaign against Orthodox Macedonia. And then of course there is Islamic terrorism reaching far beyond its borders to strike at the heart of the satanic ``Crusaders.''
Save the...but what about the Hebews and crusaders...I have already addressed the issue previously
Whit - if you think they are radical now, just wait until the Islamic governments are unable to subsidize their societies
Lastly, so much doubt out there -
what was that about the faith of a mustard seed?
Whit,
ReplyDeleteSorry, reflex posting.
Elijah said:
ReplyDeleteWhit - if you think they are radical now, just wait until the Islamic governments are unable to subsidize their societies
Accepting what you say about the radicalization.
Without the petro-dollars what are they?
Fundamentalist Camel jockeys.
Go Algore!
ReplyDeleteSave the Planet from Hillary.
Now that is good news, bob.
ReplyDeleteA certain amount of karmic Justice in that, if Clinton is kept out of the White House by a Third Party, as that got him in, in the first place.
That Nader, who spoiled the '00 Election for Gore, would then team up with him to keep the Clintons out, in '08.
Wouldn't that be something.
Or the two of them are plotting a coup within the Democratic Party.
ReplyDeleteThat wouldn't be as good, if they succeeded, better if they tried and failed.
The Navy last year decreed that tattoos visible while in short-sleeve uniform cannot be larger than the wearer's hand. The Air Force says tattoos should be covered up if they are bigger than one-quarter the size of the exposed body part.
ReplyDeleteTattoo artist Jerry Layton at the Body Temple Tattoo Studio in Oceanside said he was booked up with Marines rushing to beat the deadline.
"These are guys that are dying in the war," Layton said. "They can fight, but they can't get a tattoo? It's ridiculous."
Banning Garish Tattoos
Ok, now all we've got to do is get Bush to quote Habu.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, someway...
That'd be a sea change, sam, that it would.
ReplyDeletePosted this in previous thread, but nobody home.
ReplyDelete(I have an Olmert question there too)
---
Saudi King Condemns Iraq Occupation
At an Arab summit, King Abdullah called the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq an “illegitimate foreign occupation.”
If he'd just skip habu and go straight to Bernard Lewis, it'd be an improvement.
ReplyDeleteBut about as likely.
WTF? I thought the Saudis were Bush and Cheney's buddies?
ReplyDeleteYou are correct Sam:
ReplyDeleteThey were.
What new about that, doug?
ReplyDeleteBut then again, Libby thot GWB was his bud.
ReplyDeleteNew is it's in public, maybe I missed it before.
ReplyDeleteIt is "despised" by the Sunnis, he writes, is seen as "untrustworthy and incompetent" by the Kurds, and now enjoys "little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged."
ReplyDeleteFrom Trish's article it seems like its going to be a very nasty place once the U.S. vacates. The violence might even spread to neighboring countries.
Let's hope small wars don't become nuke wars with the Paki/Sauds on one side and the Persians on the other.
Neighboring Sunni countries were on a weapons buying spree in 06.
The WaPo guy I linked last nite puts it thus:
ReplyDeleteSaudis can read political tea leaves too.
...or some such.
sam,
ReplyDeletegood old doug, he saw the whining light, oh about two years ago, now.
Now it begins to break on another horizon.
1. The U.S. is flexing its formidable muscles in the largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is presently conducting exercises off the coast of Iran that involves more than 10,000 U.S. personnel on warships and aircraft.
ReplyDelete2. The horrors of a society given over to the glorification of murder and suicide and the religious system that supports it, seemingly has no moral boundaries. Reem Riyashi killed four Israelis and wounded seven at a checkpoint between Gaza and Israel in 2004. Hamas TV has recently broadcast a video dramatization of the four-year-old daughter of the female suicide bomber singing to her dead mother.
3. Israel this week is hosting more than 200 Christian Zionist leaders from the US, Canada, England, Africa and Israel who have come together for a three-day program of events celebrating Jerusalem’s 40 years of reunification. The occasion is being sponsored by the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus and the Texas-based Christian Covenant Alliances.
Today's Overview of Leading News
It's pretty damned nasty now, Elijah!
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, you are correct.
Allen:
ReplyDeleteThe Whining Light is Now On at the EB.
Bobalharb: I'd be happy to see Israel become the 51st state, but the Israelis wouldn't want to do it.
