Someone tried to shoot down an airliner full of Jews, not in Israel but in Africa…
Jew on holiday. Legitimate target
anywhere in the world, apparently.
But Jews = Israel and Israel = bad, in fact very bad as it is not just ‘Jewish’ but also ‘White’. Therefore the people who did this must be misguided ‘Islamic activists’. Terrible but ‘understandable’ to idiotarians and other sundry folk who take Noam Chomsky seriously. You know, the sort of people who say “Who are we do judge the value of other cultures?” and “Of course I deplore terrorism, but…”
Kikambala in Kenya is ripped apart by the same people who tried to shoot down the passenger jet and slaughtered Kenyans are photographed in the ruins of the resort which used to bring much needed foreign money into Kenya’s economy…
Vanquished capitalist tools perhaps? CIA agents maybe?
Black people in the Third World lie dead, therefore people who did this must be capitalists, um, imperialists, errr, Americans, no, Mac Donalds, um, er, ah…
I see pictures like those and I am soooooo sick of the people who say “It is all about Israel!” or “It is all about oil!” or “It is all about US policy!“… those dead Kenyans are not in Israel, I rather doubt they owned shares in any oil companies and they did not get to vote for who became the President of the United States.
What “it is all about” is that there are people using violence who advocate coercive pan-Islamic collectivism and who wish to force submission on everyone else. Once this is understood, all that needs to follow is to determine the best way to exterminate them as expeditiously as possible.
This may not be the first time Al Queda have fired a missile at an airliner. Remember TWA 800 that went down off of Long Island…
Good point Perry. Idiotarians will, no doubt, be immune to such arguments. They are beyond reason and always have been.
The pictures are appalling. It seems western and eastern Africa is suffering a million torments at the moment
mark Holland: regarding TWA 800, I suppose it is just possible but I really have my doubts a SAM-7 launch not have been very widely seen is an American urban area… the ‘witness reports’ do not convince me. Also as much as I distrust the US government (see many of my previous articles on Samizdata.net) I just do not buy the notion the Feds are trying to cover it up. Likewise, a massively resourced company like the manufacturer would LOVE to prove it was a SAM hit that brought it down rather than a structural failure of their aerocraft: any lawsuit issues immediatly vanish. I can not see them just sitting back and leaving the Feds to cover up such a fact.
You underestimate your enemies. If you treat them like cartoons, you’re not fighting effectively.
A_t: Cartoons? I see two enemies here.
First I see the Chomskyite Tranzi Left. They are indeed cartoon like in their subjectivist view of the world, disconnected from any notion of objective truth, let alone objective reality. I do not ‘underestimate’ them in so far as I understand they have the ability to cause harm. However I think parody and highlighting their absurdity is the best way to fight them. By their own words they are best revealed.
Secondly I see the various pan-Islamic movements, and I certainly do not underestimate them one bit, which is why I advocate not dialogue but rather relentless violence against them. Militant violence advocating pan-Islamic movements need to be exterminated wherever they are found and moderate, rational muslims supported wherever it is tactically useful. And when it comes to the pan-Islamists, or ‘Islamo-fascists’ if you prefer, I use the term exterminate literally.
Take a page from Chairman Mao. “Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.”
Incidentally, al-Qaida are imperialists. They just aren’t imperialists of the sort that the left would recognize. No surprise, since lefties will still get mad if you talk about the Soviet Empire.
re Boeing and TWA800 – Boeing is a major defense and space contractor as well as getting lots of help in exporting airplanes. If the government wanted to keep them quiet – not that I’m saying they did – then they have plenty of influence.
The TWA800 investigation was very fishy – and coming in an era of multiple coverups of US law enforcement, not to mention multiple screwups, I don’t think we know what really happened. And as usual, that leaves plenty of room to think the worst.
… and Israel isn’t even”white.” Half the Jewish population is from the surrounding Arab countries where they lived since the Roman Empire, and they are racially indistinguishable from Arabs and central Asians. Even “white” European Jews share distinct genetic lines with Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs. There are also Ethiopian Jews, who are as black as you can get. And let’s not forget that during the centuries of diaspora, Europeans always thought of Jews as darker outsiders, to Hitler we were not white, and no current White Supremacy group puts us in the White category (not that we would want to be).
PS ….. and many converts to Judaism are not “white” either.
The reason people keep saying that “it’s all about Israel” is because it plays well. They get away with it without significant challenge and it has been rewarded or, at least, not punished adequately. The same applies to terrorism generally. The Europeans and others have been rewarding acts of terrorism for decades such as when the (West) German government was complicit in the “staged” hijacking which resulted in freeing the surviving Olympic terrorists. It is not only a joke but is the best example of the _______ coming home to roost. Intellectual dishonesty abounds. Up is down, west is east, north is south, etc. At least George Costanza had an excuse.
Marty… again, cartoons… I’d describe myself as definitely more Left than Right, yet the Soviet Empire seems just as obvious as the British in my book.
