It looks as if Bush has rejected attempts to rename the war on terror. And still no recognition of the jihad. "President Makes It Clear: Phrase Is 'War on Terror'," from the New York Times, with thanks to JS:
GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.
Government officials who answer to him will have to follow his folly. Others -- members of Congress for example -- will not. While he is on his 33-day vacation at the 1,200 acre ranch, as the American military continues to attempt to do the impossible -- make a reasonable nation-state out of Iraq -- while taking greater and greater casualties -- some of them should begin speaking about the "world-wide Jihad" and put him, on his vacation, to rhetorical and other kinds of shame.
Many in the administration as well as the president continue to define WW III and the enemy in generic terms with the reason being that they do not wish to brand the entire umma as part of the dar al harb yet. They are continuing to look for some wiggle room with moderate muslims in what is perceived as the true majority of muslims through out the world. However those muslims who appear to be speaking out against the terrorists have no problem in being specific about the root causes Islamic terrorism. Maybe it is about time that the President and his cabinet start talking about the duck that they can all see walking and quacking through the forest of trees.
"To be able to defeat your enemy you must be able to define him" and you must also be able to define yourself to defeat him.
Why are we not strategically bombing Syria? Why did we not bomb Syria and Iran back to Hell after they murdered our Marines in Beirut? Get a clue Bush. We must send a very harsh message to the swine in Syria.
http://foundingforefathers.com/_wsn/page2.html
"if it moves bomb it" sounds like very familiar rhetoric.
for the President of the US to come out and say "errrm, well actually it IS the entire muslim world we are fighting now" would be like sounding the starting gun for WWIII.
IIRC bin Laden started off his military life as a CIA asset in Afghanistan when the terribly clever strategists at Langley decided on, what was in retrospect, a short-sighted strategy to subvert the USSR in their own back yard.
just because people aren't your best friends does not give you carte blanche to bomb them.
knee-jerk, trigger-happy, ill-considered military expeditions, whether you like or not, have contributed to the current state of affairs.
like the French tried to tell you, maybe storming gung-ho into Iraq ain't such a great move guys. the American response? renaming the potato based fried snacks in the House of Representatives and slating Kerry "for being a Brie eating liberal" FFS.
now, i don't profess to having any answers but what i can tell without a shadow of doubt in my mind is:
1. for the US president to declare a start to WWIII would be kinda dumb
2. opening up another military front when your (and by extension our) manpower is already thinly spread would be even dumber
i wonder what advanced mind control techniques "evil mullas" have to learn to persuade impressionable, idealistic young men that Americans are ignorant and need a good slap? that must be a really tough sell.
Better armored vehicles, the troops not concentrated for maximum casualties by the enemy, and more reliance on distance tactics and more serious threats would be more to the point that phraseologies.
Whatever you call it, you'd better know how to fight it.
At present, the military figureheads trotted out to explain why losing 14 Marines at once in a predictabel as hell IED attack... after 2 years of the same stupid sh*t... look as confused and full of banal bragadoccio or stuttering sliminess as the clowns doing the 'explaining how everything is peachy' briefings during similar tactically incredible follies in Viet Nam.
I'd have hoped a different type of military mentality might have grown up after that mess (religiously reading Mao's work on guerilla warfare, etc.), but it sure doesn't look like it.They'd serve us better by learning some basics of life: spread your risk; speak softly but carry a big stick; and know what you want from a conflict and how to get it before you join the fray.
cedarlite - It is obvious that Bush's plan or lack thereof has always been ill-conceived. I do not dispute that. I think Iraq had to be dealt with, but I would have done it differently. Even in Afghanistan, we actually tried to negotiate with the Taliban to get bin Laden and we did not blanket Tora Bora enough. I doubt Bush calculated the risk that Iran could influence Iraq or that the constitution could have an Islamic taint. We never had enough armor or troops, especially to secure the borders, we should have prevented the looting after the fall, and we should have greater input into the constitution, just like we did in Japan. It also makes me sick that this guy goes on vacation for a month every year. My point is that Syria has to be dealt with and when Marines get killed I get very pissed off. There needs to be retribution. Syria has been a very bad actor for a very long time and it has resulted in the death of many US soldiers and US citizens.
great and useful comment as ever Big Sleep.