ReplyDeleteSure they would. No more obligatory military service for both sexes at age 18. No more having to tiptoe diplomatically around the fact that they are under a nuclear umbrella. The neocons could put their open borders ideology into place with Gaza, Judea and Samaria by tearing the walls back down and granting amnesty to all the Pallie illegals.
Arabs should definitely be granted their right of return. Back to Arabia.
ReplyDeleteThey also have to pay med bills for all the little Bomber Babies T.
ReplyDeleteTime.com:
ReplyDeleteIran 'behaving like a cornered cat'
Laylaz and others say that Tehran's detention of the British marines reflects the growing sense of threat felt by Iranian officials. "The American chokehold — political, economical, and military — is growing tighter and more effective by the day," says Laylaz.
The professor of political science agrees.
"This is all designed to make Iran feel vulnerable," he says. American maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, and the detention of Iranian envoys to Iraq by the U.S. military, have upset Iran's top military leaders, the professor says, and encouraged them to seek more influence over foreign policy.
"They are convinced the U.S. is pursuing a regime change policy," he said. "And if the U. S. is bent on a military confrontation, the thinking goes, why let the Americans set the timing?
We can take the initiative ourselves."
Teresita,
ReplyDeleteIsrael is an nationalist ethnic Jewish state. No right thinking Judaean would want it different. The Leftist Israeli vaginas that do, we make their life easy by allowing them all the incentives to leave.
It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment
ReplyDeleteHomes can be romantic deal breakers. Bob Strauss refuses to get rid of his stuffed baby seal, even though it puts some women off
SEAL
Doug,
ReplyDeleteWhich is the stuffed seal?
Last night, it seemed the mullahs may have realised they are impaled on their own hook. Tehran offered to send Miss Turney home — with a “gift from the Iranian people”.
ReplyDeleteThey also suggested HMS Cornwall may have made a “natural mistake” by straying into Iranian waters.
But that is not good enough. Iran must release our troops. Immediately.
Tehran's Lies
“I was dating this very nice woman, I thought,” says Mr. Podell. “I was ready and she was ready to do the big deed. I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, ‘My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I’m leaving.’ ”
ReplyDeletetrish,
ReplyDeletere: If so, Israel is condemned to a state of perpetual confrontation and insecurity. That's gotta suck.
No snark intended, but we had all better get ready for the new world order: us against them. At the moment, only they seem to understand.
trish,
ReplyDeletere: "their sophistication, numbers and lethality go up -- not down -- as they incur these staggering battle losses."
Again no disrespect to either you are McCaffery, but as this is written a program is audible covering the 1944 Burma campaign. Those were staggering losses.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said: "This initiative simply says to Israel: leave the occupied territories and you will live in a sea of peace that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia," - referring to the capital of Mauritania and the world's most populous Muslim country. "If this initiative is destroyed I don't believe there will be another opportunity in the future like this."
ReplyDeleteThese cautious hopes were not matched elsewhere. The summit has no chance of breaking the political deadlock in Lebanon, and nor is it likely to go beyond platitudes about Darfur and Somalia.
But the event symbolises the kingdom's return to an active Middle Eastern role. Last month King Abdullah brokered the Mecca agreement between Mr Abbas and Hamas, paving the way for the creation of a Palestinian unity government.
Offer to Israel
the West and Israel will bleed badly...but not nearly as much as Islamists.
ReplyDeleteTheir reliance on asymmetric attacks will eventually lead to direct confrontation, which favors the west.
The only question is what will result in the tipping point?
"Americans are weak."
...Now a new geopolitical litany has arisen: The reserves are "shattered"; North Korea, Syria, and Iran are untouchable while we are "bogged down" in the Sunni Triangle; a schedule for withdrawal from Iraq needs to be spelled out; there is no real American-trained Iraqi army; the entire Arab world hates us; blah, blah, blah...
In 1917, "a million men over there" was considered preposterous for a Potemkin American Expeditionary Force; by late 1918 it was chasing Germany out of Belgium. Charles Lindbergh returned from an obsequious visitation with Goering to warn us that the Luftwaffe was unstoppable. Four years later it was in shambles as four-engine American bombers reduced the Third Reich to ashes.
Japanese Zeroes, supposed proof of comparative American backwardness in 1941-2, were the easy targets of "Turkey Shoots" by 1944 as American fighters blew them out of the skies. Sputnik "proved" how far we were behind the socialist workhorse in Russia, even as we easily went to the moon first a little over a decade later. The history of the American military and economy in the 20th century is one of being habitually underestimated, even as the United States defeated Prussian imperialism, German Nazism, Italian fascism, Japanese militarism, and Stalinist Communism.
