Bush appeals to public not to waver in Iraq

Bush made many comparisons to Japan. I hope the Iranians ( I assume)can hear the saber rattling.
kevin

Oh, sure. Not, that we are in the process of creating another terrorist state a la Iran, we need the support of the ordinary Americans as never before, right, Mr President?

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dolphin, CAGE co-founder.
http://www.acage.org

Ah! PIMF-PIMF-PIMF! Please read "now that" in place of "not, that".

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dolphin, CAGE co-founder.
http://www.acage.org

The guy can't ad lib to save his knees on a skid, having the historical sense of fruit fly, and is in desperate need of some FDR or JFK-quality speechwriters, quick.

His mediocre regurgiations of the same banal drivel are what are really wearing on the public, not the actual support for the Iraq doldrums.

If he had the wit of Churchill, and the cunning of either Roosevelt, he could change things overnight by reframing the effort in stirring metaphors and resonating appeals to the basically honorable and tenacious impulses of the American people.

But he is so godawful boring that people are responding to his flatfooted flatulence more than the true events on the ground.

When we need Demosthenes-level stirring phrases that inspire the latent resolve and move the heart, we get the seventeenth repetition of "stand up/stand down" & "stay the course" ad nauseam.

(Somebody send him a Bartlett's Famous Quotations, at least!)

This could be the first war that slipped away because of the inability of the leader to recognize his need to be an able mouthpiece for quicker wits, more-tempered students of psychology, and far-better distillers of history.

(Either that, or he needs to find someone as a spokesperson who can do it for him... although the current crop of Rumsfeld and Rice are equally and embarassingly pathetic promoters of the plan... coming off like aging junior executives who haven't learned anything new since college, and keep repeating dead slogans as the world mutates into multivalences beyond their ability to keep up with.)

As Yeats put it:

"The best lack all conviction,
while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

It is an eschatological duel.

And our pistol has damned wet powder.

If Bush only told the truth about Islam, rather than spreading the lie that "Islam is Peace", we would probably have the majority of the West (as in real Western, freedom loving people) on his side. Not to mention the Thai's, and other SE Asians who are on the receiving end of the "Religion of Peace" bombs.

I mean, how many people would support a worldview that approves of child sex, murder, extortion, constant war with your neighbours etc

But no, why tell the truth to the people you represent? Telling the truth might just hurt your business interests in the Middle East, let alone ruin your bum chum relationship with the King of Saudi Arabia. We couldn't have that, could we? Best to let your own countrymen bleed to death on a foreign battle field for a lie, while at the same time selling your own country out.

"Bush...said U.S. credibility was at stake."

"In a speech in which he sought to cast the conflict as the modern day equivalent of America's World War Two struggle against Japan, Bush said Americans "once again" had a stark choice to make."
--- from the article above

No, he's wrong. It is not "U.S. credibility" that is at stake. It is his policy that is as stake, and that cannot possibly succeed, and which, the longer it takes for that little learning curve to rise to the occasion, the more disheartened and ill-prepared for the long anti-Jihad Cold War (constraint on Muslims within Infidel lands, containment of Islam within dar al-Islam, and the creation of conditions within the world of Islam which will, as happened with Soviet Communism, lead Believers to be forced to make the connection between the political, economic, social, and intellectual failures of their own societies, and Islam itself) this country, and Western Europe (which must not be forgotten) will be.

The Europeans I talk to, the Israelis I talk to, do not believe that remaining in Iraq is anything but a mistake. They are puzzled that the Administration cannot see this. And these are not people who wish to be critical of America; they wish America well. They know what Islam is all about, and worry about it, worry about demographic conquest, and spreading of the faith through Da’wa to the marginal members of Western society. Most Europeans, now awake to the fact of Islam, and more and more awake to the menace of Islam, would breathe a sigh of relief if the Americans left Iraq. They were wrong not to support the initial invasion. Some of them sense or admit that. But the American government has been wrong to remain in Iraq, certainly now that the “electionis” have been held, Iraq’s Constitutional Convention convened and closed (from the way Bush and Rice talked of it, one could practically see the ghost of Ben Franklin in Baghdad), and now there will be the referendum. What is the Administration waiting for? To complete some bases that will never, ever (unless they are in Kurdistan) be used by the Americans? Do they think these bases could be like that at Guantanamo Bay, against the wishes of a hostile regime? Iraq is not Cuba, and if they think that, they are whistling in the dark, and possibly humming along (“Yo soy un guantanamero/De donde crecen las palmas/You soy un guantanamero/De donde crecen las palmas/Y antes de morir…”). Get real about Iraq and about Islam. We are patient, but this is ridiculous.

How this whole idea of a model Iraq, which ignores every single thing that we know, from Gertrude Bell through Philip Ireland up through Elie Kedourie, about the history of Iraq and its constituent peoples, and their resentments and jostlings for position, which if anything were made still more violent, and those resentments turned into something deeper and darker, after the massacre of Kurds by Saddam Hussein's Arabs, and the forced arabization of Kurdish lands, and the destruction of Kurdish villages, and the 80 years of Sunni dominance of Shi'a who had done nothing to deserve that dominance, save that the Government of India, round about 1920, thought it would be a good idea to put the bread-basket of Basra, which helped supply the Raj, into this demihemisemi quaver of a state held together by guns and guile until along came Saddam Hussein, who preferred mass murder with no guile, and gunships rather than mere eensy-weensy guns.

