This amount of arrogance, the sheer impardonable pretension, is bound to be popular.
I wonder if Barack Obama's tepid, mealy-mouthed response to the violent protests by the Iranian opposition stems from his own complicity in election fixing?
Nah. That would imply possession of a conscience.
American and European liberals are of course complaining about Israel's attempt to root out the terrorists in Gaza. The response is "disproportional", they say.
But while that implicitly acknowledges that Israel is defending itself (being in response to mortar attacks by Palestinians against civilian Israeli targets), it also presupposes that a response must be proportional. Why?
War is not about fairness. War is about defeating the enemy so thoroughly that he gives up and admits he was wrong to attack you in the first place. It's about discrediting him with a giant argumentum ad baculum, the appeal to force, because none of your valid arguments appear to work. Like all such appeals, it must be accompanied by the valid arguments or it will not prevail.
Because while the appeal to force and its direct application in the form of military attack is not a reasoned argument, it is not an invalidating one. That is, the application of force doesn't mean the side using it disproves its point; it simply doesn't prove it.
In practical terms, the use of force will fail as long as the opponent fails to internalize defeat. If reason is on his side, he will fail to be defeated, no matter how badly he's beaten on the battlefield.
The true danger therefor in the use of force is not using enough to win. And when the opponent is using it, not using force is a sign that you don't believe in your own position.
From AoSHQ:
It's been said before but it is worth repeating a thousand times: if Hamas, Hezbollah, and most of the Arab states (and Iran) laid down their weapons tomorrow and forgot about their plans to dissolve Israel, there would be peace in the Middle East. The Israelis could forget about the fences and the Palestinians might one day have something approximating a Western standard of living. On the other hand, if Israel laid down its weapons tomorrow, the country would be utterly annihilated, the Israelis killed to the last man, woman, and child.
- Gabriel Malor
To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.
Apparently the only way that Barack Obama can figure out to keep Palestinian terrorists from launching bombs on Israel is to give it to them.
Advised by every realist foreign policy adviser who has been on Meet the Press in the last 50 years to let the Palestinians have East Jerusalem, Obama has drawn on his vast experience as an executive to give it away while the giving's good.
Why does anyone think this is a good plan? Because it was drawn up by the King of Saudi Arbia? He's not in control of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbullah ... is he? If he's in control of Al Qaeda Hamas, and Hezbullah, then we have no business talking to him until he's in Gitmo. If he's not in total control of Al Qaeda Hamas, and Hezbullah, then he can't be sure that the terrorists won't use East Jerusalem as a close-in base from which to attack Israel.
The radical Islamists have sworn to the destruction of Israel. This looks like it brings them a step closer, and all they have to do is stop shooting rockets long enough to move the launchers to the Palestinian side of Jerusalem.
w/t the amazing Gateway Pundit.
Why did we get Iraq?
The basic problem was a peacetime President elected in reaction to Bill Clinton's style and errors, forced to deal with a world gone mad.
Because of Bill Clinton's slick style and personal morality issues, people didn't want someone with a slick style and morality issues. So here was GWB, with the image of a twelve step graduate and simple speaker. He got elected.
Then comes 9/11, and he's totally unprepared, I think. We all were. Like most people, I thought he did very well right after 9/11, with his doctrine that harboring a terrorist is being a terrorist.
But Iraq was pretty iffy. Was Saddam really the one to attack next? His relationship to 9/11 was tenuous at best, even though he clearly supported and encouraged terrorism and anti-Americanism generally. And everybody thought he had WMD. I was uneasy because I thought we should do one war at a time, but in the year and a half between 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, it became more and more reasonable to think Saddam Hussein was hiding something. I wondered why we were waiting, giving him time to plan his defenses.
I turned out that his defenses, if he had prepared them, were pretty ineffectual.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, was bravely telling his anti-war constituency in Chicago, much to their delight, that the war was bad.
Suppose someone stands up on a clear day to say, "RAIN!". It doesn't rain, but there he is the next day shouting "RAIN!". Some clouds roll in, but no rain. The next day, there he is, shouting "RAIN!". Sure enough, it rains. Should you hail him as a prophet, even though the next day is clear and he continues to shout "RAIN!"?
So it is with Barack Obama. His one tune for several years was to be against the Iraq war, to call for withdrawal in the face of defeat, even though that would have meant chaos and complete strategic weakness for the United States for decades.
No, once the decision to take out Saddam Hussein was made, we were stuck with that decision. We could not withdraw without having our sacrifice go for naught, and without losing the trust of every ally and potential ally anywhere in the world. We had to show loyalty and constancy in the face of hardship and seemingly impossible odds. Thanks to John McCain we did show loyalty and courage as a nation, and things are going our way now.