Off topic, note that Turqi, the Saudi former secret police chief ( islamofascist thug) is now Bandar's replacement as "ambassador" to America.Had been "ambassador" to Britain. No doubt done a bang up job there.
Keep your enemies closer.
Those of you bemoaning the fact that the President should not announce or indicate that we are in WWIII remind me of the story of the "Emperors New Clothes", or the current Politically Correct speach and thought coming out of London and the USA. This is WWIII not calling it that will not change that fact! It is time we had "Statesmen" not politicians!
Founding Forefather - losses hurt, whether civilian or military, muslim or non-muslim. war is always brutal, never glorious.
we are beyond territorial disputes now - it is a battle of ideas.
when the barn is already on fire, don't pour kerosine on it to put it out.
right now the hearts and minds operation is being won hand over fist by the islamists. don't take my word for it, that according to the former head of the CIA bin Laden unit - Schuer IIRC.
the lads that blew up the tube and the bus in London the other week were persuaded by watching tapes of women and kids getting killed in Iraq. if they were white kids at a similar age they may have "rebelled" by having a fight with some fans of a rival football team. they weren't, they were 3rd generation sons of muslim migrants from Pakistan. when they were fed up with it all some evil bastard got hold of them and gave them a backpack full of explosives.
the hearts and minds operation for the Iraq expedition never got out of the starting blocks. the propaganda war has been comprehensively lost. nobody is talking about the facist dictator that bulldozed bodies by the dozen into mass graves. nobody is even talking about the sunni fanatics slamming explosive laden cars into crowds of shia kids. they are all talking about Iraq and the US's (Bush's) motivations for launching the invasion.
yes, something needs to be done but it has to be done smarter not stronger.
it wouldn't surprise me if Bush hadn't countenanced the fact that the Shia majority in Iraq might just look to the Shia ruled country next door for a bit of leadership. it wouldn't surprise me if he really did believe that shortly after a few statues were knocked over that spontaneous apple pie baking and little league would break out.
it would surprise me even less to think that he had his eye on access to strategic oil resources to keep the wheels of American industry turning for the next few decades. he may not be wrong in that.
at times compromise is called for, somewhere between "right" and "wrong" or "them" and "us". there may be some of "us" living amongst "them", we already know the reverse is true. Tony Blair and Ken Livingstone were "shocked" to discover that on 7th July. most of the rest of us weren't.
this will be a long game, have no doubt about it.
Meanwhile, the back door is wide open!
please, cedarlite, the hesitancy the French showed about invading Iraq was about cheap oil and other related emoluments, not to mention Chirac's longstanding comraderie with Saddam rather than not "quagmire" or humanitarian concerns.
waterdragon52:
possibly.
more likely that they, with a long history of involvement with arab nations and muslims, figured, absolutely correctly, that a vainglorious escapade to cowe the arab world would be counter-productive.
notwithstanding the fact that also over 8% of the population of France is, in fact, muslim, and they didn't really fancy a civil war.
right now, the French secular model is looking pretty attractive held up next to the mish-mash that is British "multi-culturalism". they're not daft and they never have been.
Bush and lots of other Republicans (not to mention ethnic pandering Democrats) are phonies, cowards, and not patriotic at all. I hope in the next elections the American people have more sense to elect righteous individuals like Sensenbrenner and Tancredo are elected.
War mongering rants from a chickenhawk. I'll bet you never saw combat, much less served in the military. So easy to waste our blood and our treasury on ill conceived and counter productive adventures.
Fact: Saddam was NOT a threat to anyone, except a symbolic threat to his Arab and Iranian neighbors, and a nuisance to Israel because he was sending money to families of suicide bombers, But the Saudis are an even bigger threat and send more money to the families of suicide bombers and finance Islamic subv ersion and terrorism throughout the world.. and I don't see you or any other chicken hawk declaring war on Saudi Arabia.
