from the observer: the money graph: Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1525172,00.html -- Face up to the truth We all know who was to blame for Thursday's murders... and it wasn't Bush and Blair Nick Cohen Sunday July 10, 2005 The Observer The instinctive response of a significant portion of the rich world's intelligentsia to the murder of innocents on 11 September was anything but robust. A few, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, were delighted. The destruction of the World Trade Centre was 'the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos,' declared the composer whose tin ear failed to catch the screams. Others saw it as a blow for justice rather than art. They persuaded themselves that al-Qaeda was made up of anti-imperialist insurgents who were avenging the wrongs of the poor. 'The great speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with poverty, so what is 20,000 dead in New York?' asked Dario Fo. Rosie Boycott seemed to agree. 'The West should take the blame for pushing people in Third World countries to the end of their tether,' she wrote. In these bleak days, it's worth remembering what was said after September 2001. A backward glance shows that before the war against the Taliban and long before the war against Saddam Hussein, there were many who had determined that 'we had it coming'. They had to convince themselves that Islamism was a Western creation: a comprehensible reaction to the International Monetary Fund or hanging chads in Florida or whatever else was agitating them, rather than an autonomous psychopathic force with reasons of its own. In the years since, this manic masochism has spread like bindweed and strangled leftish and much conservative thought. All kinds of hypocrisy remained unchallenged. In my world of liberal London, social success at the dinner table belonged to the man who could simultaneously maintain that we've got it coming but that nothing was going to come; that indiscriminate murder would be Tony Blair's fault but there wouldn't be indiscriminate murder because 'the threat' was a phantom menace invented by Blair to scare the cowed electorate into supporting him. I'd say the 'power of nightmares' side of that oxymoronic argument is too bloodied to be worth discussing this weekend and it's better to stick with the wider delusion. On Thursday, before the police had made one arrest, before one terrorist group had claimed responsibility, before one body had been carried from the wreckage, let alone been identified and allowed to rest in peace, cocksure voices filled with righteousness were proclaiming that the real murderers weren't the real murderers but the Prime Minister. I'm not thinking of George Galloway and the other saluters of Saddam, but of upright men and women who sat down to write letters to respectable newspapers within minutes of hearing the news. 'Hang your head in shame, Mr Blair. Better still, resign - and whoever takes over immediately withdraw all our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan,' wrote the Rev Mike Ketley, who is a vicar, for God's sake, but has no qualms about leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban and al-Qaeda or Iraq to the Baath party and al-Qaeda. 'Let's stop this murder and put on trial those criminals who are within our jurisdiction,' began Patrick Daly of south London in an apparently promising letter to the Independent. But, inevitably, he didn't mean the bombers. 'Let's start with the British government.' And so it went on. At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence. I feel the appeal, believe me. You are exasperated with the manifold faults of Tony Blair and George W Bush. Fighting your government is what you know how to do and what you want to do, and when you are confronted with totalitarian forces which are far worse than your government, the easy solution is to blame your government for them. But it's a parochial line of reasoning to suppose that all bad, or all good, comes from the West - and a racist one to boot. The unavoidable consequence is that you must refuse to support democrats, liberals, feminists and socialists in the Arab world and Iran who are the victims of Islamism in its Sunni and Shia guises because you are too compromised to condemn their persecutors. Islamism stops being an ideology intent on building an empire from Andalusia to Indonesia, destroying democracy and subjugating women and becomes, by the magic of parochial reasoning, a protest movement on a par with Make Poverty History or the TUC. Again, I understand the appeal. Whether you are brown or white, Muslim, Christian, Jew or atheist, it is uncomfortable to face the fact that there is a messianic cult of death which, like European fascism and communism before it, will send you to your grave whatever you do. But I'm afraid that's what the record shows. The only plausible excuse for 11 September was that it was a protest against America's support for Israel. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden's statements revealed that he was obsessed with the American troops defending Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein and had barely said a word about Palestine. After the Bali bombings, the conventional wisdom was that the Australians had been blown to pieces as a punishment for their government's support for Bush. No one thought for a moment about the Australian forces which stopped Indonesian militias rampaging through East Timor, a small country Indonesia had invaded in 1975 with the backing of the US. Yet when bin Laden spoke, he said it was Australia's anti-imperialist intervention to free a largely Catholic population from a largely Muslim occupying power which had bugged him. East Timor was a great cause of the left until the Australians made it an embarrassment. So, too, was the suffering of the victims of Saddam, until the tyrant made the mistake of invading Kuwait and becoming America's enemy. In the past two years in Iraq, UN and Red Cross workers have been massacred, trade unionists assassinated, school children and aid workers kidnapped and decapitated and countless people who happened to be on the wrong bus or on the wrong street at the wrong time paid for their mistake with their lives. What can the survivors do? Not a lot according to a Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He told bin Laden that the northern Kurds may be Sunni but 'Islam's voice has died out among them' and they'd been infiltrated by Jews. The southern Shia were 'a sect of treachery' while any Arab, Kurd, Shia or Sunni who believed in a democratic Iraq was a heretic. Our options are as limited When Abu Bakr Bashir was arrested for the Bali bombings, he was asked how the families of the dead could avoid the fate of their relatives. 'Please convert to Islam,' he replied. But as the past 40 years have shown, Islamism is mainly concerned with killing and oppressing Muslims. In his intervention before last year's American presidential election, bin Laden praised Robert Fisk of the Independent whose journalism he admired. 'I consider him to be neutral,' he said, so I suppose we could all resolve not to take the tube unless we can sit next to Mr Fisk. But as the killings are indiscriminate, I can't see how that would help and, in any case, who wants to be stuck on a train with an Independent reporter? There are many tasks in the coming days. Staying calm, helping the police and protecting Muslim communities from neo-Nazi attack are high among them. But the greatest is to resolve to see the world for what it is and remove the twin vices of wilful myopia and bad faith which have disfigured too much liberal thought for too long.
At no point did they grasp that Islamism was a reactionary movement as great as fascism, which had claimed millions of mainly Muslim lives in the Sudan, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan and is claiming thousands in Iraq. As with fascism, it takes a resolute dunderheadedness to put all the responsibility on democratic governments for its existence. US/UK foreign policy driven our countries' need for oil from that region has alsolutely zero to do with 9/11 or the UK bombings. We were completely innocent and did not deserve to be attacked by those crazy Arab f*cks. That's the ticket.
A strang article by Will. Should probably be in the Natiional Review. -- People Power The terrorist plot to destroy democracy from within. By William Saletan Posted Friday, July 8, 2005 Bin Laden still doesn't get it But the most telling pattern is a constant distinction between the "people" of the West and their governments. Last year, the bombers hit Madrid, hoping to turn Spaniards against their government and force a pullout of Spanish troops from Iraq. It worked. Now they're trying to do the same to the Brits and the rest of the G8. .... Bin Laden's whole game plan is to turn the people of the democratic world against their governments. He thinks democracies are weak because their people, who are more easily frightened than their governments, can bring those governments down. He doesn't understand that this flexibility—and this trust—are why democracies will live, while he will die. Many of us didn't vote for Bush's government or Blair's. But we're loyal to them, in part because we were given a voice in choosing them. And if we don't like our governments, we can vote them out. We can't vote out terrorists. We can only kill them.[/QUOTE] ******** Neither Will nor Bin Laden get it about democracy and the Iraq War and the fight against terrorism. Bin Laden is wrong in that he thinks that the citizens of democracies are weak and will not support their way of life and the fight against terrorism. I agree that Bin Laden is wrong that we won't fight for our way of life. I'm not so sure that Will really does. Where Bin Laden is right is that the citizens of the democracies will not support a stupid war in Iraq that they were deceived in and which is against their interests. What Bin Laden also doesn't get, or perhaps he does, is that once we stop the stupid Iraq war and aren't pinned down in Iraq, we will be more effective in combatting him. Will has been an Iraq war supporter. He seems to be resorting to the old "wit us or agin" us thing. Perhaps we are just seeing the tortured logic of one who struggles to support the war as the reasons given for it collapse and the facts on the ground show it a failure. Perhaps Will is just frustrated as American opinion turns irreversibly against the Iraq War and he preaches against this by claiming that this means Bin Laden is winning. It is hard to tell. What is wierd is that Will, like Bin Laden, doesn't get it that when the citizens of the democracies go against Bush's war ,that we are not giving into Bin Laden. It is merely the will of the people rejecting a war that they were deceived into and now realize that is not in their interest, even if viewed only from the perspective of combatting terrorism. American democracy is still very united in combatting Al Qaeda and fighting for our way of life-- just no longer supportive of the Iraq war and occupation as Will apparently still is.