Also, you won’t find Chomsky supporting terrorism, and he’s *never* likely to say Jews are bad. Nor do I believe he thinks that. Why does opposition to Israel’s present policies make one anti-Israeli? There are israelis who are opposed to Israel’s present treatment of the Palestinians too… does that mean they think Jews are bad?
I don’t think many in the West would deny that al-quaida etc. organised terrorism is a problem, and very, very few people think that it’s anything but a terrible evil. However, interpretations of why it happens, and how best to deal with it, are many and various. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your personal interpretation, it doesn’t mean they’re against all you stand for, or that they’re idiots.
& hmm… again, i think you underestimate the ability of people on the left to recognise what is real. I certainly don’t think anyone’s labouring under the illusion that Al Quaida’s a righteous movement, and given that there have been empires all over the place, your average lefty would have a hard time arguing that the West has a monopoly over imperialism. One look at Al Quaida’s (stated) aims makes it pretty clear what their goal is, and anyone who’s not a fundamentalist movement won’t like them; it’s on the origins & support for the group that the left deviates from your view.
& yes, Perry… i agree with you about the pan-islamic movements, but as was argued earlier on samizdata re. the BNP, push people far enough, and they’ll resort to extremes. I wouldn’t go as far as many in putting the blame on the West for Al Quaida/radical Islam’s rise, but we’ve managed to (often unnecessarily) piss off a lot of muslims, some of whom *will* have been pushed that little bit too far. Guns and bombs against those who would already attack us *is* a good idea, and i have no trouble with it, but in the long run, it’s going to be very very hard to kill all of them, & all it takes is a few people to kill a large number of us. We also need therefore to be concentrating on what the concerns are that drive people towards extremist movements in the first place, seeing whether any of these are justified, and whether we can do anything about them.
Several months ago, some blogger(s) (might have been Glenn Reynolds or LGF) made the point that the Palestinians are doing a great job of dehumanizing themselves. In almost every, if not every war, each side dehumanizes the enemy in order to allow their own people to justify doing the horrible things that fighting a war entails.
The Palestinians (and al-Qaeda, for that matter) seem hell-bent on convincing the rest of the world that they are subhuman. If Osama ever gets his war of cultures, Western culture will win, but there will be hundreds of thousands of dead, mostly among the Islamists. Thanks to deeds like this there will be a lot less soul-searching in the West about eliminating them.
The trouble with this approach is you’re not taking into account how they get new recruits. You’re not taking into account the number of innocent casualties when we start going hell-for-leather after terrorists. Bin Laden will love any incursion into the West bank, especially if women & children are killed. Don’t think he won’t. Every bit of footage like that helps all of us Jews and non-jews West to look subhuman too. It cuts both ways.
And by the way, Hamas etc. does not equal “The Palestinians”. Peaceful protest is impossible in the occupied territories at present, indeed is likely to get you killed, so only the most extreme people get their say. You have to also remember that these extremists, unlike the majority of Palestinians, have no interest in a peaceful settlement, since their life is conflict. A carpenter or farmer would find peace an opportunity to get back to business, but it would put these thugs *out* of business. The way these brutal idiots have managed to polarise Israeli public opinion into support for more occupation & subjugation is astounding.
Frankly, I’m surprised that there have not been more SAM attacks on commercial airliners.
“all it takes is a few people to kill a large number of us”
Exactly. And that’s the problem with appeasement of Islamofascism. Anything we do short of trashing the Constitution and instituting Sharia law will still mean a core number of Islamofanatics who will do their best to murder everyone else who does not share their interpretation of Islam.
Hugs just won’t work, sorry.
Perry, I’ll try not to post this four times as I did on your previous blog!
The idiotarians will be making their excuses. They’re already doing it for Bali despite Osama’s hatred of East Timor, but then we all know that John P****r is a wanker.
Thanks to Tex at WhackingDay for the link. This is a very funny site about libertarianism, bikes and beer.
“… and Israel isn’t even”white.” Half the Jewish population is from the surrounding Arab countries where they lived since the Roman Empire, and they are racially indistinguishable from Arabs and central Asians. Even “white” European Jews share distinct genetic lines with Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs. There are also Ethiopian Jews, who are as black as you can get. And let’s not forget that during the centuries of diaspora, Europeans always thought of Jews as darker outsiders, to Hitler we were not white, and no current White Supremacy group puts us in the White category (not that we would want to be).”
Two or three times now I’ve been asked by Iranians if I am Iranian. And I’m only half-Jewish (and half-European). Yet some idiots have said Israelis are white and Palestinians are black and that’s all that matters.
Chomskyite, Tranzi Left, pan-Islamic , ‘Islamo-fascists’ and Idiotarians oh my!
Extermination? For a second there I thought I had been transported to Nazi Germany. Who the hell talks about “exterminating” people like they are bugs? Demented people that is who.
“And by the way, Hamas etc. does not equal “The Palestinians”. Peaceful protest is impossible in the occupied territories at present, indeed is likely to get you killed, so only the most extreme people get their say.”
Bah, it’s likely to get them killed by other Palestinians. And whenever they poll Palestinians as to whether they support suicide bombings, an overwhelming majority comes back saying “yes.”
