Says Texas Congressman John Culberson: "The day will come when they attack us in Houston. I don't know why the terrorists haven't hit us, but it will come."
I hear a lot of speculation about why the terrorists haven't attacked us since 9/11. Generally, Republicans think it's because Bush has done a great job, and Democrats tend to stammer and dig their toe into the ground when the question is asked, reluctantly giving the President partial credit coupled with dire warnings about potential attacks in the future.
I have a different theory. It's not mine, really. It's one former terrorism czar Richard Clarke laid out in his much-ballyhooed memoir.
I think Al Qaeda hasn't attacked again because the United States responded to the 9/11 atrocities exactly as the terrorists hoped, bumbling into unwinnable, interminable wars in the Middle East that would ultimately rile up the Muslim world against us more than any Al Qaeda propaganda ever could have. As Clarke put it, "It was as if Osama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush, chanting 'invade Iraq, you must invade Iraq,' "
By invading both Iraq and Afghanistan - we're presently losing both conflicts - the United States has overextended our military and soured relations with key allies, resulting in recent expansions in power by Hezbollah, the Taliban, Kurdish nationalists, fundamentalist clerics, and other populist forces far outside the control of western interests. In other words, just what our enemies wanted to happen.
So why haven't the terrorists attacked us again? I think it's because President Bush gave them exactly what they wanted. Their goal was never to kill us all, it was to goad America into a foolish, untenable geopolitical scenario, which it has done. If that's true, I doubt we'll see Al Qaeda attack inside the United States again unless America begins to pursue foreign policies less favorable to their interests. Al Qaeda hoped we'd respond to 9/11 by starting World War III, and we're basically a hair trigger away right now from giving them what they wanted, if we're not there already.
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Today all thinking people are watching with great concern the events transpiring in the Mideast. Opinions of all sorts are being tossed around but one thing is for certain we are fast approaching real and total war. We are not losing as stated in this post as we are not really fighting a war but just continuing the same police action therories that caused us to lose in Korea, Vietnam, and now apparatly in Iraq.
I like my liberal friends dread the idea of total world war. But unlike my liberal friends, I realize that war may be forced upon us. There are monsters in the world. Monsters are neither liberal nor conservative they are simply monsters. Hitler, Stalin Pol Pot and Osama are but a few. So is Islam.
How do monsters come to such great power? Again, many opinion fly through the blogs and traditional media. Most will say they gain power thru fear. I would say they rule because of cowardness. Is fear and cowardness the same? Did the fire fighters of NYC feel fear as they tried to ascend the world trade towers to fight the fire while bodies crashed to the earth all around tem? Of course they did. Were they cowards? No. They were heroes. They controlled their fear and entered into what they all certainly knew would be their deaths. Did the marines at Iowa Jima feel fear? Of course, but they controlled their fear and most went to their deaths to stop a monster. Monsters don’t rule by fear, they rule by the cowardness of the populations they rule.
The Civil war was the greatest tragedy to ever befall this great nation. And in essence the out come of the war was decided by only two men. General Lee and General Sherman. General Lee was considered a man of great integrity, honorable above all others. General Sherman was considered a monster by the south and more importantly by his own men. General Sherman was a monster of war. General Lee had given specific orders that no civilians and no civilian property were to be harmed. General Sherman destroyed every thing in site. Homes, crops, civilians, infrastructure, industry. He took the war not only to the soldiers but also to the civilian populous. He starved them, raped the women and killed them. In short he knew how to win a war. He freed the slaves.
In WW2 Patton, MaCarthur, and Eisenhower also were monsters of war. They fire bombed German towns incinerating hundreds of thousands of women and children. They nuked Japan again, incinerating hundreds of thousands in a single act. They knew how to win a war. They took the war to the populous. The people who were more willing to wear the chains of slavery than risk their lives in the quest for freedom.