Nor in our more recent peacetime were we buried by stagflation, Jimmy Carter's "malaise," Japan, Inc., and all the other supposed bogeymen that were prophesized to overwhelm the institutional strength of the American state, its free-enterprise system, and the highly innovative and individualistic nature of the American people.
doug,
ReplyDeletere: Allen:
The Whining Light is Now On at the EB.
Wed Mar 28, 08:58:00 PM EDT
?
McCaffrey
ReplyDeleteSorry
Fricso Inc, a developer and manufacturer of environmentally friendly technology and polymer-based devices that create a friction reduction nanolayer on moving parts, today announced that a test conducted by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology found that FriCSo's Surface Engineering Treatment (SET) highly reduces particulate matter emissions, increases engine mechanical efficiency, and reduces fuel consumption.
ReplyDeleteFriCSo's breakthrough SET technology reduces the friction between moving parts using an innovative polymer-based machining process. SET creates an oil-retaining organic nanolayer chemically bonded to the metal surface, increases surface hardness and improves surface topography.
The test was performed on a 4-cylinder tractor diesel engine. The test was conducted by the Internal Combustion Engine Laboratory of the Technion's Mechanical Engineering Faculty.
Increased Fuel Efficiency
elijah,
ReplyDeleteSomewhere I have an old copy of Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
;-)
trish,
ReplyDeletere: McCaffrey
Whatever ill General McCaffrey may do in future, he will hold a place of honor in my heart for his having turned his guns on Saddam's retreating thugs, when they decided to take a parting shot at Americans on the way out. He fried their asses and took much flak for it, as I recall.
His predictive batting average is no worse than that of anyone here.
;-)
trish,
ReplyDeletere: McCaffrey
Oh, he is paid better for his predictions than any of us, right or wrong.
rufus,
ReplyDeletere: wussy fuckers hated giving him that medal.
Now, rufus, that is no way to talk about General Powell.
This bill will require withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Iraq if its conditions are not met. It will hold the Iraqi government officials accountable for their action and inaction.
ReplyDeleteIt will greatly increase funding for the care of our veterans, who have been neglected upon their return from heroic and frequently traumatic service abroad. It will appropriate deeply needed funds to restore our proud military to a state of strength and readiness.
This is an imperfect bill. But, for all its flaws, it is the right first step -- the right step today.
Rep. Hank Johnson D-Ga
rufus,
ReplyDeletere: language
Me too.
;-)
On the Homefront, the Democrats found the winning hand last November, by abandoning the South and strengthening their positions elsewhere in the country. A fluke, not according to this fellow, Mr Schaller, who mapped out the strategy, before hand.
ReplyDelete"The best strategy for winning in the immediate term," Schaller concludes, "is to consolidate electoral control over the Northeast and Pacific Coast blue states, expand the party's Midwestern margins, and cultivate the new-growth areas of the interior West."
The book, which builds on an analysis Schaller has been offering for years, appeared right before the 2006 midterm election. Schaller's party bounced out of the grave Zell Miller had dug for it, picking up 30 House seats, six Senate seats, six governorships, and more than 300 seats in state legislatures. And it did this everywhere but the South. Of those 30 fresh House seats, only five were in the old Confederacy-two in Texas, one in North Carolina, two in Florida. (One of those seats was on the blue-tinged Mexican border, and two were practically gift-wrapped for the party by the Mark Foley and Tom DeLay scandals.) Only one new governorship (in Arkansas) and one Senate seat (in Virginia) came from the South. Republicans actually gained some ground in the legislatures of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas.
This was a watershed result. From the days of Andrew Jackson through the Democrats' last congressional majority (elected with Clinton in 1992), the party had never won power without a base in the South. After this election, Republicans worried that Southern votes were not enough to build their own base. In December The Washington Post quoted Rudy Giuliani ally Barry Wynn, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, expressing real worry about what the Democrats' non-Dixie gains meant. "Republicans do understand it is political suicide to keep this red-state, blue-state thing going any longer," Wynn said. "We need someone competitive in all 50 states."
The rise of the librarians, within the GOP would screw up the Democrats "Plan", though.
ReplyDelete"...Yet he doesn't argue that either party should abandon massive spending; he believes that the future will pit big spenders from the blue party against big spenders from the reds. "The era of big government is not over," Schaller writes, "but the era of hating big government seems to be ending."