Bush can hallucinate all he want. But what he cannot do is continue to insist, against all the evidence, that a "model" of Iraq will somehow render Islam less potent, less attractive, and above all, less menacing. We have had a Light-Unto-the-Muslim Nations for 80 years. It is called Turkey. The founding father of modern Turkey, Ataturk, did everything he could to constrain Islam. And guess what? Islam is back, or rather -- Islam never really went away. And even those who are the most attractive and plausible of Turkish Muslims, the ones who still believe rather than the Orhan-Pamuk variety, the "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim, become quite defensive about Islam, and propose vague "reformation" without quite knowing how to convince a billion other people that the Hadith and Sira must be jettisoned. Not to mention the unmentionable -- which is the Qur'an itself, that will need to be refigured if there is to be any hope of real convivencia. Perhaps Mustafa Akyol can tell us exactly how, in what plausible way, he would "reform" Islam and make that "reform" of canonical texts stick. I would like to see his list of Qur'anic passages he thinks should be jettisoned, and how he would go about doing it. But of course, the attempt is hopeless.

Why does Bush, why do those echoinng Bush, keep thinking we are stupid? Why do they think we think that this is a "war on terror" and NOT a war of self-defense against Jihad? Why do they think we are willing to indefinitely tolerate their inability to articulate the real nature of things, or to keep suggesting that they really have no idea what Islam is all about? When Bush offers us his tough stance, it is not tough at all. It is timidity -- a policy based on fear of confronting, or even hinting at confronting, the real problem.

One would like to know how many books on Islam Bush managed to read on his summer vacation? Has he read anything? Where do his ideas come from -- the State Department? Elias Zerhouni, his Let's-futz-around-with-N.I.H.-to-show-how-Muslims-can-succeed-in-America appointment? Zalmay Khalilzad? Bernard Lewis, who devotee three paragraphs, two of them exculpatory, to the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule in his 400-page work of haute or basse vulgarisation called "The Middle East"?

No, the "course" he asks us to stay does not make sense. It makes Americans hostages -- Americans Held Hostage, for "we will leave" not really when we decide it is in our best interest, but when the Iraqis have shown sufficient ability to manage a single nation-state. But this will not happen. And the training of Kurds and Sunni Arabs and Shi'a Arabs, who are expected -- despite the fact that almost all of them are full of hostility and mistrust toward the others -- to create out of this impossible raw material a fighting force that will not be riven by treason and betrayal of every kind, is a vain hope. Oh, there may be a few thousand, perhaps 10,000 men who will serve in mixed units who can be trusted not to turn on one another. But can one imagine Sunnis in a unit with Shi'a attacking a Sunni stronghold? Is this possible? Can one imagine Sunnis joining Kurds to attack a Sunni Arab stronghold -- say, in Mosul? Can one imagine Kurds joining with Sunni or Shi'a Arabs to evict fellow Kurds who have re-seized their houses or villages taken over during the arabization campaign? Why does Bush think these things will simply go away?

He is a prodigal. He has a history of not husbanding but of spending, and of being bailed out by others. He always has. And he is right now squandering something much more precious than money, though he is also squandering that at a terrific rate. The men's lives ended or destroyed through severe wounds (over 10,000 now), the $300 billion or so spent, the equipment degraded, the cruel way in which the patriotism of many has been used and abused and twisted to force them to support him in this disgusting argument that "if we pull out now" we will "dishonor the dead." He can't quite make us like the likes of Cindy Sheehan, that unpleasant, self-absorbed simpleton -- but he is getting close.

If he continues in this vein, there will be no civilian army left. There will be generals who, not all of them being careerists, will begin to mutter, even perhaps resign in protest. And the political field will be swept by people who are out-and-out appeasers of Islam. And all because Bush refuses to learn about Islam and about Iraq.

He cannot continue this way. And his claque, that insists on ralying around him no matter what, should think ahead -- not a year, but several decades. Can this country afford to be demoralized this early, when it will take a long time, at least as long as the Cold War, to constrain and contain Islam? Can this country continue to use up, so prodigally, the very support that is needed for this longer effort -- all to what end? To prevent the very things we should be encouraging, which is to say a Sunni-Shi'a split (again, let me repeat: the Iran-Iraq War should have gone on forever), and the emergence of a non-Arab sovereign state, the free state of Kurdistan. The first will have consequences wherever Shi'a and Sunni live in the same country. The second will raise the issue, among the 80% of Muslims who are not Arabs, of their own desire to be free of Arab supremacism. A lesson for the Berbers, for the black African Muslims who may not wish to become little Arabs, and for many others.

