Neocons predicted Muslims respect a winner - well may be not

Exact quote...

" I do not care for the judgment of the world, as it is fickle. I care about the judgment of history, and of my people. In 50 years both will see us as heroes."



hint...his people were German.

 

I doubt it.

Saddam was known to move the WMD from location to location.

No, he had 6 months to plan for the invasion. The last two months, he knew the US Army was coming.

...psst, check the riverbank AND the Bakaa Valley.

 

You always know what to expect when you see the term "neocon" in a thread title. I am not disappointed.

 

This is the only part I find worth responding to (Major):

Major, terrorists are going to attack us regardless of what we do. The only defense we have is a good offense, though. Going after their camps and safe havens, cutting their finances, forcing other nations to think twice about helping or harboring them, killing them in their holes - that is the only way to stop these guys.

Sitting back and going into defensive mode will not work. Airport security will not work. Increased border security will not work. Extra guards around nuke facilities will not work. Those are all fine and dandy measures, but if someone really wants to hit us, then they will hit us at a time and place of their choosing. The only way to stop them is to stop them before they act.

Their motivation is absolute. These people are not going to have a change of heart - they are willing, eager, to martyr themselves in order to hit us. We are not going to change that in the short term - there is no way. We can only change it in the long term by influencing what their children are brought up to believe, and we can only do that by establishing a powerful presence in their world. That is why we are fighting the war the way we are, and that is the only way to stop future attacks unless we are prepared to be at war indefinitely.

These people do not respect mercy. They laugh when we try to be diplomatic or nice. Their supporters across the muslim world do not respect us when we are diplomatic or nice either. They respect our rage and our wrath. They are cowed by our skillfull and purposeful exercise of power. They are not cowed when we extend the olive branch - they only laugh at our weakness and stupidity when we try that. Their society does not offer praise to the peacemaker.

We are going to try to change that. Will it work? We don't know. If it does it will probably take decades. All that we know now is that doing nothing does not work, and trying to make peace with those who only want to see your way of life eradicated only gets your hand bitten. We are at war with an implacable foe, and that foe has the respect and admiration of hundreds of millions of muslims. The only way to defeat that enemy in the long run is to remove that support they receive from the Islamic community, and the only way we are going to do that is to be intrusive into their way of life. If they don't like it, tough. We don't like to lose, and we don't feel like being at war forever.

 

treeman: I agree with all of that. However, our fight against terrorists in, for example, Indonesia, would be a hell of a lot easier if 36% of the people hated us instead of 83%. Popular opinion will affect how much other governments cooperate and how easy it is for terrorist groups to operate anonymously within a country. We made progress in Iraq. We regressed virtually everywhere else. Was it a net positive? Who knows.

 

Major:

I understand that. And the truth is that we do not know if it will work. What we will do is try to spread democracy and prosperity throughout the muslim world, and if they still hate us then... Well, we're back to square one, I guess. Hopefully they will see that we are trying to really help them, and their hostility level will go down. No one else seems to have any better ideas.

Incidentally, the hatred levels in oh, I dunno - Indonesia - were high before the Iraq war. They are high everywhere in the muslim world, and were before Iraq. And before Afghanistan.

 

One odd thing about this report that I heard on NPR, was that almost 50% of Israelis believe that America is too supportive of Israel in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. That was a huge shocker.

 

MacBeth,

I really fail to see how that is relevant that I have said something similar to what Hitler said some 60+ years ago.

What I said is true, if the Iraqi war helps stabalize the region it will be viewed as a bold move by leaders of the free world.

The Blair/Bush Project.

DD

 

Neo-Cons?? C'mon...even Rush Limbaugh knows that when people say Neo-Con's they're talking about guys like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. Both of whom are practically Israeli.

Yeah, with they're Israeli background they know that "Muslims respect the winner" Sharon's been trying to use that logic for some time in Israel and it doesn't seem to be doing that well there.

I respect that the administration is trying to rectify the Palestinian situation with the Roadmap, I just hope all the gusto comes to fruition.

I honestly am not trying to talk about who was right or wrong before hand but what we plan to do now in Iraq. I think that people like Treeman and Johnheath truly do believe that we plan to set up a democracy there and push for the spread of it throughout a region devoid of representative government. I truly hope this comes true, and that the plan works. So for now I will continue to support our government as it tells me these goals for this country we have invaded. But if we try to install another puppet ala Mubarak or the Shah of Iran to keep the gas pumping and have more generations growing up repressed by this country that I love and by my tax dollars than I will be pissed.

From an economic standpoint, I'm thrilled with what this administration has accomplished and look forward to the benefits. I truly feel that every president's first term is predominantly a campaign to get re-elected. Lets hope that Bush can prove that he earned my vote for him and let me believe in those words that were told to me over and over.