You are contradicting the U.S. armed forces that you claime to support. They issued Kerry medals, and many of those who later criticized Kerry as swifties had nothing but lavish praise for Kerry's duty during the war. Being wounded 3 times does not equal cowardice in the mind of any reasonable person. Your disrespect of the U.S. armed forces is disgusting.
I do not know what you do for a living, but you should be a comedian. Between Kerry and Bush, Kerry is the coward? You are criticizing Kerry for leaving Vietnam after 3 wounds (regardless of what size they are)? What was Bush doing then? Oh that's right...Bush was protecting the mean skies of Tuscaloosa from Charlie. Give me a fu**in break! Out of Bush and Kerry, I did support Kerry. For me it was the lesser of two evils. A choice between two morons. That being said, let's be fair. Compared to McCain, Kerry is a coward. Compared to Bob Kerrey, John Kerry is a coward. Compared to Max Cleeland and Bob Dole, John Kerry is a little schoolgirl. But compared to George Bush to lesser; John Kerry is Dwight Eisenhower multiplied by 10.
Let me ask you this, FranchiseBlade. Have you seen what the SEALS go through during their "Hell Week" of training? Sunday morning through Friday night they get a maximum of 4 hours of sleep. Total -- not daily. The rest of their time is spent doing physically demanding exercises, drills, and tests. Many of these tests are underwater, in extremely cold water, in the dark, and in 5-8 foot waves. These soldiers are committed to serving their country. Do you think a SEAL would try to leave Vietnam on a technicality? Do you think a SEAL would ask to be written up for a Purple Heart for a tiny shrapnel would to the buttocks? Do you think a SEAL would take a camera around and videotape his efforts? Do you think a SEAL would scheme for ways to LEAVE COMBAT DUTY EARLY? What Kerry did was not honorable. And American military vets agreed. They voted against him. Those are the facts, friend.
are you suprised? trader george is just doing what the bush administration does as far as trying to discredit those who actually served. look at what he did to mccain the the 2000 primaries. he actually accused the guy of consorting w/ the enemy and giving away u.s. secrets, because he was a p.o.w. and was tortured into giving information. they also claimed that being a p.o.w. made him insane. i wont even get into all the stuff about calling mccain "the *** candidate" and the accusations about his adopted daughter not actually being adopted, but being illegimately fathered by mccain himself. the bush strategy seems to be that if you have no military record to stand on, you must do all you can to discredit those who actually served. and im not some big kerry supporter - the guy is a chump, but the fact is that he actually served in combat (volunteered if im not mistaken), which is more than you can say for the bush administration.
I know someone who was a Navy Seal and now works for the border patrol. I don't salute his service as well as that of other seals. When Kerry served in Viet Nam those that later attacked him praised his service and bravery. If you are upset because Kerry left Viet Nam after being wounded 3 times bring up with the pentagon. Meanwhile Kerry served was awarded for bravery and praised by those who apparently turned against him after he later protested the war. Your credibility as a supporter of the U.S. military is falling further everytime you post like you did before.
Proper response: A. Talk about irony... B. If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black C. Who are you, of all people to judge that? You can post whatever you would like, and I am certainly guilty of some horrible posts myself. Maybe you lost any desire to be taken seriously anymore, or your long slide toward the edge finally lead you over the cliff, I don't know. I think you've blown it as far as serious debate goes. Your creative editing, assertions that Liberals want to coddle terrorists, and the like have shot any credibility or value at attempting serious well reasoned debate with you. That's too bad because up until a month or so ago you were an interesting person to debate with, but more and more rhetoric and baseless accusations began coming out, and finally editing a quote to boost a weak argument by you was the last straw. I don't know you in person, and I am sure that you are a decent guy to be around, I just wish you would apply some standards to your D&D posts. This board is in dire need of thinking conservative posters to discuss and debate with, and overloaded with those that see this as a 'us Americans vs. them Americans' brand of conservatives. We have more than enough posters here who delight in the game of accusing others of supporting villains with no basis in fact, who enjoy twisting words, editing quotes in order to make points that aren't there in the whole of a discussion. Maybe someday you will go back to reasoned debating with integrity. I hope so. In the meantime please understand if some folks don't take your posts seriously.