This campaign of violence cuts through all levels of Palestinian society, it’s there in the schools, in the stores, in the mosques, on TV, etc. etc. etc. It requires complete entanglement in their culture, it’s a form of total war. They don’t want to stop until every Israeli is dead or gone, and they don’t care what the consequences are for themselves.
If the Palestinians as a whole did not support this violence, and supported a peaceful leader, he would be in control, and the terrorists would be on the run. The terrorists wouldn’t be able to recruit if most Palestinians were willing to turn them in to a security service that was willing to arrest them.
TWA 800? Not a missile, folks. The streak of light going up was the aft section of the plane itself. See the actual report at the NTSB.
From the report at page 263.
Life is not a conspiracy.
“We also need therefore to be concentrating on what the concerns are that drive people towards extremist movements in the first place, seeing whether any of these are jus’tified, and whether we can do anything about them.”
What drives people to terrorism is being continually brain washed. I live in China, and you can watch people’s attitudes change with what the government allows to be published. There is no difference in the Territories. What drives people toward hate are good motivators (Hamas recruiters), and a government that aides these aims through incitement. It’s not about anger and poverty, it is about having the means and motivation.
“Extermination? For a second there I thought I had been transported to Nazi Germany. Who the hell talks about “exterminating” people like they are bugs? Demented people that is who.”
I would be inclined to agree with this except it seems to be directed at Israel and the West, rather than the Islamonazis who perpetrate atrocity after atrocity. Yes, they are people, but they are extremely dangerous people bent on killing you and anyone else who is not of thier particular faith and viewpoint. Do you get that? They want to kill you, just for not being them.
You may not like the job, the the alternative is to submit your will to theirs and hope they don’t kill you anyway. This is a situation of their creation, not ours. They have made it a kill or be killed kind of thing. And leave us no option except to exterminate like bugs.
Mosquitos carry diseases like yellow fever and malaria. Either you kill the mosquitos or die of those diseases. Your choice.
When I used the term ‘White’ about Israel, I was making a none too subtle reference to that infamous remark by that Idiotarian twit Nelson Mandela about the ‘fact’ that the USA treated Israel the way it did because Israel was ‘white’.
As for the indigestion caused by my use of the term ‘exterminate’, how about ‘kill everyone who wants to kill us’… better? The fact is when one’s enemy makes widespread use of suicide attacks, one needs to adjust one’s logic accordingly. Ultimately if these people do indeed keep attacking civilian targets then WHATEVER violence is required to make them stop must be contemplated. The last time an enemy used suicide tactics in a big way, they were defeated by dropping a nuclear bombs on two of their cities. What makes anything think the solution to pan-Islamic extremists will be any less drastic? Do you think they would hesitate for a second to do that to us? I do not think ‘exterminate’ is too strong a word for the sort of people who just a couple weeks ago were going to release cyanide gas in the London Underground (metro system).
“Extermination” ?? Who is talking about extermination ? Is that the alternative – extermination of all Arabs or surrender ? Absolutely not ! Just kill their mad leaders, the rest will behave. Nobody loves Saddam any more that the Russians loved Brezhnev. Do some de-nazification program like it was done in Germany in 1945. Install some Karzai in every mad Arab country, and they will learn to behave in a civilized manner real fast, and will love it too. Removing mad dictators and mullahs is doing a favor to the Arab people, it is not extermination !
Yehudit,
The talk about wether Israel is or isn’t white concedes the racist point that the color of Israel’s people matters. So, please, just denounce the racists and do not bother to correct them about their color identification.
Jacob: Removing mad dictators and mullahs is doing a favor to the Arab people…
I agree completely!
it is not extermination!
But I use the term ‘exterminate’ to indicate the level of violence that may be required. Not just the mad dictators and mullahs may need to die but a good number of their supporters. Slaughtering 10,000 Republican Guards in the Gulf War (WELL within US capabilities had the war gone on for just 72 hours longer) would have meant the end of Saddam once and for all and probably saved more that that number of innocent victims of Ba’athist violence, all Arabs and Kurds, over the last 10 years. That is the sort of bloody calculus that causes me to use emotive words like ‘exterminate’.
Try using “liberate” instead of exterminate.
I’m under no illusion that islamic fanaticism will evaporate overnight or that a war can be victimless, but why not borrow a trick from the left, and name a thing by the intention rather than by outcome ?
What we need to remember is that a large percentage of everybody (Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, etc.) are Random Ordinary People ™. If left alone, they will go about their business peacefully and not make trouble.
If their life is horribly mangled by external forces (suicide bombing, occupation buldozing, property seizures, blockade, etc.) they will turn to their local source of propaganda to explain to them who is responsible. Statistically, their local source of propaganda is likely to be run by crazy/evil people — whatever side they’re on, including the British/American team.
As a result, a certain percentage of these once ordinary people will be mobilized to become “terrorists”, and will end up attacking other Random Ordinary People. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The key problem for us is that “collateral damage” caused by “fighting terrorism” will generate more terrorists. If we kill more enemies than we create, we’re making progress! If the reverse is true, we’re losing ground. What people refer to here as “Chomskyite Tranzi Leftism” is just the notion that harassing Random Ordinary People is not only immoral, but counterproductive and inefficient.