 

Actually the best weapon against terrorism would be a more just policy in the middle east, and less troops in unwanted unnecessary country's in the region.

And before anyone accuses me of saying that we deserved 9/11 I'm not. Changing our policy won't be done for stopping terrorism. That would be only a by-product. Changing Mideast policy should be done because it's the right thing to do.

When the terrorists don't have a high profile enemy to rail against and hold up as a standard bearer of all the things they need to fight, then their finances, recruits, and supporters will slowly start to whither.

Nothing will completely remove them, but this is the best start.

And also to pre-empt any other misguided arguments, if we find terrorist groups military operations should remain an option.

 

Khan:

For what it's worth, if we install another puppet government in Iraq just to keep the wells running then I will share your anger.

In the interim / short term, a democracy will probably not be viable. But if after, oh say, 18 months we do not see any real progress towards instituting an indigenous self-governing Iraqi body there, then something is not working right. It will take a little time, but I expect to see progress towards that end.

FB:

The only way I can think of to have a just policy that will keep our troops out of the region is to set up nonhostile self-governing democracies so we don't have to keep going over there to kick someone's ass for misbehaving. Their governments must learn to behave, pure and simple, and democracies tend to avoid war wherever possible. That is what we're doing.

The right thing to do is whatever results in the least amount of carnage for everyone involved. That is also what we are doing. We lose troops when we have to send them over there, and they lose lotsa everything when it happens. We are going to set up a system where that doesn't have to happen anymore.

Military operations will always be one of the tools in the toybox when it comes to dealing with terrorism. Hopefully we can limit it to special ops this way.

 

A couple of ways we can change our policy. We can reduce funding for Israel. We can start doing some of the things that make fundimentalists look up to the terrorist groups. That includes funding schools(but we shouldn't dictate curriculum), hospitals, look after orphans, poor, etc. This is mostly true in areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan where we damaged the country, and pledged our support. We should do all of this without thinking it gives us the right to dictate what their govts. do. We should help the Palestinians develop a state, and then give them aid and advice on how to make it grow and prosper. We should do this without dictating policy for them.

We should try and spread democracy through example and good deeds rather than by forcing it down a country's throat.

If we do these things we won't have to worry about being cut off from oil. RAdical Islamists who rail against the U.S. won't have a leg to stand on, and these conditions might make others want to emulate our democracy.

 

We can reduce funding to the Palestinian Authority.

Reducing funding to either side accomplishes nothing except removing our leverage from that side. Instead of punishing them when they do something wrong, we should reward them when they do something right. Financial punishment does not appear to have any effect when the punishee A) feels he did nothing wrong, and B) feels he had no choice. Rewarding them, on the other hand, may get results.

At any rate, Israel is playing ball now. They have even agreed that the settlements will be removed. How wise do you think it would be to punish them when they're playing ball?

We already do. Along with the Euros, we fund virtually every aspect of the Palestinian Authority. Yassir Arafat simply funnels a chunk of that cash to the terrorist groups.

We're doing quite a bit in both of those areas that for some odd reason is going largely unreported. I guess the media doesn't like happy endings...

A day in the life of CENTCOM in the Iraqi AOR:

http://www.orbat.com/site/analysis/news.html

(scroll down to "US Central Command Press Release June 1")

We are. In fact, we are their only hope of achieving that goal. They just have to play ball and start seriously attempting to curb their terrorists, and we're in business.

We really would rather not have to. So far the sum total of our dictating policy to them amounts to "Crack down on your terrorists or we'll get nowhere". That is all we have ever asked of them. It is not too much to ask.

Uh, we've been trying that for nearly 60 years. It worked in Europe and Russia. It has not worked in the Middle East, and it will not work due to social differences. Sorry, but since the Mr. Nice approach does not work there, we're going to have to start ramming... See Iraq for example.

The Palestinians are being given another last chance.

We will get the oil we need one way or another. Our economy will not be allowed to tank just because some sh*tpot dictator decides he doesn't like us, or some follower of Mohammed decides to make a point by martyring himself and an office building.

We can do it the hard way, or we can do it the easy way. I say we try the hard way first (the peace process, that is). If that doesn't work...

This is all nice and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy, but it is unrealistic and flies in the face of over 50 years worth of history (well, 4,500 years of history, actually). Might makes right in that part of the world, and if you're going to use a carrot, you'd better have a big stick to back it up. Sorry, that's just the way it is over there.

Did the Arabs (Egyptians and Jordanians, at least) stop attacking Israel simply because they felt good about the whole Camp David thingy, or because being on the White House lawn made them feel like being extra cordial? No, they finally realized that Israel would be able to kick the everliving sh*t out of them for the forseeable future, and that it was pointless (and counterproductive) to fight them again. The Palestinians are beginning to realize that now - they cannot sustain a pointless intifada forever, especially one that accomplishes none of their goals and gets far too many of them (and not enough Jews) killed.