Every excuse for invading Iraq has been PROVEN to be a lie, and that the "intelligence" was fixed to justify the invasion, and the invasion was counterproductive, now we have a religious fundamentalist regime, allied to the mad mullahs of Iran running Iraq, before we had an apostate (Saddam) who was himself at war with the religious fanatics and a recipient of a fatwa from Osama.
Now Iraq is a recruiting tool, and training ground , a magnet for Jihadis from all over the world, including the U.S. and Europe.
IMHO, Bush is guilty of treason to western culture, and because of his lies, a traitor to the country of which he is the CEO.
He is also butt buddies and business partners with the Bin Laden/Saudi's.
Syria a threat? Hardly, Syria is a source of instability in Lebanon, and it does serve as Headquarters and a conduit for arms and money for Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad, but it is not a military threat to anyone, it has no cajones and it's army would evaporate in minutes before an armed assault.
Syria is the suzerainity of the Alawites, a minority Muslim sect, that is considered by true muslims to be kaffir,they even have a form of communion and drink wine.
Alawite
Anyone in the UK
Watch Channel 4 at 9:00pm
Cult of the suicide bomber
Singh
cedarlite -
Wrong again. muslim Losses do not hurt. Think of them as the path to victory. Establish a very large cemetary and populate it, lavishly, with our enemies. That is how victories are created.
Also, I would like to point out that failure to capitalize anything in your comments does not hide ignorance of basic grammar.
Giaour -
"Syria a threat? Hardly, Syria is a source of instability in Lebanon, and it does serve as Headquarters and a conduit for arms and money for Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad, but it is not a military threat to anyone, it has no cajones and it's army would evaporate in minutes before an armed assault."
Hey genius, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad are threats. They were a threat to the Marines that were murdered in Beirut and they are involved in terrorist activities that are a threat to everyone. I never said that I would have invaded Iraq, now did I? "I think Iraq had to be dealt with, but I would have done it differently" does not translate into an invasion. We dealt with Libya without force. Don't try to put words in my mouth. Strategic means stopping the flow at the borders, which could include Predator drones and targeted bombings at terrorist conclaves, not Damascus. I never said invade Syria.
NOTE: FOX WITH LINDA VESTER COMING UP IN A MINUTE -- 1 PM EST AND 10 AM PST-----
There are many here (like me, for one) who're disillusioned with Dubya's approach to THE war of our generation. Though many of his opponents love to paint him dumb and a second avatar of Hitler no less, old Dub is anything but.
Cedarlite and some others here say it was wrong to invade Iraq. OK. What was the right response post 9/11 & Afghanistan then on the foreign front? Doing nothing? As it is, after scooting from Somalia because dead marines were dragged through the streets, the US withdrew and the impression all over Arabland is that "bleed them enough and they'll run". Do we wanna encourage that impression? The Russians, esp. post WWII, thought of the Yanks as too weak and comfortable to take well to the sight of bloodletting and the last thing we need is for the mussie world to think it can get away with anyting coz the civilized world, for all its tech prowess is too weak/wimpish/etc to act.
Turkey and Iran make demands on the EU (lets not even begin mentioning the UN). The level of contempt they hold the EU in, shows through clearly. The US is treated slightly better and maybe we want the US to sink to the UN level as well? BTW, That'll certainly happen if the left here has its way.
Anyway, I take cedarlite's point that its easy being an armchair hawk baying for blood from behind a comp screen. Also, its easy being a bleeding heart and accusing those who fight on our side - the USMC for one - of war crimes and brutalities and what not.
Those who call for war are not necessarily bloodthirsty heartless monsters. Though its easy to paint them so.
Giaour - you said:
"I'll be honest people like you "Founding Father" that are liberal with the blood, treasury and posterity of America are as much an enemy of America as the Jihadi's."
How dare you make a statement like that. First you put words in my mouth and co-opt my statement by going off on tangents that are not even being discussed. Then you say something dispicable about me that is an outright slanderous lie. To equate me in that manner makes you a terrorist loving scumbag in my book.