Sometimes this principle calls for more aggressive warfare rather than less. Blockading Iraq was stupid because it largely targeted Ordinary Citizens. Finishing off Hussein in ’91 would have been clearly superior. Occupying Iraq now will be messier because Ahmed Q. Iraqi blames us for the mass starvation in his country. Whether or not Ahmed’s assessment is fair isn’t the point — the point is that past sloppiness will mean more guerrilla resistance later.
We must FOCUS our aggression. We must avoid doing business with SCUM (like Saddam, Sharon, Suharto, Stalin, the Shah, and the Saudi Royals), whose bad behavior will be blamed on us. We must FIRE (cover in gasoline and ignite) people like Kissinger, who will sell out ordinary citizens when it is politically expedient.
A trick of the Left? Well, then, the Allied victory in World War II was nothing less than a trick of the Left! Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki–all were “liberated,” as far as the homicidal humanitarians of the West are concerned. It’s OK to firebomb and nuke civilians when you’re advancing high-minded abstractions.
What’s that you say? Hitler had to be stopped? Yes, but perhaps the 20 million Eastern Europeans delivered up to Stalin did not reckon the price so reasonable–to say nothing of the German and Japanese men, women and children who were reduced to collateral damage.
World War II mythology is what the anti-war movement is always and forever up against. Neither the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” commandment nor the constitutionally-limited republic has recovered from it yet.
Tony: If you are going to criticise historical decsions, you should point out what alternatives were available, or your argument falls down as it is not grounded inthe historical narrative.
Strategic bombing: iffy and alternatives were possible?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Should the Americans and allies have allowed their soldiers to be killed before targeting civilians, even though the death toll was projected to be very high?
Phillip:
As I understand it, the Japanese offered to surrender on more than one occasion; but Truman wanted *unconditional* surrender. One alternative might have been to negotiate a conditional surrender.
Furthermore, I’m sure if you interview Islamic terrorists, they’ll throw the same argument in your face. What choice do *they* have, given the Israeli occupation and the West’s imperialism?
I’m not justifying terrorism. Somebody has to start setting an example in these matters, and I don’t see it coming from the West. We can’t affect outrage at the slaughter of civilians in some cases (i.e., when it’s perpetrated by Islamic terrorists) and shrug our shoulders at the collateral damage inflicted by the West’s democracies.
Tony,
You mean – negotiate some peace with the Japanese like Bush 1 did with Saddam ?
Hitler du jour Saddam Hussein has bombed three countries over the past 20 years: Iran (with a nod and a wink from the U.S.), Kuwait (likewise) and Israel. The U.S. over the same period has bombed Grenada, Libya, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Yugoslavia, the Sudan and Afghanistan. The American campaigns of humanitarian bombing have left thousands of slaughtered innocents in their wake.
I’m naive for advocating a negotiated peace with Saddam? I’d say Saddam is naive in hoping for a negotiated peace with the U.S.
T.J. Madison writes:
Interesting conjecture, not supported by facts. Please explain the radicalization of Arabs in Muslims in places like Paris, Brussels, London, and Montreal. They can easily live perfectly normal lives, and yet…
The difference is that on the Bush/American team, multiple points of view can be aired and heard. On the opposing team, any efforts at being “moderate” are likely to get you lynched for being a collaborator.
I’m not really interested in the raw numbers here (if nothing else, we could probably outlast them, or destroy them all). Still, millions of destitute illiterate Koran-thumpers running around the desert with their AK-47s don’t frighten me. I’m much more interested in those who enable them to arrive at my door with bombs.
It’s not immoral, if only because sometimes you have no alternative. (The Islamist nutjobs don’t care to mark themselves, and deliberately use our inability to distinguish them from Random Ordinary People. That puts responsibility for any harm we deliver to the Random Ordinary People partly on the wackjobs, and partly on the Random Ordinary People themselves, who are supposed to organize a society with law enforcement and stuff, and weed out the terrorists themselves. ) As for counterproductive and inefficient — how big a threat is Japan today?
And before the blockade on Iraq, the Iraqis lived reasonably well, and might well not appreciate the United States disrupting their lives to protect Kuwait, whom many don’t even consider a separate country, any more than China does Taiwan. Someone, somewhere, will always have reason to resent foreign occupation — it’s pretty basic to human nature. I’m not trying to defend U.S. strategy in 1991 — that’s a whole separate issue — but your point doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
Nice try to slip one past us there, but Sharon doesn’t make the list with the rest. Way to buy into the Arab smear campaign.
I’m no fan of Kissinger, but selling out ordinary citizens when it is politically expedient, is pretty much the definition of a politician. The shrieking Lepht!!! (not to be confused with ordinary Left) does this every time it protests against the removal of Hussein, or praises yet more heaps on that old huggable Fidel.
Tony Pivetta writes:
I’ve never heard anyone referring to the destruction of Axis cities in WW2 as “liberation.” Paris was liberated, Berlin wasn’t.