But Bush appears hellbent not to recognize this. It is the most obvious kind of exploitation of the enemy's weakness -- but he, with his "Bin Laden" business, and his "all people love freedom" business (nonsense -- the history of the world shows that a great many people love to submerge themselves in a community that will direct their every move, and the totalitarian temptation has been, for modern man, great). Freedom is not a genetic impulse. It requires all sorts of moral and intellectual development -- unless of course Bush has confused the Shi'a enthusiasm for elections, based on the fact that they will take power because they are 60% of the population, with a "desire for freedom." Who "desires freedom"? Al-Sistani? Hakim? Moqtada al-Sadr? The members of the SCIRI party, who want Islam and the Shari'a? The members of the Da'wa party, to which Jaafari belongs? Who?

He should take a few days and read Bat Ye'or, read Spencer ("The Politically Incorrect Guide" is meant for a mass audience), and stop hallucinating about Iraq. Or go ahead -- hallucinate, and make the world safe, in 2008, for Obama Barack, or Hilary Clinton, or Hagel with his long record of statements on Islam and the Middle East that bode ill if one thinks Islam is a permanment menace to all Infidels, not to be cured by throwing Israel to the wolves.

Do the grownups in the Administration and elsewhere in Washington (there must be some, I know there are some) want to prolong, and hence compound the current error of trying to make Iraq into something it cannot be made into – or rather, cannot be made into as long as Islam fills the hearts and minds that then become Infidel-unwinnable, and unless the Americans are willing to take casualties for decades, and spend a few trillion dollars along the way. And that money, even the $300 billion already spent, could if applied to energy programs do more than invading a dozen Muslim countries to bring Islam to heel, and put that Jihad-genie back in its pre-OPEC bottle. The genie will still be there, ready to be called at any moment, for the doctrine of Jihad does not disappear, and never did disappear, and though it is 1350 years old it shows no signs of going into an old age home any time soon.

Really, Bush’s insistence that our “credibility”: is at stake, and he is going to continue to ignore the need to recognize the reality of Iraq (which general, or generals, or officers who have decided to leave the army, will stand up and tell him, and tell the world, that his assumptions about Iraq are all wrong), and his timidity in the face of Islam, which he cannot hint at, much less name, and apparently still does not recognize in anything like the appropriate manner, what Islam is all about. What does Bush think about the islamization of Europe? Anything? Nothing? Let’s hear it from him – now, and not after he leaves office, and a chance is lost, and another few years of Muslim breeding and migration continue unabated, unchecked, unreversed. What he states above shows his folly.

For it is folly beyond fooly when the situation in Iraq offers now a never-to-return opportunity, not to create a “democracy” (good god), but rather the perfect place, and the perfect time, and the perfect excuse (we tried, god knows, oh how innocently and eagerly and roll-up-our-sleevesly we tried to help Iraq, we hered those cats through the elections, and through the Constitutional effort, and now through the October referendum, and possibly even that second election in December. But most of our troops really need to be home for Christmas, and all of them have to be out by Easter – they really do. The Easter bunny, you know, has a relative who keeps telling them “They’re late, they’re late, for a very important date.” What date, you say? Oh, a date with their families. A date with America. A date to rebuild the army, and to consider the careful applicdation of power to contain Islam – with that Iranian nuclear project over there, and the monstrous Sudanese situation down here, and.. .In other words, it’s time for the Iraq Project File to be put back. We did our best.

It was a Learning Experience. Especially for those 425,000 soldiers who served in Iraq. Very few of them can now be fooled about the wonderfulness of Arabs, of Muslims, of the Middle East. How many cases of people who had trained in Arabic, and who went full of illusions, and who returned chastened by their experience in Iraq – and that chastening, that ending of illusions, will make them more valuable in the war of containment that will go on for a very long time. Yes. That’s one thing that the Administration can claim, or should try to claim: We Learned a Lot. Iraq: the Lesson. Or, The Lesson of Iraq. Rephrase it as you will, it all comes to the same thing.

But Bush seems by the words above not to be riding that learning curve. George, you really must get with the program. Or the program will get you, and you will go down in history alongside Jimmy Carter, as someone who hadn’t a clue. I think you have a clue. Others in the Administration have more than a clue. Listen to them.

And think of how wonderful it will be as the troops come home. No one, positively no one, will be able to criticize you. How can all those who have screamed for us to leave, now turn on a dime and say you are now being diabolically clever, leaving the Sunni and the Shi’a to fight it out, and even supporting the Kurds (perhaps covertly, or pretend-covertly, for the sake of deniability). Juan Cole will tear his hair out. So will Amr Moussa of the Arab League. And so will Jane Fonda, and Cindy Sheehan and the entire membership of MoveOn.,org. But what can they do? Insist that we stay? Perhaps The New Duranty Times will pontificiate on how “we broke it, we own it” and now that we are leaving, insist that “we stay behind, or leave a hundred billion or so for clean-up costs.” Ignore what they will try to say, once they realize you are leaving – but in their eyes, for all the wrong reasons.

