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Peace Prize in our time — 99 Comments

  1. Your “salt of the earth people” seem like many of my long-time friends. Their intentions are so good, yet their minds are so fixed against discarding the progressive perspective. The Myron Magnet “Humpty Dumpty…” that you linked to on August 6 seemed so accurate in explaining what has happened since 9/11/01. Unfortunately, it seems even more correct in predicting while it will be so difficult to remedy the damage. We need an upheaval in the thinking of the MSM and in the many tens of millions who support the Democrats.

  2. Funny that you cite Kipling’s “Gods of the Copybook Headings” in the same post where you chide President Obomba for not going back into Iraq. Guess you missed this line:

    “And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire”

    Neocons. They never learn.

  3. Old Rebel:

    I doubt very much you’ve read the 174 posts I’ve written so far about Iraq and my ideas of what should have occurred there, did occur there, and still could occur there. You have the simplified and propaganda-driven idea of what “neocons” think and suggest. And of course, you can see the future, and know the exact results of intervention vs. isolation.

  4. I have been talking to my son recently. He’s quite bright (3 degrees – microbiology, computer science, MBA) but has carried the ideological baggage of all that edumacation. He recently passed 40 and the real world has smartened him up a bit – about what happened to Neo.

    During our conversations I mentioned Kipling’s “If”. He had never heard of Kipling in all those years. I was introduced to “If” somewhere in middle school. Gramsci won.

  5. For these long years with Obama at the helm of our armed forces, the old nostrum, “To have peace prepare for war,” has been constantly on my mind.

    He has prepared for peace, and now the clouds of war are forming everywhere.

  6. Roy Lofquist:

    I had to memorize the poem “If” in junior high, among many others.

    And the English teacher who made us memorize it was a gay black man, a wonderful wonderful teacher. One of the best. But he was not at all into PC anything, back in those days.

  7. Neo: “They see the ISIS “militants” as just misunderstood people with a grievance, people who could be placated by some empathic listening from a concerned and well-meaning liberal.”

    This goes to the narrative contest of the activist game, where truth is not self-evident. Rather, the truth is just another narrative and the narrative is elective truth.

    No matter how far ISIS goes in its terror, many are doing their best to rationalize that ISIS is merely a natural Sunni sectarian response rather than an aggressive totalitarian movement.

    One can understand how the Nazis were rationalized by many as merely moving to restore a natural German state. As far as rationalization goes, at least the Nazis rose to power by subverting the legitimate political process.

    ISIS is open about what it is and doesn’t even try to sell a propaganda image, yet amazingly, that only makes people work harder to rationalize it.

    I see the same mindset a lot when I move to set the record straight on the law and policy basis of OIF, which is straightforward and explained by easily accessed primary sources. I cite to the primary sources or at least a secondary source that cites heavily to the primary sources. Yet if they retort at all (most will disengage when I start laying out the law and policy), the retorts will simply re-assert the false narrative or at best cite to opinion pieces even when those opinions are based on false premises that are refuted by primary sources I’ve already cited.

    It’s not that they don’t know because they haven’t learned.

    It’s that they don’t know because they don’t want to know. Even in the face of dispositive proof, they choose to rationalize the false narrative because it’s a necessary linchpin for the rest of their beliefs and tribal allegiance .

    Talk by itself won’t fix this. Only a full activist social movement that seizes control of the zeitgeist can fix it.

  8. Add: Talk by itself won’t fix this. Traditional electoral politics won’t fix this. Only a full activist social movement that seizes control of the zeitgeist can fix it.

  9. “And of course, you can see the future, and know the exact results of intervention vs. isolation.”

    Now we’re making progress – you’ve got our positions exactly reversed. I’m the card-carrying reactionary who says the world is a complex place where the unexpected consequences of unwise acts can bite or even devour. You’re the one saying we should go back into Iraq despite our $7 trillion debt (at least $1 trillion the fault of the Neocon Wars) and a voting public firmly against more intervention.

    Who’s out of touch?

  10. Old Rebel:

    You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

    I specifically don’t want us to re-invade Iraq because we lack the commitment to make it work. Therefore it would be a waste of time, money, and human life. Counterproductive

    I am criticizing Obama for not having left a small force there by negotiating a SOFA agreement. Period. That would have been an ounce of prevention and would have enabled us to maintain the status quo that was working well enough. I’ve already explained myself at great length, and obviously you’ve either not read or not understood what I’ve written.

  11. Neo: “That Nobel Peace Prize for Obama certainly was premature, wasn’t it?”

    As yet another point of dissonance, Obama’s Nobel Prize speech actually raised the justifications for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Of course, most missed that because they’re misguided by the prevalent false narrative against OIF.

  12. Neo: “That would have been an ounce of prevention and would have enabled us to maintain the status quo that was working well enough.”

    Yep.

    Excerpt from
    http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html :

    Security is the necessary condition for securing and building the peace, and under the umbrella of vital American security, Iraq had turned the corner when Bush handed OIF over to Obama.

    To wit, in May 2011, President Obama marked Iraq’s “promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy … poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress”:

    Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.

    In the same vein, the welcome statement on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad website anticipated “Iraq emerge as a strategic partner in a tumultuous region … that can act as a force for moderation … in the national security interests of the United States”:

    After a long and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge as a strategic partner in a tumultuous region. A sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq that can act as a force for moderation is profoundly in the national security interests of the United States and will ensure that Iraq can realize its full potential as a democratic society. Our civilian-led presence is helping us strengthen the strong strategic partnership that has developed up to this point.


    President Bush was right to enforce the Gulf War ceasefire and then stay in Iraq to secure the peace the same way the US stayed to secure the peace in Europe and Asia after World War 2. When Bush left office, the Iraq mission was a success.

    President Obama was wrong to leave Iraq prematurely. America’s protection was needed for the continued progression of Iraq’s pluralistic liberal reform and constructive role in the Middle East and the welfare of the Iraqi people. Instead, the feared danger of Obama’s feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring and irresponsible exit from Iraq is being realized.

  13. JJ: “He has prepared for peace”

    Under Bush, we were actively securing and building the peace, but Obama stopped that and called it “ending the war”.

  14. Kipling’s “The Dykes”

    Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke and groin —
    Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.
    They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.
    We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past

  15. ” . . . just misunderstood people with a grievance, people who could be placated by some empathic listening . . .”

    Yea, ask Daniel Pearl how that worked out.

  16. IMO Iraq was bound to return to sectarian conflict even if we had kept a small contingency force. That does not mean that I was not in favor of taking down Saddam inc. Allowing him to flaunt the terms of the ceasefire with the cooperation of several Nato members and UN officials was unacceptable. He had to go down.

    However, the only possible way to turn Iraq into a stable nation that was not anti-west was a prolonged occupation and dictating to Iraq exactly what type of reconstructed government they would adopt. We were not willing to do that and now we see all of that blood and treasure wasted in the sand. So, while I favor hitting ISIS/L hard and killing as many of those barbarians as possible from the air, and arming the Kurds -including giving them a robust airforce – I do not want boots on the ground. We do not have the will to fight jihad in a manner that is required. It will require that we and the rest of the west suffer repeated attacks of the magnitude of 911 before we summon the will to take the fight seriously.

  17. From yesterday:

    “So it seems something may be done, but we don’t know when, what or how much. I’m glad some action is at least being strongly contemplated, but six months earlier would have been far far better. Even two weeks earlier would have been a great deal better. Obama has waited till the eleventh hour, and it’s not even clear at this point whether the bombing will actually take place. An ounce of prevention would have been worth several tons of cure, and many innocent lives would probably have been saved.”

    Sending in bombers to kill more people and break more stuff from 20,000 feet is what Obama is proposing – and you’re sniffling that that isn’t enough.

    So you want the USAF to catch up on some remedial bombing, but that’s not really “going back”? Yes, my reading comprehension just ain’t what it used to be.

  18. Old Rebel:

    Yes, to kill terrorist murderers who are killing and torturing innocent people, and who plan to do a great deal more of it. And I’m saying the bombing wasn’t done EARLY enough to have nipped the movement in the bud.

    You are actually too dense to argue with. I don’t know whether your reading comprehension used to be better, but at this point it’s pretty poor.

  19. “Does Obama really believe in the naive principles of “dialogue” that he espouses? Or is he playing a more underhanded game? I happen to think both are true: that he thinks his words are golden and can melt hearts of stone, and he also would like to undermine American power and has some sympathies with our enemies. But whatever is in Obama’s heart of hearts and mind of minds, I have no doubt that many of his followers are sincere.” neo

    I share a similar POV. I do not believe however that Obama believes that dialog can magically melt hearts of stone. In the foreign arena, Obama believes that words can achieve accommodation if they are backed with enough appeasement. There is a curious and direct opposition between how Obama operates domestically and in the foreign arena. It directly reflects his domestic base’s attitudes. Ruthless at home, conciliatory abroad.

    Obama and they believe that the Western domestic right are the real enemy, not misguided jihadists and misguided criminals because it is we who are preventing them from leading the misguided to the light of understanding…

    Obama is sympathetic to our enemies because he believes their complaints and hostility toward us are valid and justified. He agrees with George Soros’ view that, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.” Obama believes that the UN should lead in all cases of foreign disputes.

    Many of Obama’s liberal followers are sincere. Both my Father and my daughter voted for Obama and they are both kind, decent people who ironically, believe both in the foundational concepts of this country and in the socialist solutions advanced by the left. They have both bought into the left’s demonizing of the right.

    I do not share the view that had we left a small force in Iraq that Iraq would have continued on a path of an emerging multiethnic, cooperative multisectarian democracy. Unleashed, a small American force could have stopped ISIS but it would only be keeping the lid on Iraq’s inherent volatility. There are fundamental cultural and religious differences between the M.E. and Japan, S. Korea and Germany. Long occupation will not bring alliance.

    With respect, I find Eric’s view that, “America’s protection was needed for the continued progression of Iraq’s pluralistic liberal reform and constructive role in the Middle East and the welfare of the Iraqi people” to be naive and unrealistic. Wherever Islam is a viable force, pluralistic liberal reform will be firmly resisted because for Islam, “pluralistic liberal reform” is anathema, it is blasphemy of the highest order.

  20. Wherever Islam is a viable force, pluralistic liberal reform will be firmly resisted because for Islam, “pluralistic liberal reform” is anathema, it is blasphemy of the highest order.

    Modernism may be resisted, but what about Morocco? It seems to be functioning pretty well as a moderate Muslim state.

  21. A perhaps valid point. Lebanon was once one as well. Morocco may be the exception to the rule or, at this time it may simply be off the jihadist radar. But I would point out that both Morocco and Jordan are ruled by a ‘strong man’, not necessarily oppressive ones but they are definitely in charge.