President Bush after 911 said to the world, “decide either you are with us are you are against us.” And almost as quickly he adopted the liberal and weak policy of avoiding “innocent” deaths at almost any cost. He became like General Lee, a man of great honor. A warrior in the most elevated version. But he like General Lee will in the end, be a looser. The policy that Bush has put us on, the minimal collateral damage theory, will be as it was in Vietnam be a loosing path
If we are to win the war on terrorism, if we are to stop the proliferation of, and control over nuclear weapons, weapons that eventually will be used against us then we must become monsters of war. IslomoNazis are coming for us. They are monsters and, they are monsters of war. They exist because of the cowardness of their populations. If we are to win we must take the war to the cowards who enable the monsters. We must kill them men, women and children. We must starve them men, women and children. We must make their lives so painful, so horrible that they beg us to stop. To them this is a war of religion. To us it is a war of freedom. If we are to continue to enjoy freedom then we must become monsters of war.
Okay, I was reading with interest until Celtictexan said that Muslims are monsters. Do you judge all Christians based on Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who advocate killing dissident foreign leaders, et cetera? No, of course not. The uber-majority of Christians are loving, peaceful people. Christianity teaches tolerance, peace, and love for man. Just because some nut-jobs take that teaching and bastardize it to suit their needs does not make the entire religion responsible. The same goes for Islam. Anyone who actually understands Islam (i.e. has read the Koran) knows it is not a hateful, war-mongering religion.
What a moron.
Celtic, no offense, but as you might expect from someone with a nom de plume of Grits, I won't have Gen. Sherman lauded as any sort of hero on this blog without stern, unyielding rebuff. The only thing you got right was to call him a monster.
A branch of my family was actually burned out by Sherman on their farm in Eastern Mississippi. My great grandfather, whose mother lived through the tragedy, told me at his knee how our family huddled, hiding in a root cellar while Sherman's men torched their home and barn. They listened in terror to their screaming cattle, horses and other animals being engulfed in flames, knowing that if they peeked their heads out they'd be massacred themselves.
When Sherman's men had left, my family resurfaced from the root cellar and, like many thousands of others, hung a sign on the rubble that said "GTT," for Gone To Texas, and began walking west with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
If you think Sherman's model will fix the Middle East, or that the reason the South lost was Lee's "honor," you've really got another think coming. Sherman was a war criminal as surely as any Nazi general.
That said, the Union at least had a goal in the Civil War. Who can say what is the point of the war in Iraq now that Saddam is out of power?
Who are "they" we're supposed to starve and decimate, Celtictexan? The Iraqi people?
If we're going to do that, why not just leave? What's the point?
That said ... uh, Grits ... your Confederate freak flag is showing. You might want to get that checked.
Did Celtictexan really say Bush's problem is that he's too honorable?!
What kind of fantasy world is that?
As a not-american, I do find it fascinating to see how you feel and rhuminate over events like 9/11. My theory on why you havent been attacked again is simple, the terrorists dont need to attack again because of the fever pitch you worked yourself up into AT HOME, right where they wanted to hit you in the first place. You have made America a very unwelcoming place to visit, even towards people who thought they were your friends (my experience of flying to Dallas in March this year was decidedly frosty), and your leaders (along with mine) seem to be pursuing an unobtainable goal of bringing 'democracy' to a people who have survived for centuries without it just fine! Just because they are different to us, doesnt mean their ways are wrong. Bush seems set on converting the whole of the Middle East to western homogeny, when really there are just a few hundred really dangerous people that he should be consentrating on.
Islam is not a monster. Plenty of wars have been fought in the name of Christianity as well. My beliefs are neither. When you start understanding the people you are dealing with and criticising, instead of only seeing that they are not like you and 'should' be, you may actually find that the stereotypes you have been fed by your media are just as damaging as the rest of the world seeing all Americans as either rednecks or filmstars.
Look I am sorry but that Celtictexan guy needs to seek professional help if he thinks Bush is anything remotely like "honorable". GWBush's actions as a person and a president are deplorable.
Islam don't kill people, Islamo-nut job-fascists do.
Please note that my response was not about why they did/do what they continue to do, but what our response should have been
PL1 read carefully. While I might argue the honor or peacefulness, of the religion called Islam, (another time)I didn't say Muslims were monsters, I said that when it comes to war they are monsters. The same as my analogy to Sherman. As in they go all out. Cutting off heads, taking down airliners with women and children on board etc.