As for high-minded abstractions: yeah, wacky high-minded abstractions like genocide is not cool. (Applied equally well to Germany and Japan — bonus!) Or notions such as the lives of your people are worth more than those of the enemy. That last one always get under the skin of sanctimonious lecturers, who wish to be above it all.
Most definitely. And the cost was well worth it.
Good point, though I wonder why you think they’d have been better off under the boot of the German Reich. Or are you proposing that the U.S. should have immediately gone to war with the USSR, resulting in far more blood, casualties, and utter destruction? I mean, sure, Stalin had to be stopped, but surely not at the price of civilians in Prague, Warsaw, and Bucharest, right? These contradictions are headache-inducing…
On this one, the answer is easy: tough shit. Had we the advanced smart bombs we possess today, many of them wouldn’t have suffered and died — but we didn’t, and the lives of British, French, Belgian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and American victims of Axis aggression were worth more than the lives of the German and Japanese aggressors. Yes, that includes civilians — you strive to avoid their deaths, but when it comes to choosing between your people and theirs, theirs die, end of story. Sorry it doesn’t fit with whatever little warped model of morality occupies your head. We didn’t rejoice at killing German four-year-olds, but it was acceptable as a price for keeping alive other four-year-olds and forty-year-olds — including those in German concentration camps.
If this is what you call “mythology,” the anti-war movement is already quite dead and useless. Nothing you have revealed here was previously unknown; you just tried to apply a model of moral equivalence that no one in the world subscribes to, save for Chomskyite lunatics. Neither the Ten Commandments nor the Constitution were calls to suicide, and following your way would ensure far more aggression and useless death, not less. Sorry, but the rest of us are not interested in posthumous sainthood.
Tony Pivetta,
I second “E.Nough”‘s answer.
And want to add:
“I’m naive for advocating a negotiated peace with Saddam?” ??
I don’t know if naive is the word.
You can negotiate with him as much as you wish, it won’t stop him from killing you in due course. Remember the “negociated peace” of Munich, 1938 ?
Tony Pivetta writes some more:
Oh? And which conditions should we have honored? Would the Japanese get to keep their militaristic government and society, biding their time and rebuilding their forces, to strike again 20 years later?
Why is the full burden on us, anyway? Why aren’t you faulting the Japanese leadership for stupidly wasting so many of their own people’s lives, in service of some moronic ancient tradition? I mean, maybe they didn’t see Hiroshima coming — but surely they could have surrendered before Nagasaki, right? What were they resisting for?
And, of course, even the possibility of conditional surrender could only exist after Japan was militarily defeated — which necessarily meant the bombing of their industrial centers, killing all those unfortunate civilians.
Well, why not surrender? Surely Islam isn’t worth all that killing, right? (See, that’s the problem with moral equivalence — it can be turned against you in a flash.)
And tactically, this argument makes no sense. Nothing in what bin Laden or Hamas have done to Americans or Israelis would prevent “occupation” and “imperialism” (which are of course way worse than clitorectomies and ignorant murderous fundamentalism). If the Americans or Israelis were in any way equivalent to the Islamist scum that oppose them, the desires and grievances of bin Laden and the Palestinians would be academic questions now, because they all would be dead. So not only do the terrorists have an alternative choice — peaceful Ghandi-style protest, for example — but the lousy choice they did make only gets them farther away from their stated goal, and brings needless suffering on the heads of people they claim to want to help. Sorry, but this argument doesn’t wash at all, and the equivalence you imply therein is simply revolting.
No? Let me put it in very short sentences:
Arabs want to commit genocide against Israelis, killing every last one. They say so in sermons, on television, in speeches, and on the web. The only reason Israelis live to see another day is that the Arabs can’t kill them: their very backwardness and incompetence prevent it.
Israel can kill every last Palestinian within a few days, trivially. It would suffer minimal consequences from doing so, and any Arab country that tried to help could be similarly obliterated. The only reason Arabs live to see another day is that Israelis won’t kill them: their own morals prevent it.
Ditto for Islamists vs. the West. Al-Qaeda has tried desperately to get the largest bomb they could find, and detonated it in an American city. Americans have humongous bombs that can wipe out al-Qaeda and every country that hosts them. They’d like to use nukes, but can’t. We can use nukes any time, but won’t. Learn the lesson.
I see. Unavoidable, unintentional killing of people while trying to repel aggression is totally equivalent to deliberate targeting of unarmed civilians in office buildings, buses, and their beds — killing is killing, ethics, morals, and context be damned. Thank you, drive through.
And finally, this gem of Enlightened Reasoning:
You forget the Kurds. Remember them? They got to play guinea pig to Old Mustache’s poison gas.
Really — thousands of innocents? I’d like to see some real proof of that (and don’t even try to reference Marc Herold). I’ll lay ten-to-one that the number of casualties from Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds would dwarf all the victims from all U.S. bombings over the last two decades.