    I would be delighted to be disproven about Islam’s inherent inimical nature to Western precepts but I fear I will not be. Islam’s tenets are its DNA and there is no possibility of reform without rejecting Muhammad because to reform Islam, Muhammad’s most basic claim must be rejected, i.e. the Qur’an’s authorship. But without Muhammad, there is no Islam to reform.

  22. “their pacifism (is) an expression of their deepest wishes that the demons of human nature” do not really exist.
    These nice people of whom Neo writes have never been mugged by reality. When they should have been afraid for their safety, they feared not, and as luck would have it, were not assaulted or murdered or raped or robbed. They have no experience. They lack the emotional imagination to imagine what an assault on one’s person while powerless is like, what it is like to be a chunk of meat about to be inserted into a sausage grinder. So pacifism seems supermoral to them, just as they find themselves somehow superior, whether or not they are “salt of the earth” in all other respects.
    In believing and asserting pacifism, they know they are different from the rest of us. Do they think less of themselves for their pacifism, then? I think not. They think more of themselves..

  23. It’s important to remember that those who support the left are as diversified as those on the right. Rahm Emanuel is no pacifist. Neither is Hillary Clinton. Nor was Saul Alinsky nor is Bill Ayers.

    There are liberals who would not hesitate to pick up a gun if they or someone they care for was in mortal danger. Pacifism is the default position that liberals start from but when the rubber meets the road, many will be just as quick to resort to violence as any on the right and perhaps even quicker, especially the Marxist/Progressive.

    Liberal distaste for military solutions is at least as much due to what the goal of such use is for, as it is a principled rejection of the use of force. 60%* of ‘solid liberals’ are the first to decry the use of firearms and the first to scream for the police or military and the first to unjustly berate them.

    * “According to a new Pew Research Center study, only 40 percent of consistently liberal Americans say they often feel proud to be Americans.”

    That finding, along with “just 40% of Solid Liberals, say the phrase “honor and duty are my core values” and that, it “applies well to them” reveals that 40% of ‘solid liberals’ are the duped and indoctrinated low-info voters who actually support traditional classical liberal values… the other 60% of ‘solid liberals’ are Marxist/Progressives.

  24. “They think more of themselves.”

    Yes, DC, their badge of pacifism tells them they are morally superior. If/when confronted with violence, assuming they survive, they forgive their attacker and will continue to do so until they die. I have asked pacifists how would you justify your refusal to defend your children or other loved ones from a rapist or a murderer? They respond with platitudes. Pacifists secretly rely on the big guns of government to protect them in their daily lives, never understanding that in the best of circumstances the guns of government are minutes away when rape, assault, and death are seconds away.

  25. Old Rebel…

    What’s motivating all of the latest: M198 howitzers.

    These beasties were given up by the Iraqi army.

    With them ISIS has driven off the Kurds. A few 155mm long range shells were enough.

    The Kurds have NO COUNTER BATTERY weaponry.

    Our immediate campaign should be focused on destroying these tubes.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-has-52-american-weapons-that-can-hit-baghdad-2014-7

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M198_howitzer

    The general officers that permitted these weapons to fall into enemy hands should be hanged by the neck until dead. For to do so was treason against the Iraqi state.

    Western analysts are praying that ISIS can’t figure out how to use the GPS assist that the M198 is built for.

    They are DREAMING.

    Of course ISIS will figure everything out. American weapons are designed by geniuses to be used by idiots.

    And ISIS is not over run with idiots.

    Far from it.

    Once these howitzers are neutralized, the strategic pressure on the Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’ites will be largely removed.

    BTW 54 (howitzer) pieces was the traditional complement of an American infantry division during WWII and through the Cold War.

    &&&

    The M198 is state-of-the-art. These are new production howitzers, not National Guard retreads.

    They out range all common howitzers in their class.

    Consequently, even a few demonstration rounds were enough to send the Kurds packing. With these in tow, ISIS over matches every organized military in the neighborhood.

    Some attempt should also have been made — weeks ago — to destroy the 155mm ammo before ISIS could stash it around the countryside.

    By failing to do so, Barry has proved to be even more errant than Bush-Rumsfeld — who let Saddam’s monumental weapons stash at H2 and H3 slip on by.

    It never occurred to the brainiacs at the Pentagon that the threat urgency dictated that such stores be destroyed by B-52 napalm strikes. For, after all, these depots were in the sticks, miles from anyone, making the sand pristine was a fools errand.

    This ONE FOLLY produced over half of all the fatalities during the Iraqi campaigns. These two immense depots ( 10 miles on a side !) provided the opfor all of the explosives needed — for just about forever.

    &&&

    And, lest we forget, ISIS has been HUGELY augmented by Barry’s Jordanian training mission. The troops consist, overwhelmingly, of anti-Assad Sunnis who went rogue and established a Caliphate FIRST.

    All during these recent months, ISIS has worked WITH Assad, after a fashion. ISIS has been selling crude oil to the Assad regime to raise funds. (Yeah, at one heck of a discount.)

    Between them, they’ve almost annihilated al-Nusrah! Yeah, it’s on the wane. That reality is getting no press. Duh.

    The single most likely outcome:

    Assad retreats to the coast. ISIS takes over ALL of the northern Sunni heartland: Tigris & Euphrates.

    The Kurds get pushed back further and further — until the howitzers are neutralized.

    Al-Maliki continues to rot away the Iraqi state, as dense as Saddam ever was.

    American influence collapses — pretty much utterly.

    Then Tehran goes atomic.

    [ Barry’s side deal is that Tehran is supposed to delay the big announcement until February 2017. Barry regards the mullahs as people he can do business with. We’ve seen how his hunches have played out in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, Russia, China … What could go wrong?]

  26. Daniel Pipes wrote an in-depth piece that’s worth a read about whether Islam can be reformed, “Can Islam Be Reformed? History and human nature say yes”; an excerpt:

    To state that Islam can never change is to assert that the Koran and Hadith, which constitute the religion’s core, must always be understood in the same way. But to articulate this position is to reveal its error, for nothing human abides forever. Everything, including the reading of sacred texts, changes over time. Everything has a history. And everything has a future that will be unlike its past.

    Only by failing to account for human nature and by ignoring more than a millennium of actual changes in the Koran’s interpretation can one claim that the Koran has been understood identically over time. Changes have applied in such matters as jihad, slavery, usury, the principle of “no compulsion in religion,” and the role of women. Moreover, the many important interpreters of Islam over the past 1,400 years–ash-Shafi’i, al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiya, Rumi, Shah Waliullah, and Ruhollah Khomeini come to mind–disagreed deeply among themselves about the content of the message of Islam.

    However central the Koran and Hadith may be, they are not the totality of the Muslim experience; the accumulated experience of Muslim peoples from Morocco to Indonesia and beyond matters no less. To dwell on Islam’s scriptures is akin to interpreting the United States solely through the lens of the Constitution; ignoring the country’s history would lead to a distorted understanding.

    The full article is here.

  27. Addendum: the M777 is basically an M198 on a diet. It was designed an manufactured at greater expense solely because it can be airlifted by smaller helicopters.

    Artillery technology has pretty much stopped progressing over the last 40-years.

    More electronics and titanium don’t fundamentally shift the destructive equation — when you’re dealing with ISIS.

  28. As a man trained in environmental science, and a convinced Popperian in the philosophy of science, I am always on the lookout for solid, meaningful metrics.

    In the case of this topic, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency reported a record post-WWI number of refugees from conflicts at over 51 million people. (So much for the Bush era’s malfeasance.)

    Stuff that in front of Obama True Believers.

  29. parker: “Iraq was bound to return to sectarian conflict”

    Perhaps, but there’s a big difference between Iraqi sectarian conflict and AQI/ISIS sectarian conflict.

  30. Ann,

    I read Pipes article not too long ago and disagree and so commented because Pipes does not address the specifics of why Islam cannot change.

    Here is where Pipes reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Islam’s most fundamental tenet;

    “To state that Islam can never change is to assert that the Koran and Hadith, which constitute the religion’s core, must always be understood in the same way. But to articulate this position is to reveal its error, for nothing human abides forever.”

    Pipes is arguing that the Qur’an is human. For a purported Islamic scholar to assert that the Qur’an is human is to to reveal either a profound misunderstanding of the most basic of Islamic tenets or purposeful deceit. That may seem harsh but no other explanation suffices.

    The Qur’an MUST be understood in the “same way” because Muhammad’s most fundamental claim is that he isn’t the Qur’an’s author. Muhammad claimed that NO mere human wrote the Qur’an.

    Muhammad claimed that the archangel Gabriel repeatedly appeared before him and dictated the Qur’an to Muhammad (miraculously an illiterate) with the archangel directly transmitting Allah’s words for Muhammad to transcribe.

    Thus, the Qur’an is Allah’s direct instructions (like Judaism’s Ten Commandments) with Gabriel right there to make sure that Muhammad got it right down to the last comma and period.

    If a Muslim accepts that the Qur’an is Allah’s words, then it is blasphemy to change even a comma because man is correcting Allah.

    But if a Muslim does NOT accept that the Qur’an is Allah’s words, then he is implicitly stating that Muhammad was either deluded or a liar.

    In either case, Islam’s theological foundations collapse because if Muhammad got something as basic as the Qur’an’s author wrong, what else did he get wrong? So logically, it all falls apart.

    Pipes is probably right that nothing human beings create will last for eternity. But the Qur’an cannot change and remain Islamic. Change the Qur’an and you destroy Islam. Revisionists might give that revision the name Islam but it will not be Islam.

  31. Geoffrey Britain,

    The last data point for the state of Iraq with significant American presence is what it is.

    You can’t underestimate the importance of security and stability across the spectrum and the organic influence of the provider of that security and stability.

    The one absolute requirement for our peace-building in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East – the one feature that allowed us to work through inevitable setbacks, failures, and mistakes – has been the baseline of American security.

    Security is the foundation for everything else. When we took away the American security piece from post-Saddam Iraq at the same time acute danger was growing next door, we doomed them.

  32. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, it is the human interpretation of the words of Allah that are bound to change. Give Pipes a break; he generates a torrent of words, remarkably sound.
    And the atheists among us (if there is no God, there is no Allah) would likely aver the Koran is bogus, being a human construct. I expect they would all convert hastily at the point of jihadi swords., instead of going to their-God-who-doesn’t-exist.