Sorry, but in that region the stick works just as well if not better than the carrot. There's a reason it's such a violent area.

 

Food for thought:

How About a Non-Oslo Approach?
By Charles Krauthammer
Jerusalem Post | June 3, 2003

On May 23, just a week ago, the official newspaper of the supposedly reformed Palestinian Authority carried a front-page picture of the latest suicide bomber dressed in suicide-bomber regalia. It then referred to the place where she did her murdering as "occupied Afula.'' The town of Afula is in Israel's Galilee. It is not occupied. It is not in the West Bank or Gaza. It is within Israel. If Afula is occupied, then Tel Aviv is occupied, Haifa is occupied, and Israel's very existence is a crime.

This bit of incitement and delegitimation was, to my knowledge, reported in not a single American newspaper. It is simply too routine. It is the everyday stuff of Palestinian newspapers and television, schoolbooks, and sermons. Appearing, however, after the Palestinians had presumably adopted new leadership committed to (1) ending terrorism and (2) accepting Israel, this outrage caught the eye of Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Satloff brought it to American attention, noting that "It is difficult to imagine a more chilling message to Israelis who doubt Palestinian commitment to a two-state solution."

President Bush, engaging his personal prestige in the Arab-Israeli peace process, is headed to Middle East summits in Egypt and Jordan. He is in danger, however, of heading straight back to Oslo, that eight-year exercise in delusion and self-deception that led to the bloodiest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in 50 years. Dennis Ross, chief US negotiator through the Oslo process, has admitted that one of the great failings of Oslo was the willful refusal of both Americans and Israelis hungry for peace to confront Palestinian violations of the agreements, most notably the incitement to kill Jews and the constant propaganda delegitimizing Israel's right to exist.

There was some hope for change when Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) became Palestinian prime minister and spoke of ending the violence and accepting Israel. But as of now, Abbas has done nothing. And just this week Yasser Arafat demonstrated who is the real boss of the Palestinians when he deliberately forced a postponement of a summit meeting between Abbas and Ariel Sharon.

Until Abbas is in control, the US president's visit will constitute a reward for nothing more than cosmetic reform.

THE ONLY logic of Bush's visit is that perhaps a photo-op with the president of the United States will elevate Abbas and give him the authority to do what he has to do. But the premise of the president's Middle East policy, announced June 24, 2002, was that the United States would help the Palestinians achieve statehood in response to real Palestinian reform, not just words.

Moreover, the road map for peace, which the Palestinians say they have accepted, explicitly demands of the Palestinian leadership "sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure."

Abbas is talking very differently. His objective, he says, is to persuade the suicide bombing specialists Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades to accept a temporary cease-fire. This would be a disaster for any prospect of peace. It means that the terrorists who have been hunted down by Israel ever since it finally decided to strike back after the Passover massacre of 2002 would receive immediate sanctuary time to rebuild, regroup, rearm, and prepare for the next, more deadly orgy of violence.

If what Abbas means by "peace" is that the terrorists just lie low for a while, then it is not a peace of the brave but a peace of the knave.

If that is what President Bush accepts as "peace," he not only will have betrayed Israel, he will have doomed American policy because he will have ratified a prescription for continued and much more bloody violence.

The requirements of a successful summit are clear. Abbas has to take real steps to curb terror. Let him begin in just one city. Israel will withdraw, but only if Abbas asserts authority and actually goes after the terrorists in that town. No revolving-door arrests. No temporary cease-fire. Nothing less than "sustained ... operations aimed at ... dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure."

And Abbas has to do something even simpler: Stop official Palestinian media from extolling suicide bombers. Stop official Palestinian media from referring to Israel as occupied territory. Talk about peace in Arabic, not just in English the way Anwar Sadat did 25 years ago. Israel reciprocated then; it will reciprocate now. Without such elemental steps by Abbas, however, no peace is possible and the new Bush peace initiative will amount to nothing more than Oslo redux.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8179

Just something to think about...

 

Treeman,

As delighted as I am to hear Sharon say the words "Occupied Territories" and talk about dismantling the settlements, do you really think he will?

What about the wall being build that will cut off many areas and take more 'occupied' land. What about the villages with thousands of people that are between the wall and Israel in a narrow sliver of land.

I agree with you that a democracy cannot be installed immediately and to think that is silly. First, we must make the commitment to Iraq that we are there for the long haul and till change occurs. I hope that we have the patience that seems to have left our country that allowed us to build Germany and Japan into the post-war economic success stories they are today.