There’s no arguing that some American actions abroad were ill-advised (Somalia comes to mind), but to claim that the bombing of Libya (after they sponsored a murderous attack on Americans in Berlin), Iraq (after they murdered thousands of Kuwaitis in an attempt to expand into a united Arab empire), Yugoslavia (the only way that Milosevic’s genocides were stopped), and Afghanistan (after they sponsored, aided, and protected the organizers of the mass murder of 9/11) is somehow equivalent to Iraq’s genocidal attacks against the Kurds and wholly unprovoked launches into Israel — well, that’s just jaw-droppingly stupid.
Yes, truly Saddam is the victim here. Good grief.
T.J. Madison
“We must avoid doing business with SCUM (like Saddam, Sharon, Suharto, Stalin, the Shah, and the Saudi Royals)”
Oi, what about all the others whose names also begin with ‘S’? Gerhard Shroeder, John Sununu, South Africa, Safeways Supermarket, Subaru Motors, Jean Shretien (alright I cheated on that one)…all SCUM
David,
You should greatly appreciate T.J.Madison’s self restraint. In the usual lists of SCUM published by people like him, the first name is Bush.
>>That puts responsibility for any harm we deliver to the Random Ordinary People partly on the wackjobs, and partly on the Random Ordinary People themselves, who are supposed to organize a society with law enforcement and stuff, and weed out the terrorists themselves.
So how exactly are the R.O.P.’s supposed to go about fixing their wretched countries? Imagine you wake up tomorrow as Some Random Peasant in Afganistan. What do you do to fix things? I suspect Ahmed Q. Muslim has just barely enough resources to survive, much less try and fix his government. This makes blaming Ahmed when his wedding party gets wasted by Puff the Magic Dragon seem rather despicable. (In that case the Ahmeds in question were actually our ALLIES.) It’s similar in many respects to Al’Qaeda faulting the WTC occupants for failing to “fix” U.S. foreign policy — it’s something over which the individual victims have basically no control.
>>There’s no arguing that some American actions abroad were ill-advised (Somalia comes to mind), but to claim that the bombing of Libya (after they sponsored a murderous attack on Americans in Berlin)
It’s funny you mentioned the Libya incident. Seems that Libya might have been on the receiving end of a Mossad frame-up — at least according to this ex-Mossad agent:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/deception.html
>>Arabs want to commit genocide against Israelis, killing every last one. They say so in sermons, on television, in speeches, and on the web.
Is that “all” Arabs? Most Arabs? I’m sure all the Christian Arab Palestinians are pleased that certain loud fundamentalist Muslims are their official spokesmen. We can play this game both ways. I can dig up all kinds of horrific quotes from the Israeli leadership — this does not mean that all, or most, or even many Israelis/Jews are demons.
>>You forget the Kurds. Remember them? They got to play guinea pig to Old Mustache’s poison gas.
Ah, yes, the Kurds — were these the same Kurds who lost 30K people to Turkey, which was using “counterinsurgency” equipment supplied by the U.S.? Remember that when the Kurd-gassing incident originally occurred, the USG didn’t have much trouble with it, because Mr. Hussein was Our Loyal Buddy (for messing with the Iranians.) We even let him get away with “accidentally” hammering one of our warships!
As for the S-named Scum, it just sorta happened that way. There are lots of other scum with different names who the U.S. has backed, like Noriega, Pol Pot, Pinochet, and Mubarak. And yes, Sharon is scum — something about the Shatila and Sabrila (damn more Ses) massacres comes to mind.
As for Eastern Europe after WW2, go read up on Operation Keelhaul — the forced repatriation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Eastern Europe back to Stalin’s control and certain death. I’m still trying to figure out what the purpose of this was.
T.J.Madison: Whilst I think the conduct of the Western Allies at the end of WW2 was horrendous (i.e. Operation Keelhaul), that does not change the ‘rightness’ of fighting fascism or latter opposing Soviet communism.
Also, did it escape your notice that Shatila and Sabrila massacres we carryied out by Christian Lebanese Militiamen?
And please, are you serious about quoting Whatreallyhappened.com? We also link to these barking moonbats on our external links page, under the heading ‘Havens of Fluorescent Idiocy’ (see bottom of links page sidebar). They are bunch of tinfoil hat wearing, black helicopter fearing, too-many-episodes-of-X-Files watching conspiracy theorist fruitloops.
T. J. Madison writes:
Quite true, and a valid point, but it doesn’t invalidate mine. The reason there is such lawlessness in Afghanistan is in large part because of how the society is put together — which, in Afghanistan, as in much of the Muslim world, is based on clans. A single human being can’t change things (where can one, really?), but that doesn’t absolve the entire group from all responsibility. They built the society, they face the consequence — or change the society, which will likely require much violence on its own, with more regular ordinary people killed. Sorry I don’t have any easy answers, but that doesn’t mean that you just deny these people their humanity, and act as though they are just bacteria responding to stimuli, who can’t help it.
For what it’s worth, though, I was thinking more along the lines of countries such as Iran and “U.S. friend and ally” Saudi Arabia, who have functioning governments and enforcement structures, that aid and abet terrorists.