You can do it. Start making the right noises now. Let Rumsfeld begin. Then you echo the same rhetoric. Then everyone else, down the line, and once more, with feeling. And again, and again.. And let the generals know that at long last you understand they were asked to create an “Iraqi army” when there are almost no “Iraqis.” And that we are now going to leave, and let nature take its course. We’ve done quite enough. Now it is time for us to exploit the situation-- not by ruthless interference, but simply by refusing to interfere, as we have been doing with such good and innocent and naive and costly intentions, any more.

Or we can stay, and stay inattentive to the islmaization of Western Europe, and our remaining in Iraq will continue to be a source of displeasure. And continuing to remain in Iraq will ensure a defeat for those who wish to confront and contain Islam, but in a way that exploits, that takes advantage of, the natural fissures within Islam.

This is not so hard to understand. We’ve been patient. But it is now four years since the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. It has been 2 ½ years since three American divisions conquered Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein and his dangerous – quite how dangerous was not known – regime. That was legitimiate. But the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project will not work. The theory and practice of Islam, the entire history of modern Iraq, make that dreamy idea impossible. No “I Have a Dream” stuff when it comes to the application of power to enemies who wish us will, please. No sentimentality, no “man will prevail” assurances, no “Everyone Years for Freedom.” It isn’t so. And your duty is to us. Got that – us, the Infidels. And our civilization. And our lives. Think about the real Constitutional Convention, and the men who attended it – the one in Philadelphia, not the one in Baghdad. Think about what level of civilization, of political and moral theory, of spiritual development, of an understanding of power and how to limit it, was necessary for the result of that Convention to emerge in the form it did. If you can’t see that when you say things like "we stand with the people of Iraq" this implies that the "people of Iraq" are united when in fact they are at each others' throats, and are ready to fight to preserve their own power, or to seize power away from those who have persecuted them in the past; this remark about the "people of Iraq" betrays someone who is hallucinating about the matter, not allowing reality to sink in.

And when you dare to compare what went on over the past few months in Baghdad, the consideations, the political and moral assumptions underlying that "constitutional" gathering which was more akin to a meeting of Tammany Hall (Carmine DeSapio, presiding) than to what took place in 1787 in Philadelphia, and appear to think you can liken one to the other (because "it would be racist to say that Iraqis don't want freedom just the way that we do" -- well, I do deny it, and then some). When the President of the United States ignores 1350 years of Muslim history, which has had its effect on the mentalities of Believers, and on the attitude of Sunni to Shi'a as well, and of Arab to non-Arab Muslim, so that you talk as if "democracy" is easily transplanted, that basically "people are the same the whole world over" (a vapid schoolgirl sentiment, very fitting for this Britney-Spears age, but not the kind of thing one expects in serious grownups, even if they can't be Lord Palmerston or Churchill) (and that has a gigantic effect on the mentality of Believers) then…. Well, I’m speechless. And it takes a lot to make that happen.

Pretty hard to respond to all the points in that 3215 word piece...however let's look at things from the saudi point of view:

- oil/gas is $70+/$3+ with no end in sight.
- America is a captive nation er, market.
- the Jews have been pushed out of their own land.
- Iraq will soon be under Sharia.
- America is still under threat of imminent attack.
- Americans lose their Freedoms while being forced to worship muslims.
- the (W)ahabbster open border policy guarantees a daily free flow of muslims into the US.
- (W)ahabbster is your best buddy; family friends and business partners for decades and he would rather see the deaths of another 3000 Americans than even talk about an energy self-sufficiency policy as a matter of National Security.

So, when viewed from the correct viewpoint, things are going GREAT! - all according to The Plan.

Jeez....

I'm speechless, Hugh. And I think you're right.

Hugh: When Bush offers us his tough stance, it is not tough at all. It is timidity -- a policy based on fear of confronting, or even hinting at confronting, the real problem.

Unfortunately, no leader of any country (including Israel) has had the cajones to openly confront or even articulate the REAL PROBLem, i.e. Islam. While Bush is bad enough, the Democrats who form the opposition are even worse!

Loved your 'speechless' posting, Hugh! Wish someone could send Bush a copy of Spencer's book on the PC guide to Islam along with some of your wonderful postings. Also Itai's summary is right on. Our Saudi allies must be laughing at us all the way to their banks.

Perhaps if we had been a bit less concerned about dinging the domes of mosks and shrines over there, this thing would be under better control by now. Thousands of injured troops, nearly 2000 troops killed, and hundreds of billions of our tax dollars spent over there and for what? The Shari'ah?

Someone should tell President Fudd that Shari'ah and Democracy don't mix.

Political correctness has no business being a part of any war. Meanwhile, this coming weekend, we'll get to watch the price of gas soar yet even higher, as more illegal aliens, Muslims included, sneak across our border with Mexico.

What a pathetic situation all around.