  33. Neo: putting the “can’t we all just get along?” crowd in charge is one of the surest paths toward chaos and war. That is a terrible paradox

    i will probably misunderstand you, but i will give this point a shot anyway.

    it is only a paradox to the domesticated human whose life is lived in a box in which they learn from books and trust the others to give them the ‘right’ books.

    the word paradox is used to convey when things are not as one expects from learning or reasoning or calculations.

    the whole of the socialist point is the ignoring of reality and its principals (other than physics, and thats sort of). the denial of natural things and the idea that you can program it.

    the world as we believe it should be is how they live and they ignore all principals that do not reinforce their ideas of “should be”

    so, in their world of false or rather incomplete erudition, the garbage that went in, leads to a calculation aht does not result in the expectation, and so, its a paradox

    before i address the fault in logic, one must understand that OTHERS that do not have this faulty education for a world that does not exist, see something different

    why did a man go live with bears and died? why did the woman climb into the animal pen and get torn apart?

    they were taught false principals. bad advice. given a brain virus that screws up their ability to make good choices in the world. which is the larger part of the communist game.

    defective people are not a threat to effective people

    you make defective people by pissing into their minds and feeding them trash like feminism, and greenism, utopianism, etc. no different than a computer virus that causes data errors. think of it as wetware virus…

    anyone who knows anything about the three major kinds of creature domains in the animal world, would know what to expect from parasites, predators and prey.

    people raised as prey have a view of sheeple, rabbits, etc… they believe that all others that are like them are prey, they dont believe they are prey, and they believe that if they dont do anything, nothing will happen. ie. all violence comes from self protection… so if there is violence its in response to something. from there its easy to declare X as violent and responsible, and so, if you remove X, peace ensues

    parasites have neither view, they adapt to what they think their hosts want to hear, and mold their ideas around that. in this case, the parasites are steeped in the same erroneous world education that their hosts are in

    people who are predators, now thats a bird of a different stripe.. (yes i know i mixed up the metaphor)

    the LAST thing a predator wants to bother with is another predator, or prey that can switch roles. i learned this at a young age growing up in a inner city slum area. bullies are predators. sociopaths are predatory parasites. etc.

    i learned, from the school of hard knocks, to be a predator with no prey. ie. to act like a predator, but not prey on anyone. so what happens is someone starts something, and suddenly they dont know what to do, as they thought i would be prey, but now i didnt act like it. the wolf just bit a mountain lion. now what? what happens then is nothing.

    predators do not prey on predators. its too risky, can cause too much damage, and on and on and on. they avoid each other and respect the pecking order for those reasons.

    here is another thing, and its a common story. a predator that does not prey on sheep, is a sheep dog. sheep dogs and wolves look the same, act the same, but wolves eat sheep, sheep dogs fight wolves.

    so prey does not like having sheep dogs around. given the opportunity and the excuse, they will vote to have them go away. they will take the false learning of the world, and say. if we get rid of our wolves, they will get rid of their wolves, and there will be no more predators.

    but predators look for easy prey. they dont ever go after the strong they go after the weak. its no paradox that when you remove the sheep dogs, the predators go for baby sheep, and that… they are easy prey, they can cause the prey to scatter, makes them even easier to prey upon. unlike the magnificent seven, they will not band together, they will run.

    prey runs, predators persue. running away makes you prey, it puts your defenseless side towards the predator.

    so when you have broken thinking that ignores the rules of predator prey, what you get is predator heaven. when rabbits ignore their holes, they get eaten. when sheep chase away their sheep dogs, they get eaten.

    chaos ensues as there is no utopian vegetarian world of only prey… (even among sheep there are predator sheep of a kind. they may not eat each other, but they do dominate and influence others)

    obama being a educated man, was taught that the US sheepdog was a wolf, and he has reigned in that wolf, and the rest of them thinks now that we got rid of the wolves, there can be peace. well, no… now that you got rid of the sheep dogs, the predators can have a party.

    with a parasite in office, appeasing prey, you get predators, and they are getting fat. and where you get fat predators, you get more. until there is no prey, or until a sheep dog makes them prey.

    in this chess game. obama is losing very badly. he is and has been set up. the people who raised him are predator parasites who used him. they are perfectly willing to do anything, like beheading children.. (how different is it to wait till they grow up before you kill them? lambs are tender meat). and crucify others… obama is in a no win situation, where he either acts and comits troops, to a possible world war escalation… or he has to somehow say, we dont care how many they cut up, and let them do it. either way he loses and there is no third choice. he is trying to have his cake and eat it too, but that wont work, because anything less than a predatory response with predators as the target, wll not work. air strikes will not secure the situation, as soon as its over, they come out and do more… predators dont care if other predators get killed either. just leaves more for them.

    the other side of this coin is that the information that he has kept secret, and other agencies have served him for they served the same masters, are now turning on him. he sanctioned russia, russia is now releasing this information, and we are going to find out shortly, that he is not really president.

    then the fit hits the shan… there is NOTHING but world war in all its fullness that can stop russia and china.

    NOTHING…
    and if nothing stops predators, predators keep going, and become more and more aggressive.

    what can stop putin from taking poland? nothing
    what can stop ISIS now? not much
    what will halt israel distraction? no one
    what will prevent china, who is now gearing up?

    how much military machinery did russia and china make and hide since they are closed countries still.

    the only thing that will stop russia is its fear of china.
    china has a lot more soldiers than russia can oppose as russias sexual revolution and feminism of kolontai resulted in popuation collapse. the united states has such a collapse now, but these immigrant influxes prevent the sheep from knowing it. as they look at totals not demographics… (even when you point it out hey deny it)

    if china runs into burma, vietnam, cambodia, laos, and more.. what can be done to stop them? NOTHING

    if russia goes into estonia, what will stop them? nothing, and worse, if world war three doesnt start then, NATO is dead (like the suskind list) and they will continue to grab land until word war three starts.

    the core reasoning of the sheep fails them because its erronous and hinges on things that are not real. like sociopaths caring for the people they abuse, use, parasite over, kill, and so on..

    lets hear some reasons that this will not end up with obama out of office from the hidden things revealed and biden being the commander in cheif of our military

    im much better in back and forth answers than this way, where i go on too long and find it hard to wrap up and condense

  34. Thus, the Qur’an is Allah’s direct instructions (like Judaism’s Ten Commandments) with Gabriel right there to make sure that Muhammad got it right down to the last comma and period.

    If a Muslim accepts that the Qur’an is Allah’s words, then it is blasphemy to change even a comma because man is correcting Allah.

    But the Koran has its interpreters/exegetes (Tafsir), same as the Bible. That would imply at least a little wiggle room, don’t you think?

  35. “the human interpretation of the words of Allah that are bound to change” Don Carlos

    Please explain how you reinterpret;

    Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”

    Quran (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”

    The Quran:

    Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief] is worse than killing…
    but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)”

    “(Translation is from the Noble Quran) The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did). The use of the word “persecution” by some Muslim translators is thus disingenuous (the actual Muslim words for persecution – “idtihad” – and oppression – a variation of “z-l-m” – do not appear in the verse). The actual Arabic comes from “fitna” which can mean disbelief, or the disorder that results from unbelief or temptation. Taken as a whole, the context makes clear that violence is being authorized until “religion is for Allah” – ie. unbelievers desist in their unbelief.”

    http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm

    Remember man may not change Allah’s words (the Qur’an) for that would be setting man’s understanding above Allah’s.

    Finally consider these observations; “The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

    Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.

    The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God, however this can work both ways. Most of today’s Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book’s call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.

    Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad’s own martial legacy – and that of his companions – along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.”

  36. Of course ISIS will figure everything out. American weapons are designed by geniuses to be used by idiots.

    beautifully put… not as true as it used to be, but wonderfully concise… not to mention that ISIS has help from soviets who will show them. and disappear.

    lets be happy they dont have the more automated systems and just these lesser ones. with one of those vehicle mounted computer driven munitions, it gets even worse. i cant remember their designation, but for those who dont know what i am referring to (As i am sure blert does), these can shoot several shells with different ranges and elevations, so that they all arrive and converge on the same location at once. 5-8 shells go boom boom boom, and all travel different arcs and land in one location.

    Blert: It never occurred to the brainiacs at the Pentagon that the threat urgency dictated that such stores be destroyed by B-52 napalm strikes.

    here is where we probably disagree. i am sure they thought of it, but how do you sell the commander and chief on it who is firing and removing officers in a “purge” akin to the one stalin pulled on his military that almost cost him the war when hitler turned on his partner. this is an effective purge. you dont have to kill them to remove them.

    while not illegal, napalm cant be used (yet).
    to quote:
    The Law of Armed Conflict rests on fundamental principles of military necessity, unnecessary suffering, proportionality, and distinction (discrimination) which will apply to targeting decisions

    so the problem is that the eggheads for years have been inventing rules of war that you and i (and many others) think are inane… ie. they dont have an air force, they only have these mortars and we carpet bomb them with napalm? no way…

    though, may i politely suggest an alternative?
    MGM-168? or one of the cousins? it would clear things easy, and would not set the political world aflame…

    to those who dont know what that is, i am referring to what is basically cluster weapons. the one above is a rocket launched version, but there are versions for dropping from a plane. the US, unlike the UK, is not a signatory of the treaty thta prohibits them

    basically, instead of one bomb with napalm, these open up and cover an area with things like the M74 bomblet and others. basically anywhere from 30 to a few thousand hand grenade sized munitions drop out and obliterate an area.

    they have them with incindiary, anti personal, anti material, anti runway… they even have versions that dont blow up, and basically sense when someone gets near them

    for those who want to see
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGwMYEDDRTc
    [russia has lots of these too]

    Don Carlos: Pretty heady stuff. How you know all that?

    a bigger question is how come most dont know what we have or what others have!!!! that is, many people formulate points for discussion, and for the most part, they have little idea of what we have… and if they do, they mostly know what we have used not what we have yet to use that is developed!!

    some of the scariest stuff are the fully autonomous weapons systems. israel has put some of these along the gaza border with samson remote controlled stations.

    basically these are robotic pill boxes.. remember wwii? sgt stryker has to take out that pill box, or vietnam… where the enemy was in tiny emplacements very well hidden?

    how about a whole lot of these, and no people in them?
    the person is miles away… or maybe there isnt any person.
    there are also versions that lie in wait, feeling the ground, when a car, or tank, or such gets in range, they shoot out a rocket that flies to above the object, and blasts downward with a shaped charge.

    there are things out there like metal storm. these are guns that shoot a rate of a million rounds a minute… they have versions that shoot tiny mortars as well.

    Metal Storm 36 Barrel Prototype-One Million Rounds per Minute Rate of Fire
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso
    you just here brip… its done

    and one thing that will really catch on fast soon is this
    Navy to Deploy Electromagnetic Railgun Aboard JHSV
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQfAcBs5vQ
    [general atomics did not make round 2]

    if you shoot the munitions dump.. nothing happens. there are no explosives. the gun fires kinetic rounds at Mach 7… the video does not tell you, but the damage you see is from a 40lb piece of metal. can you imagine how many you can put on a fighting ship? the ship is guarded from attack by things like the 4500rpm phalanx.. or metal storm… once they get the idea of putting it in a pool of ocean water to cool it to increase rate of fire, and automate loading… ouch

    there are also land based system as well, to replace things like the howitzers that blert mentions…

    some of this stuff is way beyond scary
    and thats from someone who doesnt think average munitions are all that scary (and yes blert, i HAVE been shot at – and i am a civilian)

  37. With regard to the first Koran verse you quoted above — Quran (8:12) — “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” — there is apparently a context for it, a particular battle:

    The verse is clearly speaking about the events surrounding the Battle of Badr. It is not a general command to “strike at the necks of the infidels.” Anyone with an understanding of the history of Islam knows this. When I read these verses, I know that they refer to the Battle of Badr. No where in my mind is there even an inkling of a thought to “strike at the necks of the infidels.”