 

Khan:

I would say that if the Palestinians live up to their concessions and then Sharon backs away from his, then Sharon will have lost all credibility and will deserve everything that happens to him.

I agree with you on Iraq 100%.

This looks promising:

Israelis, Palestinians Offer Concessions
51 minutes ago
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

AQABA, Jordan - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) pledged Wednesday to dismantle illegal outposts in Palestinian areas, while the new Palestinian leader renounced terrorism against Israel. Both steps were sought by President Bush (news - web sites) as he brought the two sides together in a dramatic bid to advance Middle East peace.


Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas pleaded for "a clear improvement in the lives of Palestinians" that would allow them to live in dignity.


"It is time to bring all this suffering to an end," Abbas said, and later added: "There will be no military solution to this conflict, so we repeat our renunciation and the renunciation of terrorism against the Israelis wherever they might be."


To that, Sharon promised to "immediately begin to remove unauthorized outposts."


Joining Abbas, Sharon, and the summit's host, King Abdullah II of Jordan, at podiums positioned at the edge of an arm of the Red Sea, Bush praised the leaders' commitments and concessions.


"Both leaders understand that a future of peace cannot be founded on hatred and falsehood and bitterness," he said.


It was the first time of his presidency that Bush had held a joint meeting with the two leaders. It followed a session in Egypt the day before, in which Arab leaders agreed to stanch the flow of money to terror groups.


"The journey we're taking is difficult, but there is no other choice," Bush said.


Israeli outposts and settlements in Palestinian areas is one of the most divisive issues of the long conflict.


Without their government's approval, Israeli settlers have placed trailers or tents on hilltops, some next to existing settlements, in Palestinian areas. The unauthorized outposts intensified the Palestinians' conflict with Israel during which more than 750 Israelis have died, including about 350 from suicide bombings.


During the same period, more than 2,350 Palestinians have been killed.


Hard-line Israelis say settlements and outposts reinforce their claim to Biblical lands but other Israelis say the illegal outposts get in the way of a deal that could unburden their country of the costly occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.


For his part, Sharon said Israel's security was his highest priority and that "there can be no peace" without Palestinians abandoning the incitement to terrorist acts. "There can be no compromise with terror," he said.


Calling violence inconsistent with Palestinians' Islamic faith and the establishment of an independent state they have long sought, Abbas pledged to end "the militarization of the intefadeh."


"Our national future is at stake and no one will be allowed to jeopardize it," he said.


Bush promised training and support for a "new, restructured Palestinian security service," and said he would place longtime diplomat John Wolf at the head of a U.S. mission on the ground to help the parties and monitor progress.


The four leaders approached the cameras across a bridge — walking toward Israel in a symbolic gesture arranged by the White House — specially built for the occasion.





Abdullah called Wednesday's three-way meeting a step toward fulfilling "a dream of peace, prosperity, coexistence and reconciliation" for the entire Middle East.

"Blowing up buses will not induce the Israelis to move forward and neither will the killing of Palestinians or the demolition of their homes and their future. All this needs to stop," Abdullah said.

Abbas filled a role played in the past by Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), the longtime Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites) leader and symbol of the Palestinian movement. Arafat was not invited; his removal from the peace process was a major demand of Bush's plan, a so-called road map to a two-state Israeli-Palestine settlement.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) noted with praise that Abbas' pledge to end the intefadeh was made in Arabic and repeatedly.

Abbas and Sharon established improved trust, "but real trust is going to come from performance," Powell said after the leaders' statements.

As to whether Sharon's promise to end "unauthorized outposts" went far enough, Powell said, "It's a good start. It will show to the Palestinian people and to the world that Israel is prepared to do things that they were not prepared to do before this meeting."

In other agreements:

_Abbas pledged to run a Palestinian state based on the rule of law and democracy, without allowing weapons into the hands of rogue elements.

_Sharon said his government understands "the importance of territorial contiguity" in the West Bank, a key demand of Palestinians.

_Sharon accepted the principle of a Palestinian state. Abbas also publicly acknowledged Israel's right to exist side by side with a Palestinian state. In a goodwill gesture, Israel had released scores of Palestinian prisoners in advance of the summit.

The summit site was a summer palace used by Abdullah, and Bush's first meeting of the day was with the king.

From the summit, Bush flew to Doha, Qatar, visiting U.S. troops in the forward U.S. command post here the Iraq (news - web sites) war was managed.

The Palestinians want the Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), which were seized in the 1967 Six Day War. Sharon's government has agreed to dismantle some Israeli settlements built in those territories but wants to retain others.

By the same token, Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist and normalized relations are important elements of Bush's peace plan, which envisions a Palestinian state by 2005.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20030604/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_mideast_62

They haven't been this close in a decade. I just hope that the "right of return" issue dioesn't muck the whole thing up...