Bush yesterday began to talk of "oil fields" falling into the hands of "terrorists." What nonsense. The Americans do not have to remake Iraq, and therefore need not remain in Iraq to remake it, to ensure that the oilfields are kept out of the worst hands. They are already in enemy hands, Muslim hands, and even the most malevolent of Muslim hands (as in Saudi Arabia), but Bush prefers to believe that things could be even worse, because some very "bad Muslims" could take the oil wealth and use it to -- to do what, exactly? -- to fund the world-wide Jihad, by buying huge amounts of arms, by paying for mosques and madrasas, by supporting subversive Muslim groups and spreading propaganda, firmly based of course on the canonical texts of Islam, that inculcate hatred of Infidels among the Muslims who have managed to settle within those very lands of the Infidels. He appears not to realize that this is all happening right now, with Saudi and other Arab Gulf money. Why does he not demand that we enter Saudi Arabia, and remake it? Because of course we won't.

The more he speaks, the more incoherent and grasping-at-straws he becomes. He even dares to suggest that Iraq will be just like Japan after the war -- remade in God's, or is it America's, image. And his Secretary of State, the self-assured and always-dutiful Condoleexa Rice, apparently immune to the justifried criticism that she knows almost nothing about Islam, its histroy and its tenets, but presumes to make policy for matters where understanding the relevance, even overwhelming influence, of Islam is indispensable. Again and again Rice, and Bush -- the two chief offenders in the Administration -- have talked about those who pooh-poohed prospects for the remaking of Germany and Japan.

But Germany and Japan had been uttrerly and completely defeated. Berlin and Tokyo were in ruins. Millions of Germans and Japanese were dead; tens of millions without homes. And what's more the ideologies -- National Socialism and Kodo, had been thoroughly discredited, through their complete defeat, and the misery they brought to the Germans and the Japanese, and because of what was recognized as the war crimes that could be attributed to both ideologies.

But Bush fails to realize that the ideology of Jihad, of Islam, was not "defeated" but in fact came out ahead in the regime change that the Americans, not without reason or justification, brought to Iraq.

But Islam is not weakened. The two chief beneficiares of the American war in Iraq are the two most powerful and malevolent and dangerous Muslim states -- Shi'a Iran, and Sunni (Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia. Each feared most Saddaam Hussein, and his potential for aggression. Each is much better off now that the Americans were lured into doing their work for them. But if the Americans remain in Iraq, they will only further strengthen Saudi Arabia and Iran, when what we would like, ideally, is to exploit the natural enmity of these two countries through a proxy war, involving Shi'a and Sunni, in Iraq. That is the only way to come out of this with, not a victory, but at least a considerable achievement. And at this point, it will be achieved not through guile, but rather almost by accident.

It is extraordinary. At this point, it seems the only way to get the American president and his Secretary of State to understand the vast differences between the post-World War II situation, and the situation of the defeated countries and their ideologies, with the situation in Iraq. Islam has not been defeated.

Of course, Bush and Rice may not think there is a problem with Islam. And if they don't, then the rest of us, trying only to prevent the menace of Islam from growing, and only to prevent the most venerable part of Western civilizateion from being lost to Islam not through military but through demographic conquest, will have to pay for it.

The ill-conceived, and self-defeating, program to "win Muslim hearts and minds," the casual way in which people who know nothing of Islam have been entrusted with such tasks without anyone questioning the task itself -- it is a very bad thing to let Muslmis think that we think we need to justify or explain ourselves, and a very good thing if they are made to understand that it is they who must explain and justify themselves and many passages in Qur'an and Hadith, and the model of Muhammad, and the history of Muslim Jihad-conquest and subsequent subjugation of all non-Muslims.

Bush's obstinate refusal to see what is going on in the world, what Islam is like (has he read anything by Bat Ye'or? Is he aware of anything that is going on in Europe, including the change in mood by the suddenly wary Infidels?), and therefore what might constitute an intelligent policy of containment, is extraordinary.

And for all of us, extraordinarily dangerous, for it is we who will pay for his obstinacy, his ignorance, his phony resolve, his comlete failure to take seriously the matter of diminishing OPEC revenues or treating Saudi Arabia in the way it deserves, which can only occur once one realizes there is absolutely nothing the Saudis can do to us (this continues to be misunderstood -- they must sell the oil, nad whatever investments they make, will always flow back even via a European bank or other intermediary, provided the investment makes economic sense).

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

It is true in economic life. It is also true when that wealth accumulates, and the children of privilege, who have never had to think for themselves, or who have always been bailed out, manage somehow to end up, like Chauncy Gardner in "Being There," in a position for which they are unfit. As unfit as Carter, or Clinton, but the stakes now are higher.

Hugh, I wish I had your energy.....

Whither are those strident Bush supporters that profaned the good name of John Kerry here only 12 months ago? Remember the "Al-Qaeda For Kerry" meme?

C'mon, Gary, Son of Walker, Catharine, Bar, Watergorgon: step up to the plate and tell Hugh, DC Watson, Bigsleep and the other now-awake realists that THEY HATE THE TROOPS. Can't you see that they are insulting President Monkey-in-a-Man-Suit? HOW DARE THEY? Our brave men and women in uniform are dying in a war zone, and these offal are criticizing "OUR" Commander-in-Chief? (Ha-ha... I can't even TYPE that without laughing.) Aw, wait. I know. They probably don't even come to the comments sections of anything that criticizes the Boy King.