    Now, that is at a Muslim website and I have not read the Koran, so I can’t vouch for its truth. In any case, there’s more at the link about that particular verse and others.

  38. But the Koran has its interpreters/exegetes (Tafsir), same as the Bible. That would imply at least a little wiggle room, don’t you think?

    that would depend on whether you figure out if they are practicing taqiyah for the point of making you think that. and “Taqiyya holds a central place in Twelver Shi’a Islam”

    a legal dispensation whereby a believing individual can deny his faith or commit otherwise illegal or blasphemous acts while they are at risk of significant persecution

    ie… if wiggle room lets them survive to fight or give advantage during jihad, then its ok to appear to break the faith in some way.

    one has to learn a lot more to understand. you cant understand piecemeal, as i have mentioned before.

  39. given anns further point..

    taqiyya

    The practice of concealing one’s beliefs in dangerous circumstances originates in the Qur’an, which deems blameless those who disguise their beliefs in such cases

    verse 16:106 refers to the case of ‘Ammar b. Yasir, who was forced to renounce his beliefs under physical duress and torture

    Quran 3:28 enjoins Muslims not to take the company of non-Muslims over Muslims unless as a means of safeguarding themselves. “Let not the believers take those who deny the truth for their allies in preference to the believers — since he who does this cuts himself off from God in everything — unless it be to protect yourself against them in this way…”

    Ibn Kathir, a prominent authority writes, “meaning, except those believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers. In this case, such believers are allowed to show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly.”

    e quotes Muhammad’s companion, Abu Ad-Darda’, who said “we smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them,” and Al-Hasan who said “the Tuqyah is acceptable till the Day of Resurrection.”

  40. artfldgr @ 9:05,

    I’m in much agreement as to your comment.

    That said, regarding:”unlike the magnificent seven, they will not band together, they will run.”

    The movie was not inaccurate, the villagers did not run because, out of desperation, they had hired 7 sheepdogs and inspired by the 7’s fight, the villagers joined in to swing the battle. Sheepdog or sheep, it’s all about attitude.

    The movie has much bearing upon this subject.

    Most memorable lines IMO from the movie:

    Calvera (Eli Wallach): “If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep”.

    Vin (Steve McQueen): “We deal in lead friend.”

    [Britt (James Coburn) has just shot a fleeing bandit off his horse, at a very long distance… with a pistol]

    Chico: Ah, that was the greatest shot I’ve ever seen.

    Britt: “The worst! I was aiming at the horse.”

    Old Man: “They are all farmers. Farmers talk of nothing but fertilizer and women. I’ve never shared their enthusiasm for fertilizer. As for women, I became indifferent when I was eighty-three.”

    Village Boy 2: “We’re ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.”

    O’Reilly (Charles Bronson): In reaction, he pulls the boy across his lap and swats him a few times on the tush, sets him upright and fiercely says; “Don’t you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there’s nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That’s why I never even started anything like that… that’s why I never will.” (Bronson dies saving the children.)

    “The Magnificent Seven” for those unaware was Hollywood’s homage to the great Japanese director Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai” which some claim to be based upon an actual event.

  41. The basic problem with liberals is that they have the wrong view of human nature. To them, people are basically good and all we have to do is fix the situation the ‘bad’ people are in and voila! they will be transformed in to their good selves.

    Wonder why this never seems to work. Could it be that there ARE bad people in the world? Hmm?

  42. oh and while liberals hate the catholic church for the inquisition, that came way after mihna (same thing) of al-Ma’mun. who had his islamic inquisition (mihna) in the early 800s.

    In 16th century Spain, following the end of the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, Muslims and Jews were persecuted by the Catholic Monarchs and forced to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. The principle of taqiyya became very important for Muslims during the Inquisition in sixteenth century Spain, as it allowed them to convert to Christianity while remaining crypto-Muslims, practicing Islam in secret.

    so the islamic inquisition occured 800 years before the spanish inquisition… but since it has a different name, and we seem not to get equivalents… we forget… just like we forget conflagration that engles uses once the new word holocaust replaced it.

    inquisition replaced mihna
    holocaust replaced conflagration

    history repeats and those fooled are fooled because there is no way to feel the hole missing information creates!

    The Miḥnah refers to the inquisition first instituted by the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun in 218 AH/833 AD in which religious scholars were punished, imprisoned, or even killed unless they conceded the doctrine of the created nature of the Qur’an.

    Islam, Middle East and Fascism
    http://www.centerforinquiry.net/isis/articles_and_books/islam_middle_east_and_fascism/

    Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition. “Truth has already been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.”

    Umberto Eco: [2] “Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism …The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense [Eternal fascism] can be defined as irrationalism.”

    Umberto Eco: [3] “Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake …. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been symptom of Ur- [or Eternal Fascism ].”

    Umberto Eco: [4] ” No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism), disagreement is is treason.

    Umberto Eco: [5] “Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-fascism (or Eternal Fascism) grows up and seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference.The first appeal of a fascist movement is an appeal against intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism) is racist by definition.”

    Umberto Eco: [6] “Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism) derives from individual or social frustration.

    Umberto Eco: [7] ” …Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside.

    Umberto Eco: [9] “For Ur-Fascism, (Eternal Fascism) there is no struggle for life, but rather life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare.

    Umberto Eco: [10] “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the members of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party … ”

    Umberto Eco: [11] “…Everybody is educated to become a hero …This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity ; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By, contrast, the Ur-Fascist craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”

    Umberto Eco: [12] “Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of non-standard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality).”

    veddy interesting…

  43. Your right as to Muruna being worse for being more directed.

    but, in the context of what ann was asking, Taqiyya is enough to explain a false wiggle room

    thanks for that link though.. 🙂

  44. What are we to make of someone like Irshad Manji, the Canadian Muslim who is convinced that Islam can be reformed? She is lying to us, and actually smiling in our faces and cursing us in her heart?

  45. G.Britain said: “Wherever Islam is a viable force, pluralistic liberal reform will be firmly resisted because for Islam, “pluralistic liberal reform” is anathema, it is blasphemy of the highest order.”

    This is one of the foundational truths of Islam. Why don’t liberals get this? They don’t want to deal in reality.

  46. Old Rebel: ou’re the one saying we should go back into Iraq despite our $7 trillion debt (at least $1 trillion the fault of the Neocon Wars) and a voting public firmly against more intervention.

    Who’s out of touch?

    sadly, you are old rebel. because ultimately its what i said in the post post yours. that unless you can let them cut heads off of children, torture people, and walk away, your option is not an option.

    can you walk away from that? sheepdogs cant

    the sheep dog thing also explains their gun issue, and why they cant understand the concept of a hero being a good guy with a gun, and a villian being a bad guy. as i also pointed out, sheep dogs and wolves look the same to the sheep, they are afraid of both, and cant tell them apart. they would rather not have any of it.

    however, they think simplisticly, and imagine the impossible possible. they may not think they mind being under a totalitarian thumb, because they live under their own internal totalitarian thumb, called “fear”. (expresses itself as paranoia)

    want to know what scares them? everything.
    their culture obsesses with death, and by loving death, they seek to not be afraid of it. religion scares them, and all that needs is the “what if”. family scares them, for family is a pack of wolves. talent scares them, as it can win over them, and competition scares them, so they dont think they can win.

    unless they are in control they are afraid, and they can never have control of all, which makes them more afriad and eventually more and more punitive. they may even put a super sheep in office, who will do what they want to lock things down, but since its not a sheep dog, its solutions and logic come from a sheep mind and its fixes ignore the things prior sheep dogs put in place to keep them safe.

    here is a fence, the fence has kept wolves out for ages, to the point where they dont see wolves. do we need the fence any more. they want to declare no wars, no fence, and feel safer living in a world without that possibility. so they remove the fence, and rather than a safer world, they find they are under attack, that lots are coming over. they then want to feel safe so they refuse to believe that wolves are coming over, so they believe its lots of harmless lambs. but lambs dont wear cammo, have criminal tatoos between thumb and pointer declaring their work, and guns too…

  47. Ann
    read your post and think of what islam declares for souless women, and men… can a woman reform islam? what place does a woman have in islam? you answered your own question, but dont get that she has no say… only to westerners raised with feminism, does she have a voice. do you think she can go to iran and preach that? can she preach at all there?

  48. by the way, she does not even wear a veil… one can understand that she isnt wearing a niqāb or burqa – but no Hijab? no modest dress? thats also a clue…

    yes there are women who claim that the Hijab was only for mohameds wives, but if you have ever been in a country where this religion is completely dominant… thats not really an option for believers…

    a woman may lead a nusi, but she cant lead men…

    if you read, about the only place women have led mosques is in canada and britain… not excatly the center of any real islamic thought other than what westerners may see. in the actual centers of the religion, that wont happen.

  49. I am a farm boy, and see things in black and white, not 10,000 shades of gray. Its really simple from my POV. Islam wants to subjugate the globe under the sword of allah. That is the truth with a big period. Of course there are muslims who disagree, and they may actually be a majority, but they have shown themselves to be cowards simply because they have not killed the monsters that inhabit their neighborhoods. Therefore they are enabling the jihadists through their passivity. They have forfited any claim to neutrality. Claiming you did not smell the stench from Dachau is no defense at all.

    When/if we ever get serious about the war against islam wake me up, until then its all just pathetic bs. If we were serious mecca would be a glass parking lot and other shrines and cities would be the same…. and stick world opinion where the sun never shines.

  50. Ann @ 10:53,

    MY sound is on the fritz on my computer (nothing serious, I’m procrastinating in digging into it) so I can’t directly respond to the link. But in the comments, these two seem to encapsulate what I’d probably say.

    “Ms Manji is saying muslims should take the Quran out of its 7th century context. But how do you do that when the Quran says the Sunnah (well trodden path) of Muhammad is the perfect moral path to follow? How do you deal with such a (mind you) direct word from God (as the Quran itself says it is) saying this? How could you not keep it in the context of the 7th century? That’s why Islam is not reformable. Reform is the wrong word by the way. “Evolutionize” Islam is what Ms Manji is suggesting. Mind you the Christian Reformation was not an evolution but rather a going back to the original ways and teachings of the Christians who had met Jesus Christ. This could never be done with Islam.”