Grits I too am fortunate enough to have been born in the best state, in the best country, in the world as a result of Sherman's march, and the carpetbaggers that came afterward. The fact remains that had Lee went into the North in the beginning with the same gusto, and he could have, slavery and the Confederacy might still exist. So too had Sherman "not" gone into the south the way he did. The fact that the cause of the North was in fact Honorable justifies his actions. What would be worse a divided Union and legal slavery or the destruction that finally brought the south to its knees?
While no one commented on the ferocity with which we brought the Axis to their knees the same analogy applies. Would you like to be speaking German today in an all white world?
Anonymous I speak not only of the Iraqi people I speak of all Islam. Non are innocent in 9/11. All who cheered in the streets that day, all who do not use their own forces to stamp out radical Islam, and I use that loosely as all Islam is radical, unless you approve of the treatment of their women, are guilty.
And to say Bush is not honorable is simplistic to an extreme. Again it is another debate but obviously he has not fought the war as I suggest as regardless of what you might say he has in fact tried to minimize civilian casualties while spending billions to try to rebuild their country. That in the ancient gentlemanly way of war is honor. But it is not realistic. When Japan attacked pearl harbor would you have stood by and done nothing. Would you have spent billions trying to get just the ones actually involved? Then bring them here for a trial? Is Japan and Germany better now under democracy?
sunray's wench to say America is an unwelcoming place is ridiculous. I wish in some ways it were perhaps we would not have the hoards of people from all over the world trying to get in here. I can't quote the number of planes that have been crashed by Islam but do you really want to get on a plane that has no security? And most of the troubles you experienced at an airport can be blamed on the ridiculous policy of liberal anti-profiling laws.
"rhuminate over events like 9/11" A very curious statement. You say that as if 3000 lost lives are equivalent to throwing a piece of trash out the window. Perhaps you have they same attitude to Pearl Harbor or the holocaust or Stalins purges. --Just because they are different to us, doesnt mean their ways are wrong.-- perhaps you would apply this to Darfur. You don't say what country you come from but I'm sure it is one in which you have enjoyed the benefits of democracy. It seems that only people from democracies are so ignorant of the monsters in this world. America in a fever pitch? No way. That is exactly what we are not in. We should be, as I stated above killing Islam where ever it exists. We should, as I said before kill them till they beg us to stop. Then we can talk other wise as one of you said we should get out and quit wasting the lives of America's finest as we are doing under the current weak effeminate policies now in effect.
Politicians should decide to go to war but then it should be turned over to the Generals men like Macarthur and Patton and Sherman. And I for one think Islam deserves it.
Celtic: The notion that the South wouldn't have been defeated without Sherman's atrocities makes as much sense as saying the Nazis wouldn't have been defeated without carpet bombing Dresden. Don't glorify aberrant behavior in wartime - it's unbecoming of a great nation.
The common theme of your comments here and on the drug war appears to be that mass murder is the solution to every public policy problem. Or am I missing something?
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/10/video-the-zucker-ad/
I think you should all go to the above link and watch the two videos banned on u-tube as inappropriate. They are very good as far as dipicting past and current policy.
Yep your missing something it's called reality. And I would hardly call executing drug dealers mass murder. The drug dealers themselves are much closer to being mass murders.
I like your blog by the way. I advertise it everywhere I write. It's the best liberal blog I've seen. I admire your prolific but still intelligent (although wrong) and civil output.
Thanks, Celtic. Of course, you want to "execute" drug dealers by bombing their homes without due process! I'd say that pretty much qualifies as advocating mass murder (given how many drug dealers there are), along with these statements here. I appreciate the advertising, though. ;) Best,
celtictexan wrote: sunray's wench to say America is an unwelcoming place is ridiculous.
But you are (I assume) an American, so when you re-enter your country you are not subject to the same scrutiny that others are. You are not a foreigner in your country so you will not have experienced the suspicion and hostility that even WHITE people receive when they visit America. I can only tell you of my own experiences. I am not saying all Americans are unwelcoming (I'm marrying one in December!) but the atmosphere is unwelcoming, and it is not just me who thinks so, outside America.