But while you can topple a government with air power and 100,000 troops, you can't hold a hostile area the size of California with that. And once we went in, we could not afford to leave without nation-building. The key error of the Iraq war is the repeated mistake of Viet Nam: failure to go all in. I blame Rumsfeld, and Bush's inexperience and penchant for stubborn loyalty.
I'll vote for John McCain, even though I don't like a lot of what he's done, because I don't like anything about Barack Obama except that he's black. But on the Iraq war, John McCain was right all along. He'd been arguing that more troops were needed right from the start, and was one of the early voices for getting rid of Rumsfeld. In retrospect, we'd have been a lot better off with him the last eight years.
Ace quotes the Obama web site as saying that Obama "supports direct, Presidential-level talks with Iran without preconditions".
The problem is not, and has never been, meeting with our enemies, friends, or neutral countries.
The problem is not, and has never been, meeting at the appointee level without preconditions.
The problem is not, and has never been, meeting with our foes at the Presidential level.
The problem is meeting at the Presidential level without preconditions. Obama always tries to weasel, putting forth the straw man argument that Henry Kissinger supports meeting without preconditions, but fails to mention that he supports that only at the surrogate level.
The Obama campaign is fond of noting that the Bush Administration has met with Iran, so it's OK if Obama and Ahmadinejad do. But they fail to note that it is not President Bush himself, but lower-level officials, who attend the meeting.
I don't think we should meet with Iran at all, unless it's to accept their unconditional surrender. You don't negotiate with terrorists.
When Democrats talk about Obama, they should focus on him as the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream.
But really, they should quit talking about Obama. Talk instead about health care, the environment, the economy, and that kind of thing. Domestic stuff.
And they should put the blame for the price of oil on the war in Iraq.
They've been blaming oil companies and speculators, and now would have a hard time switching gears and making it stick. O'course, the MSM would pass the story along. But if they'd starting saying "See what happens when you start wars?" when oil hit $90/bbl, they'd own both issues now. They could have people convinced that we may have won the war, but at a cost of $4 gasoline.
(It's not logical to blame the price of oil on the war in Iraq, but since the speculators are sensitive to Iran's threats to blow up Israel, and Iran is fighting us in Iraq, it makes enough sense that some people would swallow it. That may be enough to allow people to ignore the Democrats long-standing refusal to allow more domestic oil production).
Obama denies being a Muslim. Who says Barack Obama is a Muslim? Who has any proof that Barack Obama is a Muslim?
What kind of Muslim is Obama, if Barack Obama is a Muslim? That's an important question, if the goal is finding out if Barack Obama is a Muslim. If we knew the kind of Muslim Barack Obama were, then we would certainly know for certain that without any doubt Barack Obama is a Muslim.
If Barack Obama is a Muslim, then so is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad.
From the evidence we have, it is not clear that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Barack Obama has never been proved to be a Muslim, and Barack Obama denies being a Muslim.
I think everyone who says Barack Obama is a Muslim should reconsider whether Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Oh, yeah, Barack Obama sucks.
Reading Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World. Zakaria is a Yale alum with a Harvard PhD. From Zakaria's site for the book:
Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world.Of note is this magazine interview (pdf).
[Update, 5 May 08 1541: Apparently, the site to which I linked as a "pacifist dhimmi" objects to the label. Consider it retracted, because I really don't have any investment in the charge. However, it appears that while I was distracted I have become a "pro-Clinton site" and the seminal case of "Clinton Losing Anger Syndrome". Regular readers may find that somewhat humorous. Readers who are irregular should read the caramely goodness that is my written voice more frequently, because they would learn of my disapproval of all of the candidates this year, and as regular readers they wouldn't be so prone to be pacifist dhimmis.][typos fixed, too.]
So the pacifist dhimmis and Iranians are up in arms over Hillary Clinton's assertion that she would unleash the nuclear dogs of war on Iran if they first launched a nuclear strike against Israel.
If Iran's nuclear program is only for peaceful uses, then they will never have a nuclear bomb. If they never have a nuclear bomb, they will never use one against Israel or anyone else.
Nuclear bombs are very difficult to fake.
So is the willingness to defend an ally. Hillary shows it. Obama does not.
Easy solution to Iran's problem: don't launch a nuclear strike against Israel. If you do, you won't be around to regret it.
Fool me once, shame on me.
Fool me twice, the full weight of the law and multinational military force on you.
An editorial at NRO details the current, predictable situation caused by the continued power grab made by Moqtada al-Sadr ("Mookie" to his friends). Unable to win political support for himself, al-Sadr has attempted to use violence to get his way. But his amateurish and repeated efforts show that his real intent is to win power for himself, not to establish a secure Iraq. He swings back and forth, sometimes suing for peace, but only when his prosecution of war has failed.