    Reply, orlando098
    1 month ago

    “One approach that was explained to me by a very liberal Muslim, is to take “Islam” as being the worship of the true One God, and to see the Koran and Mohammed as fallible and not the perfect representation for all time of what Islam should be, the real Islam being something that can develop as we have new insights. Having said which I didn’t even hear this women in the video going as far as that, she seemed to be saying we need to find new “interpretations” for the more problematic verses… But surely some parts of the Koran and hadiths can only realistically be interpreted as being violent and intolerant? As long as there are the doctrines that the Koran is word for word from God and Mohammed the perfect example, I don’t see how Islam can become something fundamentally progressive and in harmony with modern values.” [my emphasis]

    Note: I would add that if one posits that the Koran is fallible, it cannot be Allah’s direct words, for a fallible God isn’t a God at all, which also makes Mohammad either a liar or deluded. Result: Islam’s theological foundations collapse. Everything in Islam rests upon Muhammad’s claim that the archangel Gabriel dictated to him Allah’s direct testimony and commands. It’s how Muhammad gained legitimacy and authority but the flip side of that is that it cannot be changed, even a little without declaring that man can correct Allah. That man’s ‘evolved’ understanding can exceed Allah’s….

  51. Addendum:

    I suspect MS Manji is sincere (body language). She’s not practicing taqiyya. She is what most people call a moderate Muslim, who more accurately is characterized as a ‘cafeteria’ Muslim. She’s picking and choosing what tenets of Islam to practice. She can do that because she lives in Canada. The equivalent of her stance would be a Jew who amends and ignores those parts of the Ten Commandments (written by Yahwah’s finger!) that they’re not comfortable with… Ms Manji wants to remain Muslim but have it be a different religion because, as with all cafeteria Muslims, she can’t face the full truth; that Islam is NOT a religion but a totalitarian ideology wrapped within the facade of a religion. And because she can’t face the full truth, she’s literally trying to have her cake and eat it too…

  52. This thread is a great example of why I read this blog. Eric – it is great to finally know your blog’s URL. I agree with Geoffrey and parker – Islam is beyond redemption. It is a cancer.

    I lurk because it is too cumbersome to contribute with 1-finger typing on the small Android tablet I use.

    Neo- nice community here (despite some of overly long and meandering comments)

  53. I made the mistake of starting to read this thread about the time I should have been thinking of going to bed. Now it’s after 5 am. Luckily for me, it’s Saturday. Of course, the cats will still insist on being fed around 7. If they’re in a generous mood, they may let me sleep until 8.

    There’s a lot of substance here, and several commenters know more than I do about Islam. As for Irshad Manji, I hope she’s right, but I’m not taking that bet. I see that artfldgr and Geoffrey Britain have already made the point that I was going to: She can only get away with saying what she does because she’s Canadian. Her life wouldn’t be worth a nickel if she lived in an actual Muslim country.

    It’s sort of what has been said about Gandhi. He was only able to have the influence he did because he lived in the British Empire. Try that “nonviolent resistance” in a place like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, and you’ll end up in a shallow grave with a bullet in the back of your head.

    Back to the original topic, I think Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize will go down in history alongside the photo of Chamberlain waving that stupid piece of paper.

    Whether through malice or incompetence, or a disastrous combination of the two, Obama manages to sow hatred, discord, and chaos wherever he goes. He destroys everything he touches, and he lies constantly. If he isn’t the Antichrist, I fervently hope I never see the real thing.

  54. Kipling’s “The Dykes”

    Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke and groin —
    Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.
    They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.
    We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past

    @JTR:

    Now we can only wait for the dawn, wait and apportion our shame
    These were the dykes our fathers left and we did not look to the same
    Time and again we were warned of the dykes, time and again we delayed
    Now they may fall, we have slain our sons as our fathers we have betrayed.

  55. Progressive @ 5:22 AM – – ditto. This thread was so pleasurable to read with a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning after watering the tomato plants.

    The Neo folks are amazing, a source of hope and enlightenment.

    Artful @ 9:05 PM – – an eloquent post on the profound theme from Neo’s original.

    It is so important to see the humanity in others, or try to. And there is plenty of humanity in many, probably most of those who do not see things our way.

    But the ruthless must be met with ruthlessness. This is the grim reality for which the nature of existence is to blame.

  56. My oldest daughter just graduated from Carleton College. The students are the best and the brightest. The teachers and their parents are all so nice. In their way, they are salt of the earth people but very smart and well off. And 90% liberal. Liberal is the default.

    But they don’t understand evil. A person or group that would burn the school to the ground and behead students in the street. An opponent is a St. Olaf student.

    Obama’s problem is squarely rooted in his Ivy League education. He doesn’t understand evil and how to deal with it.

  57. “The hate of those ye guard—”

    This brought to mind the newer (and more cynical) maxim………… “No good deed ever goes unpunished.”

  58. Cornhead @ 10:01 AM – – I respectfully disagree. BO’s Ivy League education, I believe, was not the provenance of his world view.

    BO was a red diaper baby and grew up marinating in the pro-Soviet/Marxist vision of the world. It is a strictly religious, cult-like reality.

    Hatred of America is a central element, as it has been for a century.

    We cannot know BO’s precise calculations in foreign policy, especially because he faces constraints given that he is, after all, the actual president of the country he most despises.

    (I would love to read a well informed essay on the apparently unprecedented firing under BO of hundreds of top military personnel).

    The BO foreign policy seems to be: advancing the interests of America’s enemies and weakening the interests of America’s friends.

    BO thinks he understands “evil” perfectly well. Evil is America.

    And he is fighting evil every day, as best he can, if only by creating more chaos, domestically and abroad.

  59. “”When they should have been afraid for their safety, they feared not, and as luck would have it, were not assaulted or murdered or raped or robbed. They have no experience.””
    Don Carlos

    Think of it as lacking maturity stemming from a lack of adversity. This is the double edged sword of the prosperity in the west . It makes soft people out of touch with the reality of the overall human condition on planet earth.

  60. Do evil people behold the people they rape, torture, destroy as evil? I think not, myself. I think evil is evil, and while the evil think and plot and scheme, I do not think they behold a warped, inverted morality. They are simply evil.

  61. artfldgr, neo-neocon,

    Please spare us the empty talk about how the US just HAS to do something to save innocent civilians. The DC beast has a long history of mass slaughter. Look at Iraq, where Clinton’s bombing, US sanctions, and enforcing the no-fly zone killed over a million civilians BEFORE W’s invasion.

    But pretending that a little remedial bombing isn’t an act of war is so other-worldly it makes my head spin.

  62. “Look at Iraq, where Clinton’s bombing, US sanctions, and enforcing the no-fly zone killed over a million civilians BEFORE W’s invasion.” Old Rebel

    A MILLION civilians? That is factually untrue and easily determined to be untrue. Clinton didn’t do that much bombing and it was against military targets not civilian targets. Any Iraqi deaths that resulted were NOT from US Sanctions but from the actions of Saddam who diverted money and supplies needed by civilians to his military and police forces. The no-fly zone resulted in aircraft destroyed not civilian death’s on the ground.

    All of this indicates that you’re either a brain dead leftist kool-aid drinker or a troll.

  63. Tonawanda @ 10:32,

    Obama was a red diaper baby and there’s no question that his childhood influences (Mother, Grandfather, Frank Marshall Davis, etc) formed his basic attitudes and beliefs.

    College and leftist academia gave Obama the ‘intellectual’ framework upon which to hang his hate and resentments. Rev Wright gave him the rationalizations and justifications for his racism.

    “(I would love to read a well informed essay on the apparently unprecedented firing under BO of hundreds of top military personnel).”

    The link below is to the closest that I have seen, careful reading of it with a bit of reading between the lines indicate that many in the service realize what’s going on.

    Keep a Weather Eye on the Horizon: A Navy Officer Retention Study — by CDR Guy Snodgrass

    This section is IMO the most revealing:
    5. Erosion of trust in senior leadership

  64. Geoffrey Britain,

    The reptilian Madeleine Albright admitted on 60 Minutes that US actions were responsible for killing a half-million Iraqis.

    The University of Washington in Seattleconducted a survey and published these findings:

    The survey responses point to around 405,000 deaths attributable to the war and occupation in Iraq from 2003 to 2011. At least another 56,000 deaths should be added to that total from households forced to flee Iraq, the study authors estimate.

    Just for funsies, let’s say only a quarter million innocent civilians died in Iraq from US actions. That still doesn’t erase the civilian deaths the US remains responsible for in other countries.

    The point is that the US government cannot claim to be justify its aggressions because it’s soooo concerned about saving civilians. That’s pure, unadulterated BS.

  65. Old Rebel:

    How about this? I don’t care how many Muslims die.

    And this? Neither should you.

  66. And Churchill was correct when he wrote over a hundred years ago that Islam is the most retrograde thing on Earth.

  67. Please spare us the empty talk about how the US just HAS to do something to save innocent civilians. The DC beast has a long history of mass slaughter. Look at Iraq, where Clinton’s bombing, US sanctions, and enforcing the no-fly zone killed over a million civilians BEFORE W’s invasion.
    But pretending that a little remedial bombing isn’t an act of war is so other-worldly it makes my head spin.