I did not say I wanted to get on a plane with no security, please dont put words into my mouth. But the inference by America that everyone who boards a plane bound for American airspace has a wish to blow that plane out of the sky OR funds terrorism in some way is in itself threatening to me as I come from the home of the modern justice system and here we are all believed ,still, to be innocent until proved guilty. I object to the American government demanding 34 pieces of information about me before I even leave my own country. I object to the American government having the power to demand that I surrender my passport to them at the American Embassy in London if I apply for a visa, when we are expressly told here that we must NOT give up our passport to anyone. And then they send it back by courier!
celtictexan wrote: "rhuminate over events like 9/11" A very curious statement. You say that as if 3000 lost lives are equivalent to throwing a piece of trash out the window.
Look, I know English English and American English are different, but I fail to see how you reach the conclusion you do from my words. When you rhuminate over something, you consider it for some time from all angles. The main thing that the rest of the world realised after 9/11 is how insular Americans are, and how utterly stunned they were that the rest of the world didnt like them very much.
There is one more point I want to make: most people I talk to here and in other countries apart from America make the distinction between 'America as a country' and individual Americans. Most people I talk to really do like individual Americans, as I do, but we do not like America as a country. You might not see it as a difference, but you must accept that others do.
I think it was Ghandi who said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
To Celtictexan: Your Pearl Harbor-Japan/Germany analogy is deeply flawed. Iraq didn't attack us!!!!!! REALLY!!!!!! We attacked them. You lived here then, right?
Al Quaeda attacked us. It is a criminal organization, not a state entity like Japan or Germany. If another nation attacked us, we'd know who to retaliate against and the goals of war would be clear, but that's not what happened. You'd have us declare war against a whole religion with no clear goal. Not smart.
I agree with your analysis. It's like Osama's playing chess, and Bush is playing checkers. Osama's thinking 15 moves ahead, and all Bush wants to do is get to the end of the row and shout "King me!"
Celtic did not say, at least in the first post, that radical crazy nutjob killer muslims are monsters. He said, speaking of monsters, "Hitler, Stalin Pol Pot and Osama are but a few. So is Islam." Unless Celtic is saying that Islam is "but a few," which would be incoherent, he is saying that Islam is a monster.
Now let's not go crazy by saying that Islam isn't a monster because Christianity starts wars too. That is only an argument that Christianity is also a monster. I wouldn't argue with that, or with Celtic's opinion of Islam, but he can't sidestep his statement. celtictexan says Islam is a monster. he says that the US should attack Islam until it cries for mercy. That is absurd. The US should withdraw its forces from other countries, secure its borders against foreign invasion, and spend a few hours studying its own constitution, which until recently guaranteed the closest thing to freedom ever realized on a national scale.
Celtictexan display precisely the sort of monstrous thinking he so violently opposes in Islam. Maybe celtictexan is ripe for conversion. It's very simple celtic: say "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger." There! All done.
Now get in there and take the island of Iowa Jima, cowardness or bravitude notwithstanding.
--kelly higgins said...
Celtic did not say, at least in the first post, that radical crazy nutjob killer muslims are monsters. He said, speaking of monsters, "Hitler, Stalin Pol Pot and Osama are but a few. So is Islam.--
Islam is a monster! Poverty lawyer said that I called all Muslims monsters. Most Muslims live the life of Islam because to reject Islam is punishable by death. It's in the Koran look it up your self. Most Muslims don't know what we have --the closest thing to freedom ever realized on a national scale.-- They live and support Islam because of cowardice and ignorance as I said in my first post.
Your name suggests that you are a woman. It mystifies me that you seem to think the treatment of women under Islam is not monstrous. Perhaps you don't think a religion that justifies the killing of 3000 Innocent Americans to not be monstrous. And before you say it was just a few radicals, remember the hundreds of thousands in the Mideast in the streets cheering afterwords. I suspect you only get your news from liberal sources so you might be unaware that Osama is now the most popular name for boys born in the Islamic world. Perhaps you would like to go here,
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/berg_killing.zip
and see what Islam does in the name of Allah. Or perhaps "muslimsout.org" might make you proud. It might at least educate you, as you on this subject obviously are not.
--Now let's not go crazy by saying that Islam isn't a monster because Christianity starts wars too.--
Name a war after the Crusades started in the name of Christianity. Not a war that evokes God to be on their side but one in the name of.
--I wouldn't argue with that, or with Celtic's opinion of Islam, but he can't sidestep his statement. celtictexan says Islam is a monster.--
I don't and it is.
--he says that the US should attack Islam until it cries for mercy. That is absurd.--
We should, and your liberal philosophy and cowardice is the only thing absurd.
--The US should withdraw its forces from other countries, secure its borders against foreign invasion,--
This is equivalent to you witnessing a rape or murder, within your power to stop, and doing nothing because its not in your own home.
--and spend a few hours studying its own constitution, which until recently guaranteed the closest thing to freedom ever realized on a national scale.--
You mean these parts?
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
--Celtictexan display precisely the sort of monstrous thinking he so violently opposes in Islam.--
You display the same type of cowardly ill informed liberal mindset that enables the Monsters. People like you are responsible for the 6 million Jews killed in gas chambers in Nazi Germany. The 11 millin killed under Stalins purges. You are responsible for the killing fields of Cambodia. You are responsible for the Islamic murder of the people of Darfur. You, and your head in the sand thinking. You empower the monsters.
--"There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger." There! All done.--
You show some knowledge of the monstrous Islamic philosophy I speak of. I will fight and if need be die first. You will meekly put on your Burka.
--Now get in there and take the island of Iowa Jima, cowardness or bravitude notwithstanding.--
Yeah, go ahead mock the men who gave their lives to give you your freedom to drivel your liberal garbage. It's all I expect from your kind.
10/13/2006 3:17 PM
Name a war after the crusades started by Christianity: World War 2 - Hitler thought the Germans were chosen by God and couched nazism in a deeply Christian rhetoric.
CelticTexan wants us to be the world's cop, but we can't even police our own country. Sorry Celtic, to declare war on a whole religion when only a few criminals are responsible really is "absurd," and there's nothing liberal about saying so.
--Germans were chosen by God and couched nazism in a deeply Christian rhetoric.--
False. Hitler despised the God of the Jews as much as the Jews themselves and yearned for a return to the old Norse beliefs. The swastika is an old norse/aryan/indo european symbol. Read or watch, the occult and the third reich
And I said name one that was in the name of Christianity as in the promotion and forced belief of. Not one that claims God to be on their side.
Just one more thing, I object very strongly indeed to the Norse symbol of the swastika (which celtictexan rightly identified) or anything else Heathen (Northern European traditional pagan religions, of which I follow one small path) being linked with occultism or (and I'll say it first) Satanism. OK?
There is a lot of evidence to support the assertion that Hitler was a Christian. His persecution of the Jews was based on the same ideals as every other religious war: my God is better / more right than your God. He looked to the Germanic hertiage to build an alternative identity for the country that excluded Jews and many others, but that doesnt make him any less Christian for doing it. I've yet to see any evidence to show that Hitler followed Odin.
There is nothing cowardly about not advocating mass annihilation of an entire people.
Oh, and the celts as a people didnt exist either. Its a collective term. Just a fyi.
sunray's wench said...
Just one more thing, I object very strongly indeed to the Norse symbol of the swastika (which celtictexan rightly identified) or anything else Heathen (Northern European traditional pagan religions, of which I follow one small path) being linked with occultism or (and I'll say it first) Satanism. OK?
First of all in know way did I link the Swastika, or the following of traditional European faiths to Satanism. I particularly respect the old Norse theologies. How ever your objection to the word occultism which is defined as belief in the existence of secret, mysterious, or supernatural agencies, to be somewhat odd. Do you mind if I ask what you do follow.
There is a lot of evidence to support the assertion that Hitler was a Christian. His persecution of the Jews was based on the same ideals as every other religious war: my God is better / more right than your God.
There is no evidence that Hitler was anything but an atheist. He did use the church as a tool for control to some small degree and he also was wary of the church as an impediment to his grab for power. For instance Hitlers first efforts toward purification of the race involved the killing of retarded, deformed, insane, etc. citizens of Germany. Only the objections of the church stopped him. Your assertions about the Jews are so far off base that I won't even try to explain it. Look into it yourself. It starts when Jesus drove the money changers (loan sharks) out of the temple.
He looked to the Germanic hertiage to build an alternative identity for the country that excluded Jews and many others, but that doesnt make him any less Christian for doing it. I've yet to see any evidence to show that Hitler followed Odin.
Again Hitler was an atheist