Big sleep
I'd have hoped a different type of military mentality might have grown up after that mess (religiously reading Mao's work on guerilla warfare, etc.), but it sure doesn't look like it.They'd serve us better by learning some basics of life: spread your risk; speak softly but carry a big stick; and know what you want from a conflict and how to get it before you join the fray.
The biggest folly in veitnam was the americans never took off there boots and rolled up there trousers when marching in the rice paddies.
Saddam knew this!!!and that is why he predicted the real war would start when the coalition entered Bagdad.
Seems like Saddam,and the Jihadis had been doing their homework by reading Mao's work on guerilla warfare.
Giaour:
RE: Iraq and Saddam
Have you actually read anything more recent than Usher's book on the Bush family and the Saudis?
Stephen F. Hayes has produced a fair body of work suggesting quite the opposite is the truth and that the MSM simply refuses to accept the ample amount of evidence that Saddam was up to his chin with jihaddists since he first started hosting conferences in the early 1990s and stockpiling all sorts of precursor materials.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18729
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11946
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13589
CHECK IT OUT ----TOWNHALL.COM--
Garthwaite just posted an advertisment for Robert's new book "THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE TO ISLAM ABOUT 35 MINUTES AGO..On Townhall.com.
Thank you for recognizing that I am a genius, I also have common sense, and a better understanding and more knowledge of Islam, history (especially of the mid east) than you do.
Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad are a threat (To ISrael) not the U.S., granted I'm pro Israel and with them all the way in their fight to survive in the face of the Islamist threat, but for the sake of accuracy it has to be said that Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad are NOT a threat to the U.S.
As regards Iraq being dealt with. For whose purpose and safety? Ours? Europes? Hardly. Saddam was first and foremost a threat to his Arab Neighbors, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran more than any others. Saddam was doing the west a huge favor, as he filled massive holes in the ground at al Hilah, Babylon, Najaf monthly with the corpses of Islamists, allies and patrons of Iran.
Osama had issued a fatwa against Saddam declaring him an apostate,, and he was. Saddam was not an Islamist, in fact I doubt that he was a Muslim at all, but used the image of a Muslim, as he did other images, to portray himself as a leader in the Arab world, but the man was a farce, and his threat was only symbolic.
As regards Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad, I follow the situation closely, and there is no evidence that these Shi'te (Iranian supported and linked outfits) extend their activities beyond Lebanon and Palestine.
The Terrorists network on the other hand is Sunni Wahhabiyyah, financed, supported and draws its recruits from the Sunni mosques in Africa, the mid east, Europe and America.
And the Sunni mosques are funded by the Saudis.
There are two other Shi'a Jihadi groups of note.
Ansar al Islam, which is Kurdish based, and was employed by the CIA in Bosnia and Mujahideen e-khalq which is both Marxist and radical Islamist, it was terrorizing the mullahcracy of Iran, until driven out and given refuge in Iraq by Saddam.
Paradoxically the goal of the Mujahideen e Khalq is to overthrow the Mullahcracy of Iran, yet the U.S. and Europe have designated it a Terrorist organization.
Back to Syria. Folk like you Founding Father, obviously don't think, especially in the long run, long term unintended adverse consequences.
It might give you satisfaction to rant about destroying Syria or neutralizing it, however you can't neutralize Islam, and if the Ba'athist, Alawite regime were overthrown, what would take it's place?
I'll answer that, another Shi'ite regime, thus Iran would, throw proxies, extend it's influence from it's borders to Syria, it already has a partner and ally in the Shi'a of Iraq, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which was elected to power in the last election.
Do you want to extend the borders of Iran up to Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel?
Are you one of those tribulationist idiots that think they can bring on the end times, rapture and Armeggedon?
No I didn't put words in your mouth. Just the logical conclusion of your rants.
I expressed an opinion about your rant, an opinion is not a lie. A lie is a wilful mistatement of a fact which a person knows is true. I don't know you, so I can't lie about you, but I can offer an opinion based on your rant.
And because I think that you are liberal with our blood and money, that makes me a terrorist loving scumbag in your opinion. LOL. LMAO.