...
But if Republicans decide to fight on economic and regulatory issues rather than social ones, the debate over the next decade would be more libertarian than anything Americans have heard in modern political history. Both parties would default to roughly libertarian positions on the culture war, from gay rights to gun rights, and libertarian economic views would be at the center of the national political conversation. Given the shellacking Republicans took in the midterm elections, the GOP would be wise to look for a new-or old-strategy. Indeed, some highly visible Republicans are fairly demanding precisely that: Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texan, has called social conservatives such as James Dobson "a gang of thugs" and "real nasty bullies" who are hurting the GOP; he urges a return to fiscal conservatism as a cure for the party's problems.
Such a turn of events would discombobulate Schaller, who warns the Democrats against embracing economic policies that libertarians might like. But if the Democrats are serious about expanding and consolidating power in the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, they might have to think about economic as well as personal liberties. And if the Republicans are serious about expanding their power base in those same regions, they'll have to once again think about pairing economic freedom with personal liberty.
The Right Stuff
ReplyDeleteBy: Peter Berkowitz
March 27, 2007 07:58 PM EST
Polls indicate that Rudy Giuliani -- the thrice-married, twice-divorced, pro-choice and civil-union-supporting former New York City mayor -- has become the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. In key states, Giuliani is polling even with or ahead of likely Democratic challengers. Meanwhile, commentators, particularly on the left, are forecasting with increasing confidence the coming of a conservative crackup.
So which is it? Is conservatism, as led by a tax-cutting, crime-fighting, socially liberal big-city blue-state mayor, about to remake itself by reclaiming the center of American politics? Or is it about to collapse from the combined force of its internal contradictions, the legacy of congressional Republicans' profligacy and the errors, real and imagined, of the Bush administration?
...
Giuliani is running as a problem-solver whose mind is concentrated on the urgent requirements of homeland security. He prefers market solutions in education and health care, but he has a prudent understanding that the solution to the problems of government is not always less government but sometimes -- as in the case of protecting the nation from terrorists -- better government. And, in insisting on his commitment to appoint judges in the mold of Alito and Roberts, he may well manage to quell social conservatives' anxieties about his socially liberal opinions.
At this early juncture, one prediction, suggested by the classic liberal tradition, seems reasonable: The competition and conflict that is developing among the leading conservative candidates should prove invigorating, not only for conservatism in America but for the nation as a whole. ..."
Peter Berkowitz teaches at George Mason University School of Law and is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
This is injustice, most foul!
ReplyDeleteJudge Dismisses ACLU Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld
'There is no getting around the fact that authorizing monetary damages remedies against military officials engaged in an active war would invite enemies to use our own federal courts to obstruct the Armed Forces' ability to act decisively and without hesitation…’
___Judge Hogan
Ever heard this guy, 'Rat?
ReplyDeleteAllen,
ReplyDeleteSee 'Rat at
08:54:00 PM EDT
Here is a true blue Democrat explaining the course of the next two years, as they see it playing out.
ReplyDeleteOne does not have to agree with their cause to see that their "Plan" may well succeed.
But so many "just know" they can't, so why even play against them. Just follow the primrose path.
Democrats now have the Republicans in a political vise and will keep squeezing them. Let Bush veto whatever anti-war measure House and Senate finally produce. Let the president's GOP troops uphold his veto. Democrats will then rally for another legislative assault on the willfully blind chief executive. Each new roll call will stick it again to the Republicans. Do they want to stand with the public's common-sense grasp of reality? Or are they going to keep voting with the crackpot commander-in-chief and his delusional search for victory?
The guy in the bunker, unfortunately, may never get the message. That deepens the tragedy, both for America and Iraq. Each new needless death will deepen the hurt and anger. But it looks like George W. Bush will stick with denial, even as Congress keeps toughening its attempts to force withdrawal. I hope I am wrong about that, but a wise friend explained the logic of Bush's desperation politics.
Bush and Cheney, he said, are trying to run out the clock--keep this war going until they leave office and can dump the mess on the next president, very likely a Democrat. In retirement, the Bush crowd will then begin to sow the "if only" revisionism that blames Democrats or the media or the American people for a "loss of will." Sounds absurd now, but that is roughly what happened after the lost war in Vietnam. We could have won, "if only." Sad to say, many Americans came to believe it, especially resentful veterans seeking explanation for why they fought and lost.