Alas, it WOULD be funny to see all these rats desserting the sinking ship if not for the pile of GI corpses keeping the GOPers high and dry on shore.

Rejoice, rejoice, ye good, Christian, patriotic conservatives! YOU GOT YOUR WAY. Gore can't take your little guns away now, and Kerry isn't going to "let France decide whether or not [sic] we can defend ourselves." And our judiciary is being salted with elitist dolts that think YOU shouldn't be able to sue your doctor if he kills you.

Abortion rights, and rights to privacy, and affordable gasoline are disappearing, but--PRAISE THE LORD©!!!--it looks like we are NOT going to let the sissies get married.

Hey Gary, can't you think of a way to blame the Iraq war on Ted Kennedy, or maybe Slick Willie? Maybe you need to listen to Rush Limbaugh more; surely the Big Anal Zit that kept him safe at home by mommy's apron strings (while Kerry was killing Commies in 'Nam) is capable of dreaming up a way to blame this all on Hillary?

Oh man... just IMAGINE those conservative Saudi Arabian bastards anger when Hilary takes office... especially with the ever-present rumors of her being a lesbian. WOW. What could piss off those Saudis more than that? Wait, I know. What's REALLY, REALLY going to anger them is when President Hilary the lesbian tells them to go pound sand up their asses; we can buy oil from (GASP!) V-v-v-v-Venezuela! And Mexico! And Russia! And Nigeria!

BTW... somebody up there, DC I think, said "why doesn't someone tell President Gump that Sharia and democracy don't mix?".... dude, liberals have been screaming that since before the he started the Re-elect Sitting Preznint War (or should I call it the Halliburton War?) Bush doesn't take advice. Like the Reagan puppet of the 80's, he makes up his mind, and issues orders, period. Get used to it.

If not for the pratically-guaranteed-imminent terror attack on America, I would laugh.

Attention GOPermonkeys:

Please direct flame mail and death threats to:

rollinsfan021361@yahoo.com

The last two postings prompt me to append one more note:

Bush now has American soldiers attacking the Sunni insurgents of both kinds (Baathists and Zarqawi's foreign legion) for the benefit of the winner-take-all Shi'a, and packaging this timid and ill-thought-out policy in the language of a universal desire for"democracy" (which, for all I know, he may believe). Since he refuses to see Islam as the problem, but only the "extremist ideology" that he mentions while carefully not specifying what it is, and this failure of comprehension, in turn, leads to overlooking the naturally-occurring fissures within the Muslim population of Iraq that could be exploited in the war against the Jihad (instead of which we remain, pointlessly, to squander resources and lower the national will to engage in what will be a long enterprise, an enterprise possibly without end).

But political confusion comes from the fact that so many of those who deplore Bush do so for all the wrong reasons, not becaue they have correctly identified the menace of Islam, but because they refuse to believe that there is anything wrong with Islam, not becuase they think he has been profligate with resources in Iraq for a goal -- "democracy and stability" -- that have nothing to do with weakening Islam, and that it is instability, and the natural fissures within Iraq that present themselves for exploitation, that should be attracting his attention.

One waits for someone, anyone, in either party, to analyze things correctly. To attack Bush not because he is war-crazed but because he is not clever enough, or articulate enough, to present things convincingly, taking whatever care he must to use synecdoche ("Jihad" for "Islam"), to convey a message without necessarily being completely open and detailed about it. Meanwhile we are forced to endure those who offer up opposition to him of the silliest kind -- that "Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism" (so Saddam Hussein's aid to suicide-bombers' families in Israel has nothing to do with terrorism?) when any Muslim country must be regarded as in posse a supporter of terorrism, a supplier of weaponry, which is why no Muslim country -- not Egypt, not Tunisia, none -- can be allowed to acquire major weaponry.

This was not a "war about oil." It was not a "neo-con war on behalf of Sharon." It was a war against a Muslim state, that was well-armed, and the degree of that well-armedness needed to be investigated and doubts put to rest. But that was done by the summer of 2003. "Hostilities were over" according to Bush in May 2003, with about 200 Americans killed. Now it is September 2005, and there are close to 2000 killed -- ten times as many. And hostilities are not over. And there still seems to be no understanding of what is going on in Iraq, of the resentments of the Kurds that will not disappear, of the fury of the Sunnis that cannot be assuaged, and of the role of Iran and its agents in promoting both the Shi'a SCIRI and the Shi'a Dawa.

Why should the two countries that have the most malevolent intentions toward the United States of all the Muslim countries -- Shi'a Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia -- be the very countries that were most threatened by Saddam Hussein, and have been greatly relieved, through the efforts of the American military?

By letting the Sunni-Shi'a split continue, by ceasing to try to patch it up, and by leaving within the year, or even by the beginning of next year, the American government will show that it no longer believbes in this "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" policy and is going to be very hard-headed indeed, no matter what soothing and plausible "Iraqis" from Chalabi to Rend al-Rahim Francke to Kanan Makiya, or their Sunni equivalents, make a pitch for intervention.