Another one of those Manichean fools, who proclaim "if you ain't with me, you are with the terrorists".
Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not only anti Terrorist, but an acknowledged Islamophobe, a label I wear proudly. My major complaint is that our leadership is selling us out, actually promoting and having alliances with the deadliest enemies of the west, more deadly than the commies, and instead of fighting terrorism (at it's source) it is actually doing all it can to create them by providing them recruiting posters and training grounds.
The invasion of Iraq was the most counterproductive enterprise that anyone could have undertaken, it turned a regime that was squatting on (and killing) Islamists into a country that is a hotbed of, and sanctuary for Islamists of Sunni and Shi'a origin.
We wasted our blood and money to invade a secular country which at least had rights for women, and was the enemy of Islamists, to replace a secular regime with an Islamist regime,allied with Iran.
Smart, very smart.. not.
"CHECK IT OUT ----TOWNHALL.COM--"
Saw it. Not nearly enough time to explore the book properly. I sent an e-mail to Dayside asking for more coverage. I would be nice if everyone here did the same.
dayside@foxnews.com
Giaour
I agree with you on the secular aspect, as well as the Saudi problem. I support Israel and am concerned about the loss of certain rights for women and Christians in an Iraq under Sharia law and you still try to turn the tables on me and give me a lecture like I haven't heard any of this before. You also attack me and act like you have all the answers as though there aren't different scenarios that could unpredictably play out. Again, I never said I would invade Iraq or Syria. However, being that we are there now and US troops and innocent Iraqi's are being killed by terrorists flowing through the borders, it would make sense to hit back along that area. It may be a problem you or I didn't create, but we still have to deal with the current situation.
http://foundingforefathers.com/
"What was the right response post 9/11 & Afghanistan then on the foreign front?"
The best thing would have been to take the oil from the Saudis. Put a ring of steel around the oil fields, and incinerate anything that comes within 10 miles. There's no pressing need for freedom and democracy in the Middle East, as they're sure to vote for jihad anyway. Just cut off the main source of funding for the jihad.
"The biggest folly in vietnam was the americans never took off there boots and rolled up there trousers when marching in the rice paddies."
Shiva, while i grok your metaphore,,the real reasons for not removing boots and rolling up trousers were the legions of leeches and skeeters(malarial).. the farmer, bent over while tending the crop could keep an eye peeled and remove them before they might attach to one's nether- regions..
o/t
btw, after a certain point (out-in-the-open) rice paddy travel
had gone out of style, giving way to the less glamorous(but more aerobic) machete-bush-whacking modus operandi..
Usher, who is Usher, or do you mean Craig Unger.
Yes I have read plenty, but I do not take as gospel the "spin" of Frontpage, nor as gospel anyone's spin. Frontpage has some good writers and articles, but it is after all neo con, and has an obvious agenda, just like the Nation. I thus have to sift and sort when I read, do my own research and arrive at an independent opinion.
I don't just read, I study, and go back and restudy, the breadth and depth of my library would certainly swamp yours, especially the Islam, mid east, section. At the moment I'm studying Bat Ye'or's Eurabia (studying, not reading) and next in line is the Muslim Creed, I have all of Ibn Warrag's books, all of Roberts, except PIG (which I will buy when I finish up the 20 books I'm waiting to read/study), and when done, I have to reread them, because of things I've learned in subsequent books, that I missed the first time around.
I happen to avail myself of news sources, especially foreign sources, from all over the world, and I know that Saddam was not harboring Terrorists, that the allegation that he was plotting with them is spurious, in fact it is my opinion that this terrorist connection charge was just one of the many that were cooked up to justify the invasion of Iraq, and invasion which was not justified on the grounds presented to the public. Every excuse given has evaporated in the light of day, be it WMD's, or sponsoring Terrorists.
In fact it is the sponsoring terrorism charge that is the only straw left on the Bush/neo con table, because it is the only one that can't be definitely disproved.