That so many of the Public, the Democrats especially believe the above scenario.
Especially if they read blogs like this, where the blame game is already under way, placing it on the Media, the Democrats, duece and me, before the Game is even over.
Hewitt refers (semi-approvingly, I think) to
ReplyDelete"Olmert's over the top reaction to the kidnapping of two Israelis"
---
Weren't missiles already being fired into Israel at that time too?
Russian president’s special envoy for the Middle East, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov who heads the Russian delegation at an inter-Arab summit in Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that the adoption of serious political decisions at the inter-Arab summit underway in Riyadh will affect the future of the whole region.
ReplyDelete“The situation in the region is extremely complicated, very many problems have aggravated and the adoption by the summit of serious political decisions aimed at the solution of all these issues will be of major importance,” Saltanov told Itar-Tass by telephone.
Arab commentators are giving much attention to the summit. May of them are of the view that the current summit is perhaps the most important over many years, because the region has never been on the brink of disaster to which it has now come.
Future of Region
Sounds like politics is war without the bloodshed DR.
ReplyDeleteRead something new tonight
-the Hadith (Traditions) three times record that Mohammed said, "War is deception."
http://www.islamreview.com/
articles/lying.shtml
Is there a trend
- All warfare is based on deception...Sun Tzu
- To prepare a sham action with sufficient thoroughness to impress an enemy requires a considerable expenditure of time and effort, and the costs increase with the scale of the deception. Normally they call for more than can be spared and consequently so-called strategic feints rarely have the desired effect. It is dangerous, in fact, to use substantial forces over any length of time merely to create an illusion, there is always the risk that nothing will be gained and that the troops deployed will not be available when they are needed...Clausewitz
...U.S. Army Deception Planning at the Operational Level of War
By way of deception, thou shalt do war
- Well, that is one view DR, here's another
...The political irony is that for the Democratic Party, their best hope for electoral triumph in 2008 is for things to stay about the same in Iraq. If things should get better-if the re-enforcements (aka: surge) permit the emergence of a genuine Iraqi government that gains popular confidence that suppresses the worst of the sectarian violence-the Democrats will be seen as having been needlessly defeatist and will be trounced in the next election.
And if things get much worse in Iraq and the Middle East, their evident zest for defeat and total absence of either an instinct or a policy for American national security is not likely to induce trust in an American voting public then facing a much more dangerous and unraveling world. Democratic Party cynicism may be a good starter-but it will be a bad finisher.
Born in 1263 in Harran (located close to Damascus) into a family of Islamic scholars and Hanbali jurists, Ibn Taymiyyah received his early education in Arabic and traditional Islamic sciences at home under the tutelage of his pre-eminent father. According to Yahya Michot, the author of the book under review, Ibn Taymiyyah was around seven when his family was forced to flee to Damascus due to an imminent threat of Mongol invasion.
ReplyDeleteIn Damascus he studied under the guidance of some of the city’s leading theologians and jurists, and was barely seventeen when Shams al-Din, the city’s Chief Justice, granted him ijaza (certification) to issue fatwa. As an omnivorous reader, he claimed to have read more than two hundred different tafâsir (commentaries on the Qur’an) and became a leading authority on tafsir, hadith (Prophetic traditions), fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and ‘ilm al-kalam (dialectic theology).
He knew the Qur’an and hadith literature probably better than any other scholar of his generation so much so that his books and treatises on Islamic sciences, philosophy, logic, comparative religion and heresiography are replete with references to the Qur’an, Prophetic traditions and the sayings of the early Islamic scholars.
Father of Islamic Radicalism?
sam
ReplyDeletei must say that you are an unmatched conduit for information exchange.
Thank you
No prob, Elijah.
ReplyDeleteGet kind of bored at work here from time to time so I go for a surf.
I noticed a few threads back you posted something similar to my 'shhh...'. You're supposed to keep that quiet, goddangit! We don't want to tip 'em off. :)
...Nonetheless, for all their mismanagement of a still vital and noble struggle, the Bush team has better served our cause than has the Democratic Party served its interests in its near unanimous opposition to the war recently. Theirs has been the most blatantly unprincipled war opposition short of treason in living memory-and the Democratic Party is likely to pay a fearsome price at the polls for a generation.