No.

Holy Sh*t! Hugh, that's alot of words to be so right on target about. Let me be the first to proclaim:
For Heaven's Sake, Hugh Fitzgerald in 2008!

"And he is right now squandering something much more precious than money"

Even more precious than the lives of the young men in Iraq, is squandering the willingness to act the next time. By diverting our reaction to 9/11 into Iraq, he has single-handedly subverted the entire premise under which the war against jihad must be fought. The next time we want to take action against those who actually are attacking us, Iraq will be used as an example of why we are off track and therefore should not act. This will end up costing lives here in the U.S. The mis-named "war on terror" is losing its last whiffs of steam even as we speak.

"But can one imagine Sunnis in a unit with Shi'a attacking a Sunni stronghold?"

I have never heard it put more clearly. They will raise "fragging" to a whole new level, with police shooting police. Tribal and religious affiliations will always trump loyalty to the (barely) nation of Iraq. How can they not see this?

kj said "Whither are those strident Bush supporters that profaned the good name of John Kerry here only 12 months ago?"

Bush has never done wrong, Bush can never do anything wrong. Sure, hurricane Katrina was bad, but it would have been much worse if we had elected John Kerry. And why didn't Clinton upgrade the dikes in New Orleans when he was President? It's all Clinton's fault. Bush will end up replacing a brutal dictatorship with a brutal Islamic theocracy in Iraq. And they will continue to demonize anyone who suggests that maybe that was not the best strategy, and they will continue to blame any Democrat in whistling distance. Blaming and diverting attention, those are the only things Bush/Rove/Cheney has been successful at.

And where are those in public life, of either party, or of no party at all, who should be attacking the current policy in Iraq -- relentlessly, but for the right, not the wrong, reasons. And what, again, are those reasons? The reasons are that the current policy misallocates resources, squanders them rather than husbands them, is not based on a careful analysis of the assumption that "democracy" will do something to limit the appeal of Islam, within dar al-Islam and within dar al-Harb, but that simply relies on repetition of phrases, easy allusions to post-World War II Japan and Germany -- the most ludicrous of analogies, that can be knocked over in a minute.

The reason for getting out of Iraq and letting nature take its course there (while accompanying such a withdrawal with a series of acts that will show there is no appeasement going on, just a redeployment of forces because it makes sense). From cutting or ending entirely the foreign aid of Jizya to Muslim countries (and insisting that Saudi Arabia and other rich Arabs be asked to pick up the slack -- for their aid would not be jizya, but merely an intra-Muslim transfer, and we would like resentments by poor Arabs and Muslims to focus on the rich Arabas and Muslims, not on Infidels), to cutting all Muslim migration, to ending all "hearts-and-minds" programs because it is not we who have the explaining to do, but they (if they can), about their beliefs, their tenets, their behavior, their conquests and subjugations of non-Muslims and destruction of artifacts wherever Islam conquered. So when someone says "but we just can't leave" they are attacking a straw man -- we can leave, and say, and do, and plan, a hundred sundry things, that will make clear that a new, more knowledgeable, more imaginative, more cunning, policy is now to be observed -- and not the clumsy giant just sitting there, or still worse, sending (as some senators have urged) even more troops, an even greater misallocation than what we are already being forced to endure.

Everytime someone in the Administration parrots the silly insistence -- sillier every time it is repeated -- that "we will win" the "war" (that "war on terrorism" presumably), and talks of "victory" it shows they have no idea what this "war" is, what the enemy is, and how long things will take, and how the word "victory" is entirely inappropriate and misleading and dangerous. To contain and constrain Islam is a constant effort, requiring all sorts of things to be done -- the kind of effort that took place in the Cold War, but unlike during the Cold War, there are large numbers of what are enemy suppoorters now behind our own, Infidel lines, in both North America and in Western Europe.

Bush's rhetoric is now so divorced from reality, that the officers and men who have been to Iraq repeatedly (and so can compare, over time, what the party line is and what they have observed), or the relatives of anyone who has been to Iraq, at least those who do not feel the psychic need to parrot the party line about "confrontig the terrorists over there so we won't have to confront them over here" (exactly how that Iraqi business helps stamp out or diminish the appeal of the tenets of Islam, or exactly how our remaining in Iraq allows us to devote resources -- which are not limitless --of soldiers, money, and attention to the Muslim threat as far away as the Philippines and Central Asia, and as close as Western Europe (and how does Iraq help prevent the islamization through demographic conquest and Dawa of Europe?).

Bush is lucky so far. A simpleton like Cindy Sheehan auto-destructs. The most ridiculous phrases by the most ridiculous people about how this is a "war for oil" and so on, cause some to lose sight, in their desire to defend the Administration from those who are either the standard left-wing conspiracy theorists, or the new appeasers of Islam who do not want anything to be done to stop, or even alert people to the existence of, something called the Jihad.