In this case, their killing was a mistake. But a justifiable one: the pilot saw a lot of muzzle flashes, and thought he was being fired on. Besides questioning the need for discharging firearms during a wedding (surely that can’t be an ancient Muslim tradition!), I might point out that doing this in a warzone under any circumstances is not a bright idea. In the end, though, it was a tragic misunderstanding, not deliberate U.S. policy, and you tossed a nice juicy red herring into your argument.
Please tell me you’re not serious. WRH is a lunatic site run by a known Jew-hater, whose “sources” are nothing more than his own fevered dreams. According to him, the Mossad was responsible for everything from the 9/11 bombing to Murphy’s Law. Thank you, drive through.
And I’m sure that if you went to Berlin circa 1941, you’d find some nice German pacifists. Irrelevant — those in charge advocate this, and arm and aid those who actually carry out such atrocities. The Arabs inflict as much damage on Israel as they can. If Israel did that, there would be no Arabs.
That said, I haven’t heard any calls from the Arab world for anything resembling normalization. The argument seems to be with the lunatic fantasists who want to kill Jews no matter what, the “moderates” who support the “martyrdom operations” until Israel concedes to all their demands, and a few “progressives” who oppose “martyrdom operations” because they are counter-productive. No one seems to have a problem of principle with deliberate killing of civilians to carry the point across — or, at any rate, they are so marginalized that it’s clear they speak for no one. That not all Arabs have the same viewpoint is little more than a useless tautology.
Let me put this as succinctly as possible: If any Arab country was able to nuke Israel off the map and get away with it, do you think Israel would be anything other than a glowing ember by now? Because Israel can do this to most Arab countries. It simply chooses not to, regardless of what its own lunatics say.
Hey, I didn’t bestow the mantle of sainthood on the U.S., did I? Mr. Pivetta claimed that U.S. bombings had higher casualty rates than Iraq’s; I disputed the claim.
And yeah, the Kurds lost quite a few to Turkey. That’s what happens when you fight a war for independence against a stronger neighbor. It’s too bad, but doesn’t put Turkey on the same moral plane as the guy who dropped poison gas on entire villages.
As for U.S. support for Iraq, yes it made American hands dirty. There were larger strategic goals at the time, like containing Islamists in Iran. The U.S. chose to support one odious dictatorship against another, instead of having the Iranians double their power, double their fun. Sometimes shitty situations leave you shitty choices, and the U.S. went for the less shitty of the two: to pit two hideous regimes against each other, in the hope of weakening them for a while. And it worked. (I’m curious as to what you would have suggested. Just remember: inaction is also a choice, and you’d be responsible for its consequences, as surely as America is responsible for supporting Iraq in the past.) Now the situation is different, and we can go back and try to contain (and maybe undo) the damage.
It was abhorrent, and I’m sure the purpose was (ironically enough) to avoid war and conflict with Stalin’s U.S.S.R. — a craven European gesture that would become part of a much larger pattern of such gestures from the “sophisticated” leadership of the Continent. I’d be willing to bet that the progressives of the time supported it, fans of “uncle Joe” and the workers’ paradise that they were. Besides, it avoids war, right? If anything, it’s a reminder that trying to avoid war can be just as destructive as fighting one.
‘If any Arab country was able to nuke Israel off the map and get away with it, do you think Israel would be anything other than a glowing ember by now? Because Israel can do this to most Arab countries. It simply chooses not to, regardless of what its own lunatics say.’
Errrr… yeah, and of course it’s only their wonderful (and unique in the area, according to your account) sense of morality, & not a sense of self-preservation holding Israel back. The possibility of a Third World War being started by nuking neighbouring countries doesn’t figure at all in their minds, no no.
This is a ridiculous argument. We all know that if any nation launched nukes against another country, the consequences would probably be atrocious, for the country nuked, the country doing the nuking, & the world in general.
A_t writes:
Yes, it is, and it is most definitely unique, as demonstrated by Arab countries with all due clarity.
A sense of self-preservation? Are you saying that Arabs are actually restraining themselves in a quid-pro-quo for Israel not wiping them off the face of the planet? That’s certainly a new one. Really, I’m confused as to what consequences Israel should fear.
This is simply false, and adding “we all know” to it doesn’t add to its credibility. Explain what the atrocious consequenses to Israel would be if it went ahead and nuked, say, all the major population centers in Syria. (No, I’m not advocating this.) Neither the U.S. nor Russia nor China would respond in any meaningful way, and no one else is of any significance.
Moreover, the destruction of the Palestinians would not require nukes (in fact, using them would be ill-advised at that range). Ordinary artillery and napalm would be quite effective.
Once again, I am not advocating this, nor am I trying to be callous and flippant. I’m just calling things as I see them, without mixing emotion into the discussion. Please point out where my view of the situation is mistaken — i.e., what does Israel really have to fear from its enemies if it starts using their own time-honored methods against them?