ReplyDeleteTheir national defense policy, "if such a farrago of myopic expedience and folly can be so described" (a phrase used by Christopher Tyerman on a different issue) amounts to neither supporting the war effort nor admitting that they prefer to live with the consequences of its failure. There is an honorable (if, I believe, foolhardy) case to be made for the proposition that the price to our national interest of defeat is less than the price of persisting in the war effort. The Democrats are too cowardly to make that case.
So they consciously try to fool the public into thinking that the war objectives (of a stable neutral or friendly Iraq that is not a continuing threat to American security) is more likely to be achieved by our promptly giving up than by our staying. They argue with a straight face that the current Iraqi politicians (I hesitate to call them a government) would succeed in gaining order if only they were not supported by 150,000 American troops. No serious person believes that.
From severe war critic Gen. Anthony Zinni to the liberal Brookings Institute -- the danger of defeat and withdrawal is recognized and accepted. Absent American military support, the Iraqi politicians would promptly flee -- not govern. And then regional (if not broader) hell would break out.
i am sorry trish but the west and hebrews (polytheist hindus for that matter) are in denial.
ReplyDeleteThere is no escape and the the enemy views decades as but the blinking of an eye
just listen to the enemy -
We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [i.e. the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for ...
hundreds of years.”
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, October 26, 2005
“The message of the (Islamic) Revolution is global, and is not restricted to a specific place or time. It is a human message, and it will move forward. Have no doubt ... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, July 25, 2005.
“Every Muslim and every honorable man who is not a Muslim must stand against the Americans, English, and Israelis, and endanger their interests wherever they may be….They must not have security.”
- Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Secretary General, Guardian Council, June 6, 2004
“The Americans are convinced that they will easily win the war in Iraq. But they will not see that day. As the Imam [Khomeini] said, 'One day the U.S. too ...will be history.”
- Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei May 20, 2004
On October 7, 2001, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden broadcast a message to the world: "Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucía." The reference to Andalusia, the Spanish territory that was once under Islamic rule until 1492, makes clear that al-Qaeda sees itself continuing ...
a historic war between Islam and Christendom.
Today, the Palestinian Authority that runs Gaza and aspires to run the West Bank is headed by a coalition government comprised of two organizations: 1) Fatah, which includes terrorists such as the Iranian-backed al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, as well as ineffectual "moderates" such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who make statements about nonviolence and "two-state solutions" when meeting with Miss Rice and Mr. Olmert, but do little or nothing of substance to make them a reality; and 2) Hamas, which remains committed to Israel's destruction and reserves the right to continue "resistance" (terrorism and other acts of violence) against Israel. Given these realities, any peace plan would face an uphill battle -- at best.
ReplyDeleteThe Saudi plan had its origins at a March 2002 Arab summit meeting in Beirut -- a meeting which was overshadowed by one of the most deadly terrorist campaigns in Israel's history, culminating in the March 27, 2002, bombing by Hamas of a Passover seder at a hotel in Netanya, in which 30 people were killed. In response to these attacks, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield, sending the Israeli Army into the West Bank several days later to wipe out the terror cells Arafat had allowed to flourish there.
As the fighting escalated, the Saudi initiative was largely forgotten until this year when the diplomats trotted it out in desperation for something they could plausibly call "progress." If the Saudis want to be taken seriously as peacemakers, they need to stop issuing ultimatums to Israel and start issuing them to the Palestinian irredentists they continue to lavish money on.
Peace Plan Ultimatum
Sydney spray painter Ahmed Jamal, 24, arrived in Sydney today more than two years after his arrest by members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaimaniyah, northeast of Baghdad, in September 2004.
ReplyDeleteThey allege he attempted to join a militant jihad group but Mr Jamal, who was not charged, denies any terrorist links.
His arrival on a flight from Dubai follows more than a year of discussions between the Australian government, the Iraqis and the Kurdish regional leaders.
Detainee Comes Home
Elijah: Absent American military support, the Iraqi politicians would promptly flee -- not govern. And then regional (if not broader) hell would break out.
ReplyDeleteSo what are we supposed to do, spend 900 young American lives per year until the Iraqi politicians magically change their character and become the type that won't promptly flee upon a troop drawdown?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly six in ten Americans want to see U.S. troops leave Iraq either immediately or within a year, and more would rather have Congress running U.S. policy in the conflict than President Bush, according to a CNN poll out Tuesday.
Trish: I don't see the public looking toward the ME with anything but utter disgust and profound weariness after almost a decade of scattering chickens, herding cats, whacking moles, and dodging IEDs.