As long as Bush continues to talk in terms and, alas, to think in terms, of a "war on terror" because he is simply terrified of getting close even synechdochically to the word "Islam," people in this country and elsewhere will remain confused. They will not know where to put their feet and hands. Of course, there are the hopeless simpletons, whether that simpleton is a dead soldier's mother (Cindy Sheehan), or a simpleton who was in charge of the C.I.A.'s "Bin Laden desk" and apparently believes that Muslims "hate us for what we do" such as our "limitless" -- in this simpleton's view -- support for Israel (Michael Scheuer). It is frightening to think that there are some very dumb people in the C.I.A. and elsewhere, peole who we now realize, to our horror, have not a clue about Islam. Whatever else happens, start training people now -- and bring in those defectors from Islam in the same way that defectors from Soviet Russia were employed to explain home-truths to American officials and intelligence agents.

Someone should ask Bush what we will "win" when we "win the war on terror"? Will "terror" end? Why? Where? And will the other instruments of Jihad cease to exist? Will Europe be less likely to be islamized, if American troops remain in Iraq, or will we have that indispensable reconciliation with the threatened, scared, and demoralized Infidels of Western Europe that is so badly needed, which is far more likely to happen once we get out of Iraq.

Does Bush think there are finite number of terrorists, and that they will come -- that silly "honey-pot" theory -- to Iraq to fight and die? He cannot imagine that the supply is infinitely replenishable? Why not? And even if"terrorism" as a tactic were to end, so what? In fact, were there to be no terrorism, it might lull us all to sleep again, until we wake up to find those minarets and the muezzin's wail all over Europe -- with incalculable consequences.

We are being fed nonsense. I don't know which is worse -- that those feeding us this nonsense actually believe it, or that they don't. Now as it happens, almost everyone in the regular army has had at least two tours of duty in Iraq. That is important. In returning, the soldiers can judge for themselves the contrast betweeen the kind of things that constitute the Administration's (and hence the Armed Forces's) party line, with what they themselves can observe. The fantastic corruption, the grabbing of stuff for oneself and one's family and one's tribe but never for anything larger, the crazed rumors and conspiracy theories, the whining and complaining and blaming of America for absolutely everything (save among a very small moral and intellectual elite, that is nearly imperceptible, though every member of that elite has come into contact with the Americans).

Bush is bringing down not only himself, not only all those who choose, whether as members of the government or as Bright Young Conservative Things applauding him as they stand, Horatio-at-the-Bridge like, bravely talking of "victory" and, what's more, about things they know nothin about, such as the possiblity of "reform" or a "reformation" of Islam. Careerists all.

There is a "victory" of sorts -- that is, there is a way to turn the situation in Iraq to the advantage of Infidels. And that can only be achieved by ceasing to fight the Sunnis, and leaving. Let the Shi'a handle it. They are already, many of them, in cahoots with Iranians. Let the most fanatical basiji come over from Iran, and that will weaken them at home -- and Iran, or rather an Iran that could be less Muslim than it has been in 1300 years, is a possibility, if we let the Islamic Republic of Iran expend its money and soldiers fighting -- well, the likes of Zarqawi, and his Sunni volunteers, for one. What could be better?

And of course there is Kurdistan. The Administration is terrified of offending Turkey. It seems beyond the wit of official Washington to recognize that Turkey's usefulness is limited (we no longer need it to join against its historic enemy, Russia), and that the malevolence that reflects the resurgence of Islam is something we need not continue to appease. And furthermore, Turkey has nowhere else to turn -- it will never be part of the E.U., and its elite know it, however much they continue to whistle in the dark. The Americans could guarantee that whatever trouble the Kurds cause Syria (and they should) and Iran (and they should), the American government will guarantee Turkey's borders -- but only if the Turks accede to that which Rice and company think simply cannot possibly even be asked of them. Again, timidity, the dutiful and unimaginativge student, unused to thinking for herself, himself, themselves.

That is not how to get an A in this course --- should you insist on staying in it, or staying it, or something.

Hugh said (and it was worth repeating 3 times):

"And where are those in public life, of either party, or of no party at all, who should be attacking the current policy in Iraq...?"

"A simpleton like Cindy Sheehan auto-destructs."

Exactly right, both sides, Republicans and Democrats, are using Iraq for their own political posturing, with little or no sincere regard to the men stuck on the ground there, or the implications to our future security.

That is why Jihad Watch and Roberts' books and your postings are so important. Someone has finally gotten it right.

For Heaven's Sake, Hugh Fitzgerald in 2008!

Hugh
When I am out for breakfast, which I don't do often as I don't enjoy breakfast, I sometimes just order,"I'll have that too." In geopolitics, I am much more difficult to convince, once I determine where I should be. Well, you have convinced me,solidly,that you are right. Running from a fight is distinctively and instinctively unAmerican but this would not be running, this would be a strategic withdrawal and the right move for many reasons that you have illustrated more than sufficiently. Keep working, you might be surprised who is reading. Thank you for your dedication.

"Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

- "Chronicle of Young Satan"

Mark Twain

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goering

Zeig Heil, Timbo! Did your mellifluous Mr. Goering also mention that sometimes a nation actually is under attack?