The Dhimmocrats and their coconspirators in the liberal main scheme media has tried to spin the latest effort by Moqtada al-Sadr ("Mookie" to his friends) as some general setback for the Administration's policy in Iraq, rather than simply a result of the continued power grab by this one guy. Now that he is standing down his forces, otherwise known as giving up, it's time to finish him.
For his latest round of rebellion against the legitimate, duly elected governing authority of his country, I think it would be a beneficial step for all humanity of Moqtada al-Sadr ("Mookie" to his friends) were made into a human pendulum, or otherwise were made to assume room temperature.
The Official News Agency is reporting that Iran is recalling Chinese arms sent to Iraq.
[Tehran, Iran] Due to dangerously high levels of lead found in paint and coatings used during the manufacturing process, Iraqi insurgents are being asked to return tens of thousands of Chinese-made rockets, mines, mortar rounds and other weapons that the Iranian government supplied to them since November, 2002.
Andrew Sullivan (via Ramesh Pannuru (via IMAO)) has fallen for a Moby attack, it looks to me. SusieQ doesn't have an overtly Republican or conservative name, like "JoeBibleThumper" or "NukeTheWhales", but that's about the only Moby Point she missed in the FrontPageMag comment Sullivan reposted.
I was very reluctant to write this letter because it is so negative, but I've reached the point in which I can no longer stay silent. With your last column, I've decided to stop reading WorldNetDaily. That fact probably means nothing to you since I've never been able to support you financially. But it means something to me. For over eight years I have faithfully read WND every day. I trusted you. I believed you.I've never read WorldNetDaily, as far as I can remember, so I don't know if SusieQ is a commenter there. It's possible she could have been a long-term reader there, but if so it's very unlikely, given her later points, that she were ever anything but a troll. In fact, the entire comment has markings of having been cut and pasted from earlier work.
To suggest that the press coverage of Abu Ghraib and the reduction of "interrogation" has caused us to "lose" (support for) the war is nonsense. We are losing in Iraq because we haven't defined the enemy and we aren't there to "win." What would winning look like, anyway? This undeclared "war" was never meant to be "won," but to secure a large American presence in Iraq. And why do you and all of the other so-called "conservative" news media ignore the president of Iraq's statement that they are ready for us to leave?I'm not sure why SusieQ brought up Abu Ghraib and interrogation except as a red herring, since neither were mentioned in the article to which she responded. That is also one sign that the letter is paste-work. Playing on the ambiguity between losing support for the war and losing the war, she then presumes that we are losing in Iraq, even though she cannot even define "winning". With no definition for winning, she can no more claim defeat than victory.
"We need time and effort, particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference," he told reporters at a Baghdad press conference, without giving a timeframe.Maliki is not claiming that the Iraqis are "ready for us to leave", but rather, that they would get by if we did. However, if we take Mr. Maliki's words at face value and give them the interpretation SusieQ does, we're winning. Either SusieQ doesn't believe al-Maliki is correct, or she understands that victory in Iraq is in fact achieving conditions such that we can leave.
You and others who claim to stand for conservative Christians have gone down that terrible road of endorsing deception, violence and fiscal irresponsibility to justify the actions of a president (whom I voted for twice) who is not only out of touch with his country, but close to becoming our first dictator.Disregard the last clause for a moment. Is any more evidence needed before that clause to show that whatever SusieQ is, a conservative she is not? Irrespective of any particular policy position, she displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the conservative world view. The tone is all wrong. Conservative Christians do not look to FrontPageMag or "conservative media" for someone to stand for them, nor do pundits who claim to "stand for" conservative Christians last out the week. Conservatives stand for ideas, not movements or constituent groups. But she says that those who support the war in Iraq do so from loyalty to President Bush, a mistake no conservative would make.
Now the drumbeats are calling for us to "take care of" Iran next. Hitler had his scapegoat in the Jews and Bush has his in the Muslims. And my fellow Christians are happily following him down a terrible path laced with lies, torture, violence and genocide. After it is all over and the dust has cleared, what will we do when they tell the world that the Christians are now the enemy? Haven't we learned anything from history? When we condemn and entire group of people for the actions of a few, we are no better than those who have turned away from God.Out comes the Hitler card. The sheer historical ignorance, and the naivety of those who have never lived under true totalitarianism, never ceases to amaze. Even without that, however, there are several differences between the "scapegoats": the Jews never flew airplanes into German skyscrapers, never called for Germany's destruction, never said they wanted to create a Jewish nation out of the whole world, and never blew themselves up at bus stops to get on the news. They were, relatively speaking, innocent. President Bush has never called for any action against Muslims as a group, but instead always carefully and zealously distinguishes between radical Islamic terrorists and ordinary Muslims. The two situations are in wholly dissimilar.