Sorry to add another comment, but this whole line of thinking strikes me as strange:
A Third World War? How would that happen? Do you honestly think that the major world powers — China, Russia, the U.S., India — would somehow get into a conflict with each other over Arabs?? The only way for that to happen would be if Israel tried to militarily take possession of Saudi and Iraqi oil fields, but they don’t have the strength to do that anyway. Otherwise, far from any notion of a third world war, any conflict would be strictly between Arabs and Israelis, and it wouldn’t last long. The other countries would do what they usually do: stand around and issue limp-noodle condemnations “in the strongest possible terms.” Well, the Israelis are used to that by now, and the Arabs don’t care.
>>And please, are you serious about quoting Whatreallyhappened.com? We also link to these barking moonbats on our external links page, under the heading ‘Havens of Fluorescent Idiocy’ (see bottom of links page sidebar). They are bunch of tinfoil hat wearing, black helicopter fearing, too-many-episodes-of-X-Files watching conspiracy theorist fruitloops.
WRH is run by nutjobs. The link, though, just goes to an excerpt from Victor Ostrovsky’s book. (The same excerpt can be found elsewhere.) The real question then is, is Ostrovsky a nutjob?
>>T.J.Madison: Whilst I think the conduct of the Western Allies at the end of WW2 was horrendous (i.e. Operation Keelhaul), that does not change the ‘rightness’ of fighting fascism or latter opposing Soviet communism.
Certainly the USG has been useful for fighting tyranny in the past. My basic claim is that the usefulness of the USG as a tool for fighting tyranny and oppression is degraded significantly whenever the USG funds, arms, or otherwise sells out to tyrants and oppressors (scum).
The USG seems to do better when its own troops are on the ground fighting the tyranny as opposed to farming out the dirty work to puppet governments, CIA backed militias, etc. The USG seems to have a real knack for picking rotten people to back. USAF strategic bombing also historically has a bad ratio of military effectiveness/civilian devastation, although technology seems to be helping improve this.
Afganistan is a good example. I was (and am) all for Declaring War, Sending In The Army, and Occupying The Damn Place. Send in the legions of MPs and JAG guys it would take to deploy Rule of Law. What we did instead was pit one group of scumbags against the currently-in-power scumbags, using our airpower and limited ground troops to swing the battle where necessary. Now we have a situation where the capital is run by “our” puppet, and the countryside is controlled by various warlords who are fractionally less rotten (?) than the Taliban. The lack of Congressional Declaration of War continues to bother me as well.
What have we accomplished? At some point we’ll pull out entirely, and Osama’s Boys will move right back in, because the country hasn’t been Fixed(tm). This will be a problem for the NEXT administration, of course. I expect better results for my $350 billion.
>>If anything, it’s a reminder that trying to avoid war can be just as destructive as fighting one.
For sure. We just need to be sure that we really are The Good Guys before, during, and after the war. You’re right that much of the rottenness I keep discussing is a result of cowardice. One of the benefits of “Our words are backed by nuclear weapons!” is that we shouldn’t have to put up with the kind of crap we do from our supposed “allies”.
I’d be all for invading Iraq if we really did dig up Doug, declare war, and install Doug as the military governor to straighten things out with a proper liberation. I suspect, however, that we’ll just appoint a Saddam 2.0 (like Chalabi) to run the place — someone we’ll have to deal with later, and whose crimes we’ll be (justly) blamed for.
>>Also, did it escape your notice that Shatila and Sabrila massacres we carryied out by Christian Lebanese Militiamen?
It was my understanding that the militias were considered by the Israeli commission of inquiry to be under IDF control. This is why Sharon had to resign as defense minister.
Similarly, the Lebanese militias ran a torture facility in southern Lebanon until Israel left — but the IDF stopped by the facility frequently to check on how well the torture was going.
T.J. Madison,
“It was my understanding that the militias were considered by the Israeli commission of inquiry to be under IDF control. This is why Sharon had to resign as defense minister.”
That is not exact. The comission said that IDF could have prevented the militias from entering. The comission did not say that the militia was intentionally sent in to murder palestinians, nor that the IDF knew about the massacre and refrained from stopping it. Nobody in the IDF knew before the massacre or during it that it is happening. The comission said that Sharon should have guessed, or appreciated beforehand that something like this might happen, and he failed to do so.
It is somewhat like an US Genaral in Vietnam who sent some patrol at night to capture some Viet Cong rumored to be in a village. A firefight ensued and many civilians were killed. It is like saying that the General should have guessed that some of the soldiers might missbehave when under fire, and should have refrained from sending the patrol into that village. It might be argued that the General erred, and therefore, maybe even should be relieved of his command. But that does not make the General scum.
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As for your preference that the US occupy and administer such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq – for doing that your 350 b$ are not enough. You would have to spend probably twice that sum, and also increase the number of soldiers a lot. For that kind of sacrifice – there is no public support (yet). So the question is: do you try to do the best you can within the available means or do you do nothing, like previous administrations. And – saying that nothing has been acheived in Afghanistan is clearly not true. Much has been acheived. Maybe we don’t have there yet a stable, western style democracy (utopia), but the current regime is a vast improvement, an all counts, over the previous one.
Re: clitorectomies, ad nauseum: The Politically Correct ask “Who are we to judge…?” _I_ ask “Who are we if we _don’t_?”