    Dishonorable sir, your comprehension sucks. I didn’t say the U.S. has to do something. I said the choices before it, and as its leader Obama is to do something, or not do something. If he doesn’t do something, he feeds the fire of evil empire that you love so much, if he does do something, he feeds the fire of evil imperialist. (Note I am reducing my speech for you to Sovietize it for your understanding tovarish)
    However, I take umbrage at your soviet propaganda as to “a long history of mass slaughter” — read zinn much?
    Yes. LETS look at IRAQ, and compare what happened with what CAN happen given the US munitions and the US ability to act pretty much unopposed. In for a penny, in for a pound, if we FELT like it we could easily sweep the country and not leave a living thing, and NOTHING could stop us without a total nuclear conflict. So if this mass slaughter was the way, why use targeted munitions? What’s wrong with 30 B52s carrying 70,000 pounds of munitions each carpet bombing a target. (that’s just over 200,000 pounds or 100 tons of high explosives) . flying 5 sorties a day and night… you can remove 5 cities per sortie
    With targeted munitions, we could fire missiles from the ocean, and have them fly into the windows of every mosque in the country… then carpet bomb them.. then cluster bomb the rural areas laying down miles and miles of anti-personnel mines .. .
    All you’re doing is spouting a soviet misinformation turd. Lets look at IRAQ.
    Total civilians killed so far in Iraq – 127,125 — 142,200 – a lot lower than a million. And that’s deaths caused by BOTH sides. Bet you believe the Iraqi woman holding up a bullet in its casing claiming that it killed her son… how? It wasn’t fired yet… see https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
    Funny, but the ONLY places that claim higher numbers are the groups who are legendary for lying and exaggerating constantly. Ie. Huffington post: Iraq Death Toll Reaches 500,000 Since Start Of U.S.-Led Invasion, New Study Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
    The article claims a new study, claims researchers, claims stuff, but does not even bother to link to the study… want to know how the study was conducted (remember Iraqis have LARGE families which results in counting the same death several times given the self serving method they chose)
    Their tally was compiled by asking adults living in 2,000 randomly selected households in 100 geographic clusters across Iraq if family members had died, when and why.
    That is not even research. But it does throw out a number that a moron can use in an argument and try to force a point. Iraq has 36,000,000 people (today). Using the erroneous bs number, that’s what percentage of the population? And not only that, but you doubled it to make a point thinking your arguing with a fellow moron.
    Let’s compare to your socialist lovelies – About 14 million people were in the Gulag labor camps from 1929 to 1953 – A further 6—7 million were deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR, and 4—5 million passed through labor colonies
    They are about 10 million short of the WHOLE population of Iraq, and that was murdering and torturing their own citizens.
    How about the Chinese Laogai? The name is an abbreviation for: Lé¡odé²ng GÇŽizé o – “reform through labor”
    It is estimated that in the last fifty years, more than 50 million people have been sent to laogai camps
    Now, remember, these are the people you admire for how they make a nice place to live and will make a wonderful world for you… moron
    Oh, and before you quip that that is re-education, no, its not. That would be laojiao. In the year Obama took office there were 1,045 laogai facilities operating in China
    Here is what the Chinese government has said about it;
    “Our economic theory hold the human being is the most fundamental productive force. Except for those who must be exterminated physically out of political consideration, human beings must be utilized as productive forces, with submissiveness as the prerequisite. The Laogai system’s fundamental policy is ‘Forced Labor as a means, while Thought Reform is our basic aim.’
    Now the interesting thing is that you picked Clinton… a democrat. A fullbright scholar to the soviet union rather than serve in Vietnam. (since then he has added his name to the system which is Fulbright-clinton, and Obama or rather, barry soetoero was a fullbright foreign exchange student to occidental)
    The connections even go to Owen Lattimore, the man accused of being a spy and who coined the term McCarthyism. He was later confirmed to be a spy.. So a spy smeared a man for calling him a spy.
    And as to your comment as to “lets pretend a little remedial bombing isn’t an act of war”.
    Funny you say that. Because it’s the liberal left who decided to go all 1984 on the public and come up with moronic terms for war to avoid calling a war a war. That they don’t want to accept that going over a border to do what you want is an act of war. Might be because if they did, then they would be guilty of starting a few wars, and they would be guilty of allowing acts of war from Mexico.

    The earliest appearance of the term “police action” was 1883.
    Police actions are authorised specifically by the Security Council under Article 53 (for regional action) or Article 42 (for global action). See: Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter § Article 42 and Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter
    Funny… but the UN is a socialist construct for one world governance. And the U.S. Navy refers to the Korean conflict as the Korean War, and when they refer to police action, they surround the term in quotation marks (so they admit the war started by the Koreans and Chinese was a war)
    And a plaque at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial refers to the Vietnam Conflict as a war, not a police action even though it was undeclared.
    And Bush asked congress, a republican house and democrat senate reinforcing his demand by overwhelmingly voting to support a UN ACTION.
    House passed the resolution: 296-133
    Senate passed the resolution: 77-23
    The war cost 124 billion… not trillions… (though if you look at your phone bill, your still paying for the spanish America war. So much for it being profitable)
    Obama never bothered to get a legal vote about war. Ie he did what you think bush did and he didn’t
    Obama cast at least 10 votes for war-funding bills before voting against one — and he voted FOR Iraq funding.
    So your completely twisted around… bush called it a war, and pressured UN to act. Obama didn’t call it a thing, and acted without a vote, like a dictator.
    Do you want to go over the conflicts of the world and tally up which ones were started by socialist states and which ones by the US? You can find a long list of conflicts that the US was in, but not a heck of a lot that the US started.
    Lets go fast over a cursory list of things:
    WWI — we did not kill Ferdinand, we came late to that party (after progressive Wilson said he would never do so to win the presidency)
    WWII — Started by Russia and Hitler who carved up Europe in the pact, were working together till hitler turned. FDR a progressive like Obama, manipulated us into the war.
    Korea — Socialist troops of North Korea, and Chinese socialist troops started that one
    Vietnam — the French started that the US took over.
    The war in which Israel was attacked by a bunch of its neigbors fighting a proxy for the soviet union (which is why the US could not help for fear of killing soviet pilots and soldiers), was not started by the US
    War 1812, British
    French American war — French
    Afghanistan — first RUSSIA invaded…
    Crimea? Azerbaijan? Serbia? Hungary? Romania? Cuba? Cambodia? Laos? All soviet socialists killing millions… Americans were not at the killing fields, where they?
    Your turn… go ahead… open your mouth and give me an opportunity to teach you some history that Zinn twists and the left twists… after all, normalization through Stalinization of history, is their invention and gig.
    On July 30, 2010, the FBI released one file with three sections totaling 423 pages on Howard Zinn. inn was an active member of the CPUSA; Z inn denied ever being a member when he was questioned by agents in the 1950s — but they found out. Zinn traveled to North Vietnam with Daniel Berrigan as an anti-war activist. He attended CPUSA party meetings as many as five times a week. There is a famous photo of f Zinn teaching a class on “Basic Marxism” at party headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951
    The FBI file also includes information on Zinn’s pro-Castro activism and support for radical groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Progressive Labor Party (PLP), Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and Black Panther Party. Much of the latter was in connection with Zinn’s support for a communist military victory in Vietnam.
    Note that the LID became the SDS which became the weatherman, which bombed people and wanted to start a race war (see Nanuet brinks robbery) and a major member and others of this group put Obama into office.

  68. GB @ 12:57 — ty for the article! I will have to re-read it to absorb it all, but this paragraph jumped off the screen as a stated example of a “shift toward centralization of central command” :

    Another example is a recent shift within the Navy to eradicate behavior that is, by its very nature, ineradicable. As Rear Admiral Ted Carter’s Task Force Resilient team discovered in 2013, there is a substantial opportunity cost involved when trying to do so. The team noted most efforts to eradicate suicide had a very discernable price point that, once exceeded, provided little or no additional benefit. Put simply, there is no dollar amount that can be spent, or amount of training that can be conducted, that will completely eradicate complex issues such as suicide, sexual assault, or commanding officer reliefs for cause — yet we continue to expend immense resources in this pursuit. Sailors are bombarded with annual online training, general military training, and safety stand-downs — all in an effort to combat problems that will never be defeated. The perception is that these efforts are not undertaken because they are incredibly effective, but rather because of significant political and public oversight.

    Something is going on. Problem is, if we (the public) cannot get an honest accounting of BO’s biography from the soviet media, how can we even begin address the topic of his political “for cause” purging of the military, if that is in fact what is going on?

    I try not to think that the barbarians have won, that the bishop is an atheist who scoffs or worse, that it is all an accomplished fact, but the thought refuses to leave.

  69. I think Old Rebel should change his handle to Aged Hippie. In the immortal words of Gen. Honore, he is stuck on stupid, and is best ignored.

  70. Occidental College transcripts provides concrete evidence to annul Obama presidency.

    http://presscore.ca/2014/obama%E2%80%99s-occidental-college-transcripts-provides-concrete-evidence-that-annuls-his-presidency.html

    The transcript from Occidental College shows that Obama (Barry Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship (scholarship) for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program — an international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. Grants are available for U.S. citizens to go abroad and for non-U.S. citizens with no U.S. permanent residence to come to the U.S. To qualify, for the non-US citizen scholarship to study in the U.S., a student applicant must claim and provide proof of foreign citizenship.

  71. Been out of the house for a few hours, but in reply to Old Rebel,

    artfldgr does a fine job of rebuttal. So rather than belabor the point, I’ll just say that besides the fact that the “reptilian” (we agree there!) Madeleine Albright and 60 Minutes and the leftist University of Washington in Seattle attribute ALL deaths in Iraq to US forces and actions, which is a blatant falsehood… I would not trust any of those liars to report accurately. They ALL have the same leftist political agenda and NONE of them have the faintest idea of the meaning of honesty and objective reporting. Saddam, his Baathist regime, Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda elements are responsible for FAR more Iraqi deaths than America. That you fail to acknowledge it is demonstrable proof of a deceitful agenda.

  72. artfldgr at 4:12 pm,

    That is prima facie evidence of foreign citizenship OR… that he lied and falsified “proof of foreign citizenship” in order to fraudulently acquire a non-US citizen scholarship.

    In either case, he is guilty of criminal fraud and even more importantly, in either case he provides unassailable proof of unfitness for the office he holds.

  73. artfldgr: “The war cost 124 billion… not trillions…”

    Where do you get that figure from?

    My go-to reference for the OIF war cost is this CRS report:
    http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

    It counts the total cost of the “cumulative total appropriated from the 9/11 for those war operations, diplomatic operations, and medical care for Iraq and Afghan war veterans” – covering DOD, State/USAID, and VA Medical – as 805.5 billion dollars through FY2011 and 823.2 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. The report states the DoD-only total war cost as 757.8 billion through FY2011 and 768.8 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. See the chart on page 21.

  74. Eric and artfldgr,

    In the interests of accuracy and comparison, I offer the following:

    “Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $19.8 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan has been $6.98 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars).* The War on Poverty has cost three times as much as all other wars combined.”
    Stephen Daggett, “Costs of Major U.S. Wars,” Congressional Research Service, June 29, 2010.

    *The CRS report counts the cost of wars through FY2010; the additional cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in FY2011, at $159 billion, was added to the CRS figures.

    http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/rectortestimony04172012.pdf

  75. Geoffrey Britain,

    Thanks.

    Daggett’s report is in my (virtual) pile, too. Another highlight of his report is that while the cost is high in isolation, the cost has not been high relative to GDP in comparison to other wars.

  76. I just noticed I mangled the description. Take 2.

    http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

    This CRS report counts the “cumulative total appropriated from the 9/11 [sic] for those war operations, diplomatic operations, and medical care for Iraq and Afghan war veterans”, covering DOD, State/USAID, and VA Medical costs. The report states all costs for Iraq totaled 805.5 billion dollars through FY2011 and 823.2 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. The report states the DoD-specific total war cost as 757.8 billion through FY2011 and 768.8 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. See the chart on page 21.

  77. holy crap…
    from the blog software killing my posts by mail address (yes, it did neo. i tested and only that removed that).

    it just deleted spontaneously a pro israel pro jewish explanation.

    as if someone was watching what i was typing didnt like it and erased it. creepy … its not the first time… its happened several times.

  78. Eric, Geoffrey,

    can you show me the costs of not going to war?

    if saddam was still there, what would be happening in israel?
    would BT machines be runnign another creature since it takes only a few hours to switch over?

    what would the world lose if irael and its scientists and doctors and $$ was erased. and given the inflated accounting methods for one sided costs and no benefit to weigh them (making war, husbands, and other things subjected to that accounting always come up as not worth it).

    what where the benefits to the future of Cortez gold?
    what are the economic benefits to us from SAMSUNG a company that would not exist but for the Korean war?

    if saddam existed today and israel was surrounded with no way to help and no will to do so, would they resort to nuclear weapons to survive? would nuclear war be a cost?