You and the others who support the evolution of our political process into essentially a one-party system are guilty of contributing to the destruction of our beloved republic. I am so sorry that you of all people bought into this madness. I really used to enjoy reading WND, but now I've deleted it from my database because you have become like the rest of the people who claim to follow Jesus: You lust for war, violence, torture and injustice. You will say anything to justify these things, which you know go against the teachings of Jesus. Which Jesus supports these things? Not the Jesus I follow, and I have been a Bible-believing traditional conservative Christian for 24 years. Go ahead and rationalize it all you want. We all have to answer to God for our actions, and I will no longer stand with my fellow Christians and endorse this insanity because after four years, I have come to the conclusion that we were deceived right from the start."
If we need an example of truth being in the mind of the believer, perhaps that qualifies. A child about to get his backside warmed knows it can't possibly be the case that his Dad will be harmed in any way by the event. And yet, every parent who has performed the ceremony knows that the sense of failure, of inflicting pain on a loved one, and even the sting on the hand are all things to be avoided whenever possible.
But sometimes physical pain is necessary. Some children don't need it, and that may be why some parents get the silly idea that spanking children is wrong. Or rather, I would say that of course it's wrong, but it's just less wrong than allowing them experience their first pain as their last, or to grow up to be sociopaths who never learned they have to obey the rules.
There is a human tendency to secretly believe that we ourselves are fit and intended to rule the world (why else are we us and not someone else?) When a child looks you in the eye and says, "You ain't the boss of me!", it's time to let them know what, as they say, is what.
Sometimes children grow up without ever being disciplined, without ever learning that no, they aren't intended to rule the world. These adult children struggle to fit in to civilized society. They need a lot of correction, usually by an institution designed for such, or by the end of a rope. In extrema, they find a following of others, who transfer their own uncorrected desire to rule the world to one leader, or to one movement.And so it is with radical Islam.
While anthropomorphism is always a tricky business, I think the parallel between religious movements and individuals is striking. Some religions may have quirky ideas, but for the most part they don't hurt anyone, break things, or leave the park messy. But this one does.
Despite the Big Lie inherent in cries of "Zionism!", Judaism has learned, through a really long struggle, that it cannot force people to adopt itself. Christianity started out knowing that, then kind of forgot it for a thousand years or so, but now has learned the lesson. While after 9/11 some people, I hope snarkily, suggested forced conversion to Christianity as some kind of solution, I think Christianity as a whole has returned to its forceless roots once and for all.
Other religions operate in the world of ideas, and don't seek to spread by force. And there are some Islamic sects, perhaps including the majority of Muslims, who don't run around blowing themselves up to spread the word.
Those are some of the reasons we don't want to spank Islam as a whole for the sake of its most radical practitioners. But most importantly, we know something that the child only vaguely comprehends: disciplining Islam will in fact cause pain for Western Civilization. We know it, and those who call for disciplining the child with physical force are shouted down as abusers. The child sees only a weak authority, unable to assert itself for lack of moral conviction.
But rather than weakness, our hesitancy to lump all of Islam together comes from the core of our culture: we believe that lumping people together is wrong. It would be something of a refutation of our ideals to persecute a religion in general for the actions of a minority of its adherents.
But Islam grew up with the ability to force its will on non-believers, and includes in its sacred text instructions on how to make second-class people out of them. The voices crying out "Death to America" and such aren't merely expressing some religious ideal, but laying out the grand strategy. America, as symbol of Western Civilization, must die.
Just as the Muslim Saddam Hussein paid $25K to the families of suicide bombers. Pakistani ministers of parliament are now saying that suicide bombing is justified.
If someone blows himself up he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?
You start by realizing that you weren't born to rule the world.
In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a future is described for us in which reaction to libertinism draws forth a suffocating state with the smug, self-righteous concern of the far left blended unapologetically with the smug, self-righteous moralizing of the far right.
Ms. Atwood was 20 years ahead of her time, and she chose the wrong culture. The regime in Iran is now poised to fulfill her warning, as a repressive regime implements a policy of outward modesty to show its tender care.
By enforcing their vision of modesty for Iran, the mullahs and President Mahmound Ahmadinejad will sow the seeds for their own eventual overthrow. As Atwood said, you can't cheat nature.
It is my hope that if U.S Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who I'm sure is well read, ever has a chance to speak to the Iranian officials, she politely wears shorts and a t-shirt.
Via Deb Schlussel, I pass along this:
Remember, and never forget. It is not merely the Jew who is in peril, but all of us.
That is what the British government should tell Iran.
They should say, "We do not care if they were in your territorial waters. You will put them back where they were now, or you will no longer have the means to govern yourselves."