ReplyDeleteThis is how badly we are hamstrung in this scrap:
Classic battles such as those the troops are trained to win are so few and far between, they totally dominate the news cycles when they actually take place (2nd Fallujah, the "Surge"). The rest of the time, a day is "won" by the US when no single car-bomb attack kills double digit numbers of civilians. anywhere in Iraq, because large losses of life (37 people here, 63 people there) breaks the threshold and puts news of the bombing into the cue at ABC/CBS/FOX radio news at the top of the hour. This threshold is slowly creeping up as Americans grow numb to it.
Throwing a few battalions into Baghdad neighborhoods to make the US presence felt simply results in the enemy choosing another town. He wins the day when he kills enough people to get into the papers. Americans win the day when they keep the killings down. The war can never end, because complete victory is defined as zero terrorism, and any period of relative peace can be punctuated at any time by a single car bomb.
This state of affairs is billed to the American people at a rate of 75 lives and $8.4 billion dollars per month. The merest suggestion that we should declare victory and roll out of there is said to be just short of treason.
"So what are we supposed to do, spend 900 young American lives per year until the Iraqi politicians magically change their character and become the type that won't promptly flee upon a troop drawdown?"
ReplyDeleteIf democracy thrives in the ME it serves our global markets, for capitalism thrives in democracy
If we withdraw, the region becomes a meatgrinder for Sunnis and Shias pitting the enemy one against the other
"Nearly six in ten Americans want to see U.S. troops leave Iraq either immediately or within a year"
Then America should be governed by polls, is that the rationale, so be it...
- six out of ten Americans believe that partial birth abortion should be illegal
- eight out of ten Americans support adding more federal agents along the border while seven out of ten support the border fence and increased efforts to stop illegal immigration
- six out of ten Americans oppose a law that would allow same sex couples to get married.
This is fun. Why do we need a legislative branch when we can just let the polls decide the laws?
"If someone disturbs the Foggy Bottom-monitored naptime, I'll vote to go full-bore habu."
i'll disturb the naptime and put you to the test trish...let's see if your word is your currency with regards to habu
naptime is liberalism's egalitarian fantasies that play out in multiculturalism, internationalism, pacifism, secularism, redistributionism, and environmentalism.
These are all the high-sounding moralisms that cram our brains with fuzz about cultural diversity, gender sameness, world cooperation, peace, freedom of thought, sharing, and loving our Mother the Earth.
At bottom, you find contempt and hatred of Western culture, of men, of American national sovereignty, of soldiers and police, of Christianity, of business and capitalism, and, eventually, of the human species itself. (And in a complicated set of moves, of Israel).
The ghosts of Marx, the cultural backwash of Communism, aka, political correctness and "progressivism".
it is always a pleasure to speak with both of you -
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised
Vice Adm. Charles Style gave the satellite coordinates as 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and 48 degrees 43.08 minutes east longitude. He said that position had been confirmed by an Indian-flagged merchant ship boarded by the sailors and marines.
ReplyDeleteHe also told reporters the Iranians had provided a geographical position Sunday that he said was in Iraqi waters. By Tuesday, he said, Iranian officials had given a revised position 2 miles to the east, inside Iranian waters.
"It is hard to understand a legitimate reason for this change of coordinates," Style said.
Britain Must Admint Navy Trespassed
Global markets are entering a new phase in which geopolitical instability like this week's tension in Iran will weigh more heavily on oil prices, said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.
ReplyDelete"The risk to be involved with oil has gone up dramatically in just a couple of days," he said. "You wonder if this incident is going to be the first or the last."
Even if Tehran releases Britain's detained female soldier and tensions ease, the sustained demand and lower supplies seen so far this year would buy back any potential price drops, Flynn said.
Above $64/barrel
re: Kurdistan
ReplyDeleteA place, to date, without a single murdered American GI. All we are saying is give peace a chance.
'FEINSTEIN NAILED IN SCAM; RESIGNS'; WHERE IS THE MEDIA? WHERE ARE THE REPUBLICANS?"
ReplyDelete---
Rhetorical Questions... Duke Cunninham is serving 9 years over chump change compared to the Feinstein/Blum take.
Thanks to the incompetence of GWB who left Clinton's crook lawyers in to prosecute Cunningham while letting Feinstein off.
New Tone,
Better name:
Dumb Shit.
Criminal negligence, really, since periodic purgings are part of a cleaner, healthier system of govt.
bobalharb said: Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting, but a woman who thinks for herself is to be praised.