The invasion of Iraq was under false pretenses, and it did more harm than good, it served no purpose other than that of the Saudi's and Iranians, and of course the immense profits made by Haliburton/Bechtel who received no bid contracts to rebuild Iraq, privatize it's utilities and services, and have ripped off the tax payer to the tune of millions (a major scandal covered over by other events that push it down the ladder of public awareness) and guess what Haliburton is, besides the company that is building and maintaing Camp Anaconda and Talis AB in Iraq? Cheneys company, in which he still has stock, and from whom he receives $100,000 a year.
I know, I know that removal of Saddam was high on the agenda of Sharon, but when personages with obvious loyalties and ties to Israel continue to dredge the swamp to justify the invasion of Iraq, it only adds fuel to the fire of the antisemites of left, right and inbetween.
I've taken the pieces of the puzzle, and instead of trying to make them fit the picture on the box, looked at them as they are, and frankly there was absolutely no justification for deposing Saddam, we only stirred up a hornets nest, which then flew off in all directions to create more nests, truth is we shot ourselves in the foot by invading Iraq.
And the real beneficiaries of the invasion are the Saudis, Iran, Kuwait, OPEC,and yes the Syrians, pressure is now off Bashar and the Alawites, as attention is focused on the infidel.
In fact pressure is off all Muslim regimes because there "constitutents" now have a common enemy(the infidel), even the Saudis, who played a game. Publicly advising Bush not to invade, but privately facilitating and helping the invasion. The Iranians helped out as well, by supporting Chalibi, the INC and providing fake evidence that Saddam had missles and missle launchers that could attack Britain in 45 minutes.
Perhaps you are a Bush Bot, or an Israeli Loyalits, I'm not, although I am pro Israel, but not any price, certainly not at the cost and expense of American money and blood, and not at the expense of my grandchildren and children who will foot the bill for these misadventures.
You might be interested that, eslewheres, I've expended so much energy and time defending Israel's right to exist, there justification for retaliation against the Islamist terrorists, the absurdity of the so called right of return claims of the so called Palestinians, that what is meant when the Arabs talk about Occupied Palestine, is the state of Israel itself, and that their real goal is to drive the Jews into the sea, after the pogrom, that I've been accused of being a Jew, a shill, a Zionist none of which is true.
All of my opinions are formed on the basis of FACTS and reason, not emotion, especially not the emotion of identity politics.
No my friend, Saddam was not a friend to the terrorists, nor did he support them, and you can post as many links to Frontpage as you feel fit, spin is spin, be it left, right or in between.
And just between you and I. I don't trust the neo cons. They are commie Trotksyites that haven't changed their stripes, only the horses that they ride. I heard Wm Kristol the other day, acknowledging the failure of neo con tactics, saying that he might become a neo liberal.
The neo cons first rode the Democrat Horse, and got their feet wet in Sen Henry (Scoop) Jacksons office, but after the Carter debacle, the resurfaced as 'born again" Republicans.
An observation here. Strange bedfellows, the only personages who dispute and try to refute Craig Unger and others who show the linkage of Bush and Saud are Saudi Bots and Bush Bots, die hard Muslims and die hard Republicans. And I've argued heatedly with both.
The neo con Bush Bots and brain numbed Red Staters would defend Bush if he was caught in bed with a young boy (next best thing is Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon, which they also ignore or rationalize), while the Muslims (many of whom hate the Saudis themselves) will rally the wagon around the Umma and support the Saudis at any cost.
This my friend is the Team mentality. My team v your team, my team at any cost.
And I don't play that game, I've even been accused of being a Democrat, LOL, by those who have conventiently forgotten my extreme criticism of Clnton, Kerry and the Democrats. Nor am I a libertarian, though some of their principles are worthy, nor am I a greenie, nor a leftist, nor a rightist, nor a liberal, nor a conservative, but at some time, depending on issue I can be called one or the other, but it is all issue oriented, not ideological purity.. I'll leave ideological purity up to the idiots. Ideological purity is the stuff of Jihadi's and others with an IQ in the 100 range.
Well well, Giaour strikes again!