    FAS inflates… because scientists are now born of liberal colleges and even when trying to be fair, they arent. they are not accountants, doing the whole set of books, they are scientists trying to add up one side of an equation.

    the choice of war is always weighed against benefits.
    the costs of not acting vs the costs of acting

    what would todays cost of not acting be?
    you never put that in… is it more over the next 1000 years than the money we spent to stop something?
    before you say 1000 years is invalid, you have to remember that the benefits are forever… they compound, negatives not so much

    As far as reasons for war. are you naive enough to think that either side was picking everything truthfully to get a public that doesnt want to understand this stuff to pick?

    one one side, you have economic malcontents who always know the cost of everything but the value of nothing, and whose whol thing is about total control. they claim you can have no war if you dont fight, instead of another total war. they say it costed too much. against what? welfare programs you could have spent it on? Xmas presents for liberia? political junkits to bali? this side WANTS war as the fabian glass shows and history, you can remold society the most during a world war. this side claims that gulag murders are ok and needed, and war casualties are bad (when it happens to the kind of people they exterminate first). they know that halting us intervention is giving state criminals a free run, just as a city with no police or police that cant act – gets run over. since their side is the side that runs over, and takes control, in maximalist ways, this later outcome is more desired.
    [no one says the US has to be a police officer, but since its a capitalist country, it benefits from no war more than others do. ie. capitalism and war dont go together as it causes temporary malinvestments and all kinds of negative things. that doesnt mean people cant make a lot of money and such doing it. causing people to be scared can always cause more money to be spent on security, but its a malinvestment and so, a taking advantage of capitalism by kicking the pinball machine (cheating))

    the other side wants the benefit of the outcome of the conflict, which is never allowed to be discussed. also, this other outcome is actually harder to claim. if you act, the outcome you acted for, never happens. it seems a waste. if you dont act, the other side gets their way, and you get the situation that obama is stuck in and things escalating all over.

    saddam was a very big anti semite and willing to use gas on kurds and did commit genocide. by today, what would he have been doing about the middle east?

    well, i can tell you now that bush could not sell a war to save jews and their future contributions to the world, to a bunch of materialists who only can weigh the costs of now, and who are antisemitic, and want the wars that come if he doesnt do it. save them would not work now, it would not work then, and it was not what stopped hitler either (as it didnt stop stalin from taking over their extermination)

    thats plain and simple…

    your doing a”cost benefit” analysis, as a “cost no benefit” an thinking that is valid.

    oh, by the way..
    when a greenie tells you something like. wouldnt you give up some progress to save the world? tell him i said no. that extending the industrial revolution an extra 100 years, would not have made things better, it would have made the period of maximal production of pollutoin worse. in fact, given the trend towards using less land, wasting les and such, has gone on all the time as its cost efficient… any pause increased the current level of bad, and pushed forward the cleaner future. we are cleaner today than before

    when they say.. what about the cost of war, what is the cost of no war? was the cost of stopping hitler (and Stalin too for the most part), worth it?

    were would you be if we did not fight wwi, wwii, vietnam, korea, etc… better off, worse off? would the economic foundation you engjoy be built to thsi extent, or would it not?

    is the world better that it has Samsung? or worse?
    Hynix? Hyundai? LG? Kia?

    think they would exist if the Korean war was lost?
    (notice i call it a war – ok old rebel. its always that. only to those that play games is it something else)

    how much did the koren war cost? a finite amount people complained… how much will samsung, hyundai, and such bring the world over the next 1000 years? incalculable?

    yeah.. you want to think of iraq as a third world non productive place. but australia was a penal colony… and your point would be?

    time to think harder, not think as your taught…

  79. artfldgr,

    Yes, we should sacrifice EVERYTHING for Israel. Gotcha.

    Israel, unlike Saddam, had nukes. Saddam was no more of a threat to Israel than it was to us.

  80. artfldgr: “can you show me the costs of not going to war?”

    I can’t, of course.

    I can, however, explain to you why we ousted Saddam:
    http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html

    This, too, for a primary sources explanation:
    http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2004/10/perspective-on-operation-iraqi-freedom.html

    PREFACE: Most pundits, both supporters and opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom, underutilize the available primary sources despite that the 1990-2003 Iraq enforcement has a thick law and policy trail in the UN Security Council, Congress, and especially the Office of the President. Why Iraq? Presidents Clinton and Bush, Congress, and the United Nations told us why. While there’s still room for speculative analysis, the work has been done for us. Primary sources that are easily accessed on-line provide a straightforward explanation for OIF. President Clinton, whose entire presidency was preoccupied by the Iraq enforcement, is the best source for understanding OIF.

  81. old rebel. going from one extreme to another is no way to debate.

    and if you read carefully, its what WE lose…
    so i did not say SACRIFICE ANYTHING (profit is not sacrifice)

    i also do not take your position of never helping jews, as i am not an anti-Semitic socialist psychopath

    your antisemitism is blinding you from doing an assessment that makes sense…

    also… how would it be sacrificing everything? if we lost do you think that you would lose your home, your job, your wife, your kids, etc

    i can tell you that if the USA lost to a country like russia, you would lose your job, maybe your wife, definitely your kids, and a whole lot more.

    and you give nukes too much credit…

    how old are you old rebel? 14.. 30? 50?

    would you give up email? they invented a lot of the stuff behind the email you use. electronic vioce mail has to go too, as they invented that too. like netflix over the wires? sorry, that has to go too, video on demand is theirs as well. i hope you dont have a facebook account, that disappears… oh… the japanese and germans would have nuclear bombs, but the US would not (russia would have them as well getting that from the germans who were their team mates). if you use a charging mat for your phone, that goes… then goes a huge amount of medicines and things like hip replacements. i hope you dont like cherry tomatoes, they were developed in israel. or hydroponic desert farming…

    improved AZT and Hypericin-based drugs came from hebrew university… so they go too.. hope you dont have diabetes as your testing machines came from them

    hope no women (or men) in your family have multiple sclerosis, as Copaxone is theirs as well

    how about Levodopa, which reduces motor disturbances in Parkinson, and magnetic cortex stimulation has to go

    implants, stents, detectors, and on and on… hundreds of products you may need to live or enjoy, are from their work you dont think is work saving.

    by the way old rebel… who IS worth saving? people who cant support themselves? if so, are YOU going to support them? or are you going to give them moral support while empowring despotism to steal to donate to them?

    when they knock on your door to remove your rich bougesie ass, and give it to others, will you be happy to step aside? (before you say anything like, that dont happen, i would read about the kulaks, and others in the baltics, and other states)

    if you get macular degeneration as you get older, i would suggest you go blind, rather than have jew tech in your anti Semitic eyes.

    if you have to have a catheter, you cant find one which does not include anti bacterial plastics from israel.. you just have to pee in your pants and explain that the reason is your an anti semite who refuses jew tech

    we got it old rebel
    your a good old fashioned anti semite
    dont matter if your a capitalist or socialist, your still an anti semite as you single them out..

    but note. i am not necesarily a ‘lover’, as it benefits the whole world that they are not gone… we also lose if they are driven to use nuclear weapons, as we dont know what those from the other countries will bring us in the future given time!

    its never a question of one side right other side wrong, its always a questoin of more right more wrong…

    when we bombed hiroshima, we did wrong,, but what was the wrong of not doing it? we lost whatever every one there would have made, or their children, for eternity.

    however, the japanese are smarter than you, as they remember it differently than the socialist communists want the west to. yes, it was horrible, but the result was a free, modern, state that the average person could earn and even dominate western technology by their brains alone…

    your purposefully misisng my point.
    that in a cost benefit analysis, we as a planet of people lose out when the smart inventive people who share their technology with everyone, get murdered by either active anti semites who do the dirty work, or passive agressive anti semites who want to make choices that lead to the same

    has nothing to do with their religion, or their friendship, or anything but self interest… its in our self interest.

    by the way..
    its also in our self interest to remove idiots like you from doing harm to the world for some ideological excuse you latch on to make up for your own shortcomings or failings.

    ie. they make yo ufeel small cause your not that bright and cant do what they do, and have to manufacture hate and ideas of their cheating to right the imbalance your mind cant stand.

    what did they ever do to you?

    what would their country be like if they closed their borders like china, and kept all that technology to themselves, and did not share it?

    i guess its like penn gillete the atheist said of christians, as he is a thoughtful atheist, not a moronic one…

    he said. if a christian really believed in eternal life, which would be more evil, telling someone else, or keeping it to themselves?

    from the position of the christian, not telling you about it would be evil. just as a jew witholding jewish technology from you cause of your not liking him would be evil.

    do you concure? doubtful

  82. “i am not an anti-Semitic socialist psychopath”

    Nor am I. I believe in the self-determination of ALL peoples.

    What I do NOT believe in is subsidizing foreign governments. If the Israelis don’t have the cash on hand, let THEM borrow it from China, rather than us. We’re kinda tapped out.

  83. I can, however, explain to you why we ousted Saddam

    no… you can give me the public reasons given for consumption and so forth… and you can believe that the people are telling you everything and making you a part of that choice, but then you would be less smart than the average soviet citizen at a dinner table.

    i do respect greatly that you cant tell me the benefit.

    but those reasons you want to BELIEVE are just reasons to sell you so that they are on your side. some of them valid, some of them not, never are they the whole of it

    for them to be the whole of it, would be for them to open up all their plans to all the countries and let them know all they are thinking, all they have agreed to in back rooms, and on and on… including a lot of stuff that is technically secret.

    your a fool if you think we are so transparent as to televise and telegraph all war planning and reasonong… and wait for the general population to make an edumacated decision.

    your not getting my point if you think i am falling into the arguments of two camps of beleifs who leave out fundemental facts that i know that are not even in the arguments… and if i know a few that are absent, what about the cacluations that are derived without them?

    given the appearance on the news of nixon, i will go to him for the money quote…

    the average citizen is like the child of the family

    when you were a child, did your parents clue you in on all the details and give you equal vote as an adult? i dont think so… (though gien some libs, maybe)

    they may have included you in a lot, but they did not include you in the important things in a way in which you could halt move to a new place, or choose where dad works.

    no one ever told you why!!!!

    they gave you reasons to join their band, not why.
    they left out reasons that were inconvenient to their band leading… (just as one side has you do a cost no benefit analysis… you always know what the result will be. any cost will be infinite compared to zero.

    but this is now how real leaders think.

    if you wanted to stop or throw a wrench into what was going on and still is going on, then you need a buffer. you need a way to stop material from moving from one place to another who supplies africa, and other states with the weapons and material they need to wage these wars? who gives it to them under the idea they will get paid when they win?