ReplyDeleteCharming as a carnal Christmas card, a beautiful brainy bimbo bags bobalharb!
I wonder what punishment this Bastard will get?
ReplyDeleteLINK
A quite similar snatch operation against the equally belligerent Israelis last July led to a monthlong Israeli aerial bombardment of Lebanon and a retaliatory hail of Hezbollah rockets on northern Israeli cities. Well over a thousand people were dead by the end, although nothing was settled.
ReplyDeleteAny day now, a minor clash along Iraq's land or sea frontier with Iran could kill some American troops and give President Bush an excuse to attack Iran, if he wants one - and he certainly seems to. If the Revolutionary Guards had got it wrong last Friday and attacked an American boarding party by mistake, he would have his excuse now, and bombs might already be falling on Iran.
All the pieces are in place and the war could start at any time.
Waiting for the New War
Face it. The commies have finally completed their infiltration of us. Not sure how to turn back the tide.
ReplyDeleteElijah: If democracy thrives in the ME it serves our global markets, for capitalism thrives in democracy
ReplyDeleteCapitalism seems to be thriving even more in an east asian communist dicatorship that runs tanks over people who set up little statues of liberty in public squares.
If we withdraw, the region becomes a meatgrinder for Sunnis and Shias pitting the enemy one against the other
Central Iraq currently is a meatgrinder for Sunnis and Shias pitted one against the other. In fact, only the rise of Saddam in 1979 seemed to put a temporary hold on the phenomenon of Sunnis and Shias pitted against each other, meatgrinder style.
- six out of ten Americans oppose a law that would allow same sex couples to get married.
If my girlfriend gets sick, her family can exclude me from visiting her in the hospital. We are not permitted to adopt children in Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Utah. If I die, my family gets first dibs on my stuff, and they can toss my girlfriend out on the street. Is that the America you want to have?
This is fun. Why do we need a legislative branch when we can just let the polls decide the laws?
Because the first article of the Constitution spells out all their powers. But they ignore 60% majorities in polls at their peril.
naptime is liberalism's egalitarian fantasies that play out in multiculturalism, internationalism, pacifism, secularism, redistributionism, and environmentalism.
You forgot feminism, humanism, journalism, plagiarism, onanism, and nihilism.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Bobal,
ReplyDeleteI got the news from San Fran!
Michael Savage, KSFO!
---
12 Week Old Pandas
Don't let your meat loaf.
ReplyDeleteThe vessels were "were operating in Iraqi waters as part of the Multinational Force-Iraq under a mandate from the Security Council ....and at the request of the government of Iraq," said the draft statement, which can be revised before adoption.
ReplyDelete"Members of the Security Council support calls for the immediate release of these MNF personnel," the draft says.
Compared to a resolution, all Security Council members have to approve a statement, which means any one of the 15 nations has, in effect, a veto right.
Sailors in Iran
Dennis Miller Radio Show
ReplyDeleteThursday, March 29
Today's guests will include former ambassador to the UN
John Bolton;
Congressman Peter King (R-NY);
Ben Stein, the economist, actor, comedian and former TV show host; and
Victor Davis Hansen, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Professor of emeritus at California University, Fresno and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.
Also on KRLA:
http://www2.krla870.com/listen/
Steve Emerson says use of the word "Islamic" is no longer acceptable:
ReplyDeleteFBI Unit just refers to "Radical," not Radical Islamist.
Governments, Colleges, Police, MSM all tend to longer use the term.
CAIR, et al, solicited for their "help," from Whitehouse on down.
Doug: Steve Emerson says use of the word "Islamic" is no longer acceptable: FBI Unit just refers to "Radical," not Radical Islamist. Governments, Colleges, Police, MSM all tend to longer use the term.
ReplyDeleteNext to go is "radical", to be replaced by the "activist" who has the "duty" to resist "occupation".
I'm still somewhat open-minded towards Kurdistan, but among other things, I don't see how you'd keep supplied even a moderately sized force. Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq - none sound promising.
ReplyDeleteOur air lifting forces are the strongest in the world, but that seems a terribly inefficient way to use them. Besides, even they couldn't support much more than a division I'd think - in a bad area that could have its own potential problems.
So, another American ally could be headed for a potential beat down.
ReplyDeletecutler,
ReplyDeleteThe naval forces of Paraquay and Kurdistan collaborate extensively.