You are assuming that I wanted to use that particular cliche, which I did not. I am quite sure that I know as much or more about music than you do and that song was going through my head as I wrote that post. However, both you and basso are welcome to bid on the bridge you posted a picture of. If you and basso believe that Kerry would kowtow to the fringe Democrats more than Bush has done during his presidency, then I am sure that both of you can see the potential opportunities that an investment in such a bridge would bring.
Agreed. It is excreble that Kerry would use his family's wealth and political connections to run away from the conflict in Vietnam. He should have signed up for one of the armed services, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then should have signed up for dangerous duty patrolling enemy waters. You know it. I am much more comfortable with a CinC who served his entire term in the armed services without getting wounded at all. It is refreshing to have a CinC who showed up for all of his assigned duties and followed all regulations regarding discharge from the armed services. Yep. GWB has been such a paragon of virtue and strength for so long that only an idiot would choose someone like Kerry. I mean, look at their service to their country both during and after Vietnam and it is clear that GWB's five years in government prior to 2000 easily trumps the miniscule service that Kerry had in comparison. It is definitely refreshing to have such upstanding, honest people as the Swiftvets to point out the farce that was Kerry's "service" in Vietnam. Kerry might as well have been a draft dodger for the undistinguished, decidedly nonheroic time that he spent in 'Nam. It is also nice to know that these were people who were as critical of Kerry during his time in "Nam as they were thirty years later, and the fact that they were bankrolled by completely nonpartisan organizations only lends more credibility to the claims that Kerry was worse than a draft dodger, worse than a drug abuser, and worse than a coward.
uhmmm, no worries suggested we had it coming on 9/11 and you're defending that, while simultaneously suggesting my posts don't meet your lofty standards?
I didn't discuss no wories' post in any way shape or form. I don't call leaving out bits of quotes from other sources lofty, but that may be part of the problem if you do see that as something lofty and unattainable.
you castigated me for my reply to no worries. only bill clinton, or you, could defend that as no discussion "in any way shape or form" (and what's a "way shape", btw?).
assuming you're being ironic, a truly excreable post. Assuming your mother only let you color with black crayons and white crayons, ... My point is that the US does not have clean hands wrt meddling in Middle East politics. In particular, OBL has repeatedly said that the US air bases in Saudi Arabia were his prime motivation behind 9/11. Bottom line, we gave some seriously crazy people a reason for 9/11. Are we 100% to blame? No. Are al Qaida 100% to blame? No. I know you have problems when reality does not fit your your 100% right and wrong belief system. Carry on.
wait, al queda isn't 100% to blame for 9/11? are you suggesting that because i occassionally rent an SUV and drive down the NJ turnpike and I95 to DC instead of taking amtrak I'm partly to blame for 9/11? truly, you have a dizzying intellect, and a completely ****ed up moral compass.
ou have a dizzying intellect, and a completely ****ed up moral compass. and your compass is stuck. Did my intellect really make you dizzy? Cool.
are you suggesting that because i occassionally rent an SUV and drive down the NJ turnpike and I95 to DC instead of taking amtrak I'm partly to blame for 9/11? That would be a real stretch. What I am really talking about is the US passing arms around in the ME like candy and stupidy thinking that would be no ramifications. Since you may be dizzy at this point, I make this very clear. Playing both sides of the fence of the Arab-Israel conflict is a losing hand, which will make nobody happy. Selling arms to both the Saudi and Israel governments will not play well with the Saudi locals like OBL. And on and on ... I hope you see that there are consequences to our actions abroad.
this is the equivalent of blaming a rape victim for wearing a short red dress, and is, w/o a doubt, perhaps the most astounding thing i've ever read in the D&D.