I couldn't answer you yesterday (regarding Hitler's alledged "Catholicism") due to technical difficulties. Your links are crap. The fact that some Nazi's wanted to fuse Christianity with fascism or Hitler shook a bishop's hand means next to nothing. As for the "Pavelic Papers" you quote, here is what an editor at the Wikipedia encyclopia has to say:
"I deleted the crappy pavelic papaers link. It belongs to the Croatian history page as much as a PLO propaganda site to the history of Israel."
Mir Harven (mharven@softhome.net)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Independent_State_of_Croatia
I should also like to note that you are the third person I have encountered that questions the validity of Hitler's Table Talk. The other was an Islamist troll. The other is Mark Webber (the neo-Nazi who runs the holocaust-denying "Historical Review" website). In other words, you are in good company.
For the enlightenment of the others who are not using the jihadwatch forum to settle accounts with Christianity, here are more relevant selections from "Hitler's Table Talk." Behold:
"I can imagine being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet, but as for the insipid paradise of the Christians! Christianity is an invention of sick brains." (December 13, 1941)
"The evil that is gnawing at our vitals is our priests of both creeds. I can’t at present give them the answer they’ve been asking for, but it will cost them nothing to wait. It’s all written down in my big book. The time will come with I will settle accounts with them, and I’ll go straight to the point" (February 8, 1942, midday)
"The Catholic church has but one desire, and that is to see us destroyed" (August 11, 1942 evening)
"Had Charles Martel not been victorious at Poitiers - already, you see, the world had already fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing Christianity! - Then we should in all probability have been converted to Mohammedanism, that cult which glorifies the heroism and which opens up the seventh Heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so." (August 28, 1942)
"Hitler’s Table Talk; 1941-1944" translated by N. Cameron and R.H. Stevens, Enigma Books (1953)
in the end days at least 3 lessons had been learned
1..cross no open ground
2..follow no trodden path
3..crash your own trail
shiva-
The difference between the "insurgents" / jihadists and the average Western military mind is:
the Islamic Imperialists CARE about their effort to the core of their being, while the evidence (from 2 years of warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq) is that the commonplace Western commanders are too-comfortably abstracted and not close enough to the front lines (ala Patton) to taste the blood of their troops being vaporized by IED's daily.
otterfisher-
Good advice, all.
I'd only add:
SECURE YOUR PERIMETER/AKA: COVER YOUR ASS.
(6 Marine snipers getting caught in a fatal crossfire is inexcusable incompetence on the squad leader's part.)
"The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity."- as Yeats put it in his great poem "The Second Coming".
Goodness me!
What a lot of heated debate!
Havoc - I can only apologise for my laziness in failing to capitalise my sentences. Clearly that has "got your goat"; very remiss of me, sorry.
As to the inadequacy of my grammar, I can only blame the English education system. You see, they don't actually teach us grammar in England anymore; it's only when we attempt, often quite badly, to learn foreign languages (and I don't mean foreign in any kind of perjorative sense, obviously) that the notion of grammatical constructs is even mentioned! Incredible I know, but I guess that's the kind of arrogance that creeps in when your native tongue has become the language of the world. We must do something about that.
Anyway, fanx 4 pointing dat out to me cuz it is like really pertinent to the debate about "how we save the world" and that.
Of course, I could just be that you disagree with something that I said, so you thought you'd get the ball rolling in undermining my credibility. Perhaps you could follow up by attempting to apply some kind of label to my viewpoint which means that you don't have to listen to it anymore? That could work, I understand that is how you chaps like to do things around here.
Voletti - I didn't actually say that it was wrong to invade Iraq. What I did say was that the French declined Mr. Bush's polite invitation to engage in a vainglorious excursion into another sovereign nation. Similar, admittedly, but not the same.
I will expand thusly:
- France has a large muslim population
- France has colonial past and has had intimate dealings with the Arab and Muslim world over many years
- France is concerned, primarily, with France
When Mr. Bush pitched his idea of launching an attack on "Saddam Hussein" because of the "WMD", M.Chirac declined because his view was that the diplomatic route had not been exhausted.
We will never know now when or, indeed, if the French would have lent their weight to the "coalition of the willing". Fact is they didn't and, right now, that looks like a smart move.