    putin called the iraq thing of bush, a illegal buffer zone. i bet if you look into both your explanations you will not find any reference to the maps, and how war material moves aroudn the world.

    to use THAT real explanation, which is obvious to someone who understands how things actual work not how beliefs are sold and mobilized people at home are made… then you look at a map

    go ahead. pull a freakin map out. .now color in iraq. then color in turkey, and afghanistan, and pakistan, and india.

    what is on one side? soviet material delivery… whats on the other side? undeveloped states who produce raw materials and directly compete with the soviets who produce raw materials and little else. ie. they send weapons, wars and crap cause oil not to be made, they sell oil on the open market at a higher inflated price.

    you want these poor countries to be developed? well, you have to stop the shipment of war material to them… and you have to let them bring their raw materials to market so they can build an infrastructuire and schools and so on.

    in order to sell the american public on these points, your going to have to convince these che loving kids and their lib parents who said, che on the wall son? need a frame? to believe that russia is an enemy, and they have always been and that their game has never changed, and they have to be opposed.

    how you gonna do that?

    how do you convince Hitler lovers to go to war to stop hitler?
    how do you convince a communised public that such has to be opposed? that its worth stopping their idols?

    yes. a healthy dose of truth woudl work… right?

    see what i mean about children? it has very little to do with anything they said. as those reasons are actually not enough!!! they are enough to sell enough people to side with something so that action can be taken…. but ethically morally and such, they kind of fail… however, if you included what the other state was doing, then ethically morally not acting is worse.

    take a look at your map again..
    all answers are there, not in un rhetoric..

    you cant ship war material by boat that easy..
    you CAN drive an infinite number of semi trailer sized trucks…
    open borders of the European union helps that.
    and Serbia, Azerbaijan, and those tiny nothing countries become critical to your plans if you want to do this. another route would be through afghanistan…

    note that if your Qatar, you get to double tax the oil shipments IF libya and syria are at war blocking the arab pipeline that would bypass your holdings. eh?

    if your obama and warren buffet and steyer. two of these have lots of berkhire hataway… berkshire hathaway ownes 100% of BNSF rail… funny, but blocking keystone means billions for buffet and steyer and anyone else who has 100k per share stock… who can afford shares at that price? not even millionaires… right? only huge insttutions, countries, and billionaires like buffet, soros, steyer, etc.

    who can own shares of keystone? you, and i… its $40..

    so, is billionaire steyer blocking keystone to save the planet, or is he blocking it so that the shares he owns and buffet owns, and soros owns, and so on… all make huge amounts?

    from the news of aug 1 2014

    Berkshire Posts Record Quarterly Profit
    Warren Buffett’s Conglomerate Reports 41% Jump in Earnings for Second Period

    think obama gonna give you a un speech telling you that its not green he is working on, but for billionaires and for when he leaves office and so on?

    Berkshire reported a profit of $6.4 billion, or $3,889 a Class A share, compared with $4.54 billion, or $2,763 a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 11% to $49.76 billion, from $44.69 billion.

    each 100,000 dollar plus class A share earned almost 4,000 in dividends…

    dig a bit more..

    Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Friday that second-quarter profit soared 41 percent on improved results from investing, BNSF Railway and from manufacturing, service and retailing businesses.

    so… you waiting to hear them tell you this stuff?

    same with saddam

    by the way…
    in the reasons you want me to read
    do they mention Crypto AG and saddam telling the world that we screwed with the teletype machines embassies use?
    t may be the greatest intelligence scam of the century: For decades, the US has routinely intercepted and deciphered top secret encrypted messages of 120 countries. These nations had bought the world’s most sophisticated and supposedly secure commercial encryption technology from Crypto AG, a Swiss company that staked its reputation and the security concerns of its clients on its neutrality. The purchasing nations, confident that their communications were protected, sent messages from their capitals to embassies, military missions, trade offices, and espionage dens around the world, via telex, radio, teletype, and facsimile. They not only conducted sensitive albeit legal business and diplomacy, but sometimes strayed into criminal matters, issuing orders to assassinate political leaders, bomb commercial buildings, and engage in drug and arms smuggling. All the while, because of a secret agreement between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Crypto AG, they might as well have been hand delivering the message to Washington. Their Crypto AG machines had been rigged so that when customers used them, the random encryption key could be automatically and clandestinely transmitted with the enciphered message. NSA analysts could read the message traffic as easily as they could the morning newspaper.

    Customers from Saddam Hussein to the Pope grew nervous. Informed of the details around the Hans Buehler incident, the Vatican é‘ which uses Swiss cipher machines to secure diplomatic communications transmitted from the Holy See to the many papal nuncios around the world-showed a marked lack of charity. An official branded the perpetrators “bandits!”

    so… there is a lot more to things…

  84. OR…

    A rip roaring atomic war — in the Middle East — Perfect.

    You’ve got the answer to everything.

    &&&

    BTW, it’s still somewhat secret: Saddam DID issue orders to unleash ballistic chemical attacks against the coalition in KSA…

    All the way back in 2003.

    His (general) officers received counter orders from Commando Solo — direct to their personal cell phones!

    [ FYI, your location is pretty exactly given away from emissions from your cell phone.]

    The USAF let Saddam’s generals know that they were reading all of their command traffic — in real time — and that they — personally — would be promptly held responsible for any launches…( hint, hint,… atomicly… )

    This stunt was replicated during the Libyan ‘project.’ The Duck of Death’s minions were picking up their ‘secure’ (encrypted) cell phones to find Commando Solo on the horn!

    These were the conversations that caused one after another of the Duck’s generals and kin to bail out from his regime. Commando Solo not only could reach out and touch them — Solo could also reach their bank accounts!

    &&&

    The collateral damage caused by OR’s world ‘solution’ set would be so great that Earth would be glowing. But, at least he’d be right: few would be left to argue with him!

  85. Don Carlos Says:
    August 8th, 2014 at 8:59 pm

    blert:
    Pretty heady stuff. How you know all that?

    Don, surely you don’t want me to pull an ‘Art’ on you?

    &&&

    A snap history of the M198 howitzer (for blog brevity)

    Comes Vietnam and the US Army discovers that the M114 (aka M1, circa 42-45) howitzer [155mm] (WWII vintage) is being out ranged by the Soviet M-46 130mm gun.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/130_mm_towed_field_gun_M1954_%28M-46%29

    “The M-46 saw extensive use by the NVA in Vietnam War, especially at the siege of Khe Sanh. It was regarded by both sides as the best all-round field artillery of the Vietnam War.[5]”
    (Op Cit)

    This event inspires the US Army to revisit the 155mm howitzer. During the Korean war, the US Army [commanded by a former artillery officer of the AEF] entirely retired the 105mm howitzers of WWII fame — in favor of M1/ M114 155mm howitzers. This was possible on an emergency basis (Truman’s insistence — largely left out of the record) because the US Army had countless M1 howitzers in ConUS depots. These were the guns that mowed down the ChiComs in the back half of the Korean/ Chinese Civil War.

    The redesign occurred in the shadow of Tet. (1968)

    Forget the Wiki range numbers: they’re all official lies. The M198 was designed from the beginning to surpass the M-46. This took some doing. The US Army was not satisfied until 1977! (Budgets, they are a pox.)

    In the meantime the US Army responded to the M-46 by using air power and bringing over M107 175mm counter battery guns.

    “The M107’s combat history in U.S. service was limited to the Vietnam War; it also saw extensive combat use in Israeli service”
    Wiki

    The M107 is still Israel’s primary long range counter-battery weapon — if you omit her air force and smart bombs. The latter have caused the Americans to entirely retire the design.

    &&&

    Back to the M198:

    The US Army was entirely satisfied with this howitzer and it is still maintained in depots across the ConUS. It’s a much cheaper howitzer than the M777 — since it doesn’t use exotic metals. The M198 was the howitzer of OIF. (Marines) It’s still airmobile — it’s just that only a handful of American machines can lift it.

    The M777 was actually inspired by the Falklands campaign. It’s, naturally, a British solution to the howitzer. Adm Woods found that the British couldn’t move M198s around the Falklands with any grace and ease… (with other than heavy lift helicopters.) Fortunately, the opposition folded up like a cheap suit once they realized that the jig was up.

    Budgets keep the design on the back burner for ages. Finally it found a patron after 9-11. The need to put the M198 on a diet was made obvious to the Americans by Afghanistan… and all of the rest of the ‘stans.

    The M777 is too tricked up to be offered to the Third World.

    All of the above devices are TOWED or FLOWN into position. They are not used (normally) by (heavy) American divisions.

    (Armored/ Mechanized/ Infantry (heavy) divisions)

    [ How things morph: unless designated “light” all American infantry divisions are “heavy” — that is they are as tanked up as an entire WWII tank corps/ panzer corps. (Actually they have more tank power than a German panzer army circa 1944!)]

    &&&

    As for the rest, read Long War Journal — especially the links to the South Asian press.

    They don’t keep Barry’s secrets — no not at all.

    !!!

  86. Israel can take care of itself.

    Not only does ignorant Old R here think he can direct strategy in Iraq, but he thinks he’s got Israel covered too.

    What a pusillanimous military genius we have here.

  87. Don, surely you don’t want me to pull an ‘Art’ on you?

    how nice to read that in the morning.
    its wonderful to live a life where no one likes you.
    but thats how aspergers works most of the time
    especially when your not allowed to be in a better place for social justice or competitive reasons.

    good morning to you too.
    go ahead… pull an “art”

  88. by the way. nice stuff on the howitzers.
    though over the next 20 years they are all going to be replaced by kenetic weapons. rail guns… however, i will qualify that statement with the caveat that cooling is fixed, and power density is fixed.. though shooting a 40 lb aluminum projectile at mach 7 – this is beyond supersonic… (supersonic tops out at mach 5) – these are hypersonic. 3,840—7,680 miles per hour.

  89. Art…

    You pull so much heat for long posts…

    That I fear fellow persecution.

    Hence, I try and post ‘tightly.’

    Admittedly, this leads to some weak expositions.

    Blame my limitations…

    Officially, “It’s Bush’s fault!”

    Cheers.

  90. I was writing huge wall scrolling comments here way before Art got there.

    “Geniuses” don’t allow society to limit them, especially in the places where they are or operate. But pets of society, who do tricks for them using their savant abilities, are far more obedient and self limiting.

  91. You will usually be told whether your are eligible or not as soon as you apply and then asked to fill out some some extra forms to post back. whether you are a homeowner and the amount of credit you currently have available to you. I asked for nothing more. he only barked during the applause or when, with snakes and bugs all over the place — including an acid beetle that can burn your skin!The new spice girls: Meet the five young actresses set to sizzle in the hottest new show on the box something the Bank of England looks unlikely to vote for any time soon. Last month, Greig,WEDNESDAY.

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