September 24, 2006

BILL CLINTON'S SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

        Now we know why Bill Clinton lost bin Laden: his overdeveloped sense of responsibility! In an entertaining outburst of that famous Clinton high moral dudgeon--last seen when he denied having sex with "that woman", Bill explained to Chris Wallace that he was just too responsible!
"I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," Clinton said. "And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. . . . You got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever, but I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could."

September 23, 2006

KICKING OFF THE HIGH HOLY DAYS, MUSLIM STYLE

Ramadan bomb kills 34 in Baghdad Shi'ite slum

By Peter Graff and Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed...

September 22, 2006

JOHN MC'CAIN'S DANGEROUS FANTASIES

        Horsefeathers found the recent debate about the treatment of captured terrorists illuminating. We learned, to our great regret, that John Mc'Cain is not fit for the Presidency. His bizarre moralistic fantasizing suggests he was profoundly damaged by his imprisonment in North Vietnam. How else to explain the self centered vanity of his insistence on protecting the rights of barbaric savages, the very kind who tortured him in North Vietnam, in order to sustain his own sense of moral superiority? For Mc'Cain, it's okay if thousands of innocents die, so long as he can protect his righteous sense of moral superiority. Survivor guilt does strange things, but then, all of Western civilization is threatened by its own guilt, rendering it vulnerable to dangerous utopian pacifist fantasies. Here is a remarkably clear diagnosis of the disease threatening to destroy us.

Dearest Illusions and Dangerous Mistakes
by Bruce Thornton
Private Papers

In 1944 F. A. Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom, “The number of dangerous mistakes we have made before and since the outbreak of the war because we do not understand the opponent with whom we are faced is appalling. It seems almost as if we did not want to understand the development which has produced totalitarianism because such an understanding might destroy some of the dearest illusions to which we are determined to cling.” Change “totalitarianism” to “Islamic jihad” and Hayek’s words are still right on the mark.

“Dangerous mistakes” and “dearest illusions” are evident in every theater of the war against jihad, in every debate about its causes, and in every discussion about how to defeat the jihadists. Take the current attempt of the administration to get Congress to delineate clear-cut procedures for extracting intelligence from captured terrorists. Numerous politicians, including Republican Senators and former secretary of state Colin Powell, have blocked or criticized the president’s attempts to find an effective means of uncovering information of possible attacks without descending into torture. These critics rely on Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits not just torture of prisoners, but “outrages upon personal dignity,” a vague and subjective phrase that eliminates just about any interrogation technique other than polite questioning.

This application of the Geneva conventions to terrorists is bizarre to say the least, since “unlawful combatants” have always been excluded from the rules of war. Worse, it is not called for by the convention itself. Article 4.2 indeed extends the protections of Article 3 not just to regular armies but to “members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied,” but it does so “provided that [emphasis added] such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war [emphasis added].”

No sane person can argue that al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias, or bitter-end Sunni Baathists are “conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war,” and it’s debatable that these terrorists fulfill the other three conditions. Hence they are not entitled to the protections of Article 3, unless some subsequent treaty or emendation has eliminated or weakened Article 4.2. But the assumptions behind the conventions themselves are where we can really see the peculiar “dangerous illusions” that are hamstringing our efforts.

The Geneva conventions, like the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and any number of international agreements and treaties, reflect the modern Enlightenment belief that the perennial evils arising from human nature can be mitigated by rational discussion and persuasion. These evils, after all, result from socio-economic inequities and ignorance, and so can be eliminated if those inequities are corrected and people are educated about their true interests. These interests, moreover, can best be realized if nations abjure the use of force and enter into networks of agreements that adjudicate disputes rationally and subject the behavior of nations to clearly defined rules and protocols.

In other words, human nature has progressed and evolved beyond force, a hold-over from more primitive times, and so people can manage themselves on the basis of contracts and treaties and avoid the destruction and suffering that follow the use of force. This “dangerous delusion” has been contradicted by the gruesome history of the last hundred years, with its industrialized carnage and genocidal murder, so one wonders what possible empirical evidence anyone can present to support clinging to this belief and to the international institutions and agreements such a belief has created.

On the contrary, that bloody century’s history proves the timeless wisdom of Thucydides, who recognized that the irrational forces of human nature are constant, restrained with difficulty by law and destructive of civilization when law is weakened by “imperious necessities.” Nor is the Enlightenment faith in reason and signed treaties validated by recent history, which is littered with the treaties violated by dictators and thug regimes. Why should this surprise us? A treaty or agreement is only as good as the intentions and interests of those who sign it. Every nation that signs a treaty does so not because it adheres to timeless universal moral principles, but because that nation believes the treaty will advance its interests. If the treaty doesn’t, the nation will simply ignore its provisions, as we have seen recently with Iran, which has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Or a nation can withdraw from the treaty altogether, as North Korea did when its violations of that same treaty were exposed.

The central problem is that such a treaty assumes the values it enshrines are recognized as binding and universal and worthy of respect by those who sign the treaty. But where do these values come from? In the last couple of centuries they have reflected the values of the West, simply because of the power of the West over the rest of the world. Weaker states have been compelled to sign on and pay lip service to those values, particularly if doing so compromises the power of the West and allows weaker states to pursue their interests. But there is little evidence that they sincerely believe in the universal validity of these values. Indeed, they consider that claim to universal validity as just another mechanism the West uses to enforce its hegemony.

Nowhere is this mistaken belief in the universal endorsement of Western values more evident than in our fight against jihad. Failing to understand our opponent and the historical nature of Islam, we have interpreted his behavior in term of our own values and goods and materialist assumptions. Since we value individual freedom and material prosperity, we assume that those are also the supreme motivating goods of Muslims. Since we privilege material causes over all others, we ignore spiritual causes or reduce them to deformed responses to unfulfilled material needs. Since we prize the transparent fulfillment of the requirements of agreements we sign, we assume other peoples will also, even if those requirements contradict a more important national interest or a spiritual goal, such as fighting the infidel until the whole world is for Allah, as the Koran puts it.

Worse, because we no longer recognize any transcendent validation for our values and beliefs, we will not act decisively to defend them. And since we are no longer confident in the inarguable rightness of those beliefs, we refuse to make the tragic choices and trade-offs to protect them, the inadvertent death, suffering, and brutality sometimes required when defending freedom against a fanatic enemy who wants to destroy it. Riddled with doubt about the ends we say we prize, we hesitate about the means we will use. We forget that although not all ends justify all means, some ends do justify even some brutal means. Certainly the Americans that defeated Germany and Japan understood this tragic truth, for they believed in the end for which they fought, and they were confident it was superior and right. And they knew that if they were not willing to accept those grim and sometimes gruesome means to achieve that end, something much, much worse would triumph.

The arguments of those opposing the use of coercive interrogation based on the Geneva Conventions all rest on these “dangerous delusions.” Colin Powell said that redefining the conventions to clarify its subjective and ambiguous language would make the world “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” and “put our own troops at risk.” First, who cares if the world “doubts the moral basis” of why we fight? What’s important is that we know that basis and we believe that the end for which we fight justifies some, not each and every, means we will use to achieve that end. And what “world” is Powell talking about? Muslims regimes? Where is the evidence that they adhere to our “moral basis” and so can be judges of whether or not we are true to it? The Europeans, who, with the exception of the British, have calculated every move strictly in terms of their own national interests rather than any “moral basis”? Only doubt about our own “moral basis” and its rightness explains why some are so anxious to have it validated by a “world” that shows little evidence of respect for anything other than naked self-interest.

The other part of the argument is equally incoherent. Does anyone think that any fighting force, let alone terrorists, that captures one of our troops will be guided in its behavior by our treatment of its fighters? That being nice to terrorists in our custody will convince terrorists to be nice to those who fall into their custody? That tutored by our example, terrorists will convert to the Geneva Conventions? Where is the evidence for such fantasies? The internet beheadings, the tortured and mutilated corpses on the streets of Baghdad, the ballbearing-laden missiles of Hezbollah?

Herein lies the greatest, most dangerous delusion we have been indulging for years now: everything our enemy does is merely a reaction to what we do. The enemy has no motives of his own, no goods or ends he is pursuing that may be very different from ours. He may think he does, and set those goods and ends out with clarity and force, and link them to the traditions of his faith, and be seconded in his opinion by millions of his co-religionists and the theologians of his faith, but they are all deluded. It’s not about Islam and Allah, it’s about Israel, oil, voting, cartoons, unemployment, American television, globalization, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the occupation of Iraq–– any and every material or psychological cause other than the one spiritual cause the enemy keeps telling us over and over guides and justifies his actions and has guided and justified the wars of Islam for fourteen centuries.

This indeed is an “appalling” misunderstanding of the enemy. As long as we indulge this reduction of the jihadist to our own assumptions; as long as we show by our actions that we are not really sure that the ends we pursue are just and right, right enough to do things at times we’d rather not; as long as we cling to “dangerous delusions” about human nature and the primacy of the material over the spiritual, we will continue to lose the war. For our enemy has none of our hesitation, none of our doubt, none of our fear of the world’s disapproval. He knows why he kills and dies. What will it take to teach us what we should kill and die for?

September 17, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF: "YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP"

"Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world.

The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon.

"The reality is that if we do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and the Americans have written (for him) and have submitted to him...".
See the rest here.

September 16, 2006

"MOMMY, MOMMY, HE HURT OUR FEELINGS": THE NEW YORK TIMES DEFENDS ISLAMO-NAZIS FROM THE BIG BAD POPE

        Horsefeathers recently found himself discussing the nature of comedy with a professional comedy writer. We found ourselves listening to an exceedingly long toast at a wedding. He assured me that if it went on another 5 minutes it would start to seem funny. Sure enough, just as the toaster seemed to be mercifully winding down, he said "let me digress for a moment" and was back in full throttle, no end in sight, at which point I did indeed begin to giggle. There was something in his self absorption, his assumption that we would all enjoy his self infatuated sharing of each detailed memory of his relationship with the groom that was laughable. Or was our laughter partly a defense against our helpless anger at being forced to wait hungrily for our dinner? Ultimately it was the sheer self absorption, the foolishness of the man that became amusing. Today is the day when the New York Times assumed the status of that man and became a parody of itself. No Onion parody, not even the great Scrappleface, could match today's editorial endorsing the hurt feelings of Muslims, sympathizing with the likes of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Fadlalah (see below) and blaming the Pope for their murderous anger. Appeasers, cowards, hypocrites, infants--sure they're all of those, but they're also just plain ridiculous.
Read it here.

September 15, 2006

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC?

        Perhaps not. The Pope may be a secret agent of the devilishly powerful Jews."Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah Lebanon’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric denounced Pope Benedict’s remarks as Egypt warned that the pope’s comments could incite violence between Muslims and Christians." And who would such violence benefit? The answer is obvious---the hateful Jews. "...We do not want him to succumb to the propaganda of the enemy led by Judaism and imperialism against Islam,” Fadlallah said."
        Since making these remarks there have been no sightings of enraged Jews marching throught the streets of Brooklyn burning effigies of Fadlallah and shouting 'Death to Islam'.

POPE BENEDICT XVI VS. THE JIHADIS

Once again followers of the ROP are "enraged". How many innocents will they kill to defend against the following words uttered by the Pope?

"...In a speech on Tuesday at Regensburg University in his native Germany Pope Benedict analysed a conversation between Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and a Persian scholar after the siege of Constantinople in 1391.

He quoted the emperor as saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
See the rest here.

Pope Benedict went on to question as “unreasonable” Muslim adherence to Jihad, a holy war to propagate the faith..."

September 10, 2006

U.S. WARS

Here's the headline on the lead story of the online New York Times:

Cheney and Rice Defend U.S. Wars

        U.S.WARS?? We thought the Jihadis were involved? Guess not. It must have been the bloodthirsty Neocons who just wanted to launch unprovoked wars against innocent Muslims. Wouldn't the more appropriate headline have been: Cheney and Rice Defend U.S. War Policies? Instead the infantile grandiosity of the NYTimes fantasists sees the war we're in as totally created by Bush, Cheney, Rice and the dreaded Neo-Cons. For them it makes perfect sense that these are wars with a U.S., made in the White House, label.

September 05, 2006

AUSTRALIA: UNINTIMIDATED BY MUSLIM 'OUTRAGE'

"...Australian Muslim representatives are voicing outrage at comments by the country's two top politicians, who urged immigrants from Islamic societies to fit in, learn English, treat women with respect, and shun extremism.

An Islamic leader warned that the remarks could antagonize Muslims and lead to a repeat of incidents such as the rioting in a Sydney beachside suburb last December, when groups of youngsters -- described as having a Middle Eastern background -- fought with whites.

Prime Minister John Howard late last week said migrants should integrate into the way of life in their new country but that a minority of Muslims was opposed to accepting Australia's values.

"Fully integrating means accepting Australian values -- it means learning as rapidly as you can the English language if you don't already speak it," he said in a radio interview.

"People who come from societies where women are treated in an inferior fashion have got to learn very quickly that that is not the case in Australia."

Howard's remarks drew a swift and critical response from Muslim leaders.

Ameer Ali, chairman of an advisory group set up by the government to combat extremism in the 300,000-strong Muslim community, told a radio station the remarks could stoke violence.

"We have already witnessed one incident in Sydney recently in Cronulla," he said in reference to last December's riots. "I don't want these scenes to be repeated because when you antagonize the younger generation ... they are bound to react..."
See the rest here.

September 01, 2006

RUMSFELD'S REMINDER: THE ALARM WENT OFF 5 YEARS AGO. STAY AWAKE.

        When reading the Mainstream media it's useful to keep in mind dream logic. To understand dreams one must appreciate the power of fantasy to overcome reality. Not only is the adult sense of reality suspended during dreams, but it is replaced by a dream sense of conviction, so that only on waking does the dreamer understand he was deluded while asleep. Freud once pointed out that we are all psychotic--in our dreams, meaning that the adult waking sense of reality and judgment is temporarily suspended during sleep. However, states of consciousness vary, so one may be only partially awake even when not actually lying in bed at night, fully asleep.
        If you keep in mind that modern liberalism is a shared waking dream, a wishful fantasy of omnipotence, of a peaceful world requiring only the dreamer's good will and boundless empathy for the oppressed, then it becomes relatively easy to understand our media's agenda. They are partially asleep, and therefore can't acknowledge the deluded nature of their belief system, for to do so would awaken them to painful realities. Instead, they reshape the world in accordance with their liberal dreams. In that dream world we have no enemies who want to destroy us because we're Jews and infidels, only friends we need to sit down and talk with sympathetically. In dreams we're all self centered and the cause of wondrous events. In dreams we create our enemies and we can transform them instantly into friends by properly appreciating their grievances and wishing away their rage.
        Recall what it's like when you've awakened a happily dreaming child to tell him he has an unpleasant task to perform. You will then understand the reaction of liberals to the war launched against us by Jihadis. They go back to sleep. First comes denial---it's not really a war; then comes scapegoating---it's the neocons, the Jews, Israel, it's the Cowboy in the White House, it's a minor law enforcement problem, Saddam has nothing to do with the Jihadis, etc. When the President and the Sec'y of Defense persist in their attempts to awaken the childish dreamers to the reality of war, they respond with tantrums. Notice there is almost no reasoned effort to dispute the President's and the Sec'y of Defense's history lessons, but like small children awakened from a pleasant dream, they react with aggrieved anger---how dare you wake us from our nap.
        The problem is not reducible to one of simple partisanship. If it were it would be easily dealt with through rational argumentation. The mainstream media is not merely the public relations and support group of the DNC, it is the propaganda arm of the utopian yearners for a perfect world, a world that exists only in sleep and dreams.
        The Sec'y of Defense complains that the mainstream media prefer stories of misdeeds by our soldiers to stories of heroism. However, this makes sense, for tales of heroism involve recognition that sometimes it's necessary to kill an enemy and to lay down one's life to defend our way of life and values. In the dream world of multicultural liberalism, there are no values that are superior and therefore worth fighting and dying to preserve. Ironically, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Paul Smith (see below)gave his life so that our media elites could continue their uninterrupted slumber. For the rest of us, it is a painful and stirring reminder of what we're fighting for in World War IV.

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of Congress the Medal of Honor to

Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith
United States Army

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:

Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy near Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq on 4 April 2003. On that day, Sergeant First Class Smith was engaged in the construction of a prisoner of war holding area when his Task Force was violently attacked by a company-sized enemy force. Realizing the vulnerability of over 100 fellow soldiers, Sergeant First Class Smith quickly organized a hasty defense consisting of two platoons of soldiers, one Bradley Fighting Vehicle and three armored personnel carriers. As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60mm mortar round. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.

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