3rdtimelucky - good to see a bit of racial stereotyping there, you Aussie wanker ;) Though I do agree with you that the "Poms" (that would be me then!), need to wake up a bit.
It would seem that the world has gone a bit bi-polar - obviously that is to help the Americans understand it a bit better. But as an Australian, you could alow yourself a bit more largess.
The thing is the jihadis don't discriminate, they'll kill anyone!
- Iraqi Shias
- Indonesians of various religions, but many muslim
- Aussies in nightclubs
- Nigerians on London buses
- Muslim women on London buses
- anybody who happens to work in the WTC
- anyone Jewish
- actually make that anyone, including themselves
The problem with bellicose sabre rattling is that it is exactly what they want to see.
al-Qaeda strategy is really amazingly simple:
- they would like Islamic government in the Middle East
- the disparate terror groups in Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia, Chechneya, Lebanon, Israel etc... weren't getting anywhere fast because the state infrastructure in those places was, to a greater or lesser extent, keeping them down
- so they decided on a PROPAGANDA war against the West
- in loosening the hold of "the West" in "Islamic" affairs they think they've got a better chance of "islamifiying" Algeria, Egypt, etc...
Flying a couple of planes into the WTC was a great idea from their point of view. They could guarantee that it would provoke a muscular response from the US; they were right.
Now the US, Britain, Australia and the rest are bogged down in Iraq. The propaganda tools have been created - videos of dead babies etc... - and off they go to persuade disaffected muslim youth in the West that that is who we are and that is what we do for fun. They figured that seeing pictures of dead women and children might be upsetting enough for some young men in the West to react; they were right.
The other thing that they are counting on is that "the West" identifies every "muslim" as the enemy; someone to be feared and "dealt with". Reading the posts on this site the may be right in that as well.
Fortunately, and I can only really comment on the British position, we are too smart for that. Well actually, you don't really have to smart at all to realise that the demonisation of Islam is a MASSIVE over reaction. To consider every muslim in the world as an enemy is, quite frankly, complete bollocks.
Britain may not be perfect but on the whole we actually have a very successful, functioning democracy where people of many diverse ethnicities, religions, sexual persuasions and backgrounds inter-mingle quite nicely thank you very much.
My main bone of contention is that in a PROPAGANDA war, you had better by good at presenting your case. And we're not.
Although the Iraq action may have many possible justifications, the fudged WMD debate wasn't one of them.
Saddam is a nasty bastard and should get it would have, in my opinion, been more honest and, with me personally, would have carried more weight.
Instead we have had the nauseating spectacle of Bush and Blair shifting the goal posts to cover the latest revelation as to the paucity of their argument. Now it's all about "introducing democracy", not about "WMD" at all. FFS, the jihadis are showing my neighbours videos of dead babies whilst Blair is on TV declaring "the war in Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the London 'bombing'". Who would you believe? The pictures of dead babies or the leader who has already been shown up to be economical with the truth?
As to America's claims to be the "champion of world democracy", when exactly did that happen? Shortly after the complete, abject failure to find any evidence whatsoever of WMD? Was America the "champion of democracy" when it subverted and funded an insurgency against the duly elected Sandinista government of Nicauragua?
As to the notion that carpet bombing will sort it all out, that's f-ing bollocks too. The UK has been at the receiving of a THIRTY YEAR terror campaign ("armed struggle" for PC readers). Do you really think that we should have carpet bombed Dublin or, more appropriately, Boston USA, where the "supporters of terrorism" were based. Honestly?
Dehumanising muslims because they are brown or live in a dusty, desert place or wipe their arses with their hands or whatever is the ignorant response of truly ignorant people.
Of course there are "terrorists" out there and of course they need to be dealt with. But don't go and do their recruitment for them.
The price we pay for freedom is that everyone is free and some people will use their freedom to hurt and kill. You stop people from abusing their freedom with better ideas, stronger, more reasonable argument. You don't do it by spinning half-truths to national and international audiences and you really don't do it by becoming everything that the terrorists say you are.
there you go - that's freedom of speech in a non-PC environment for you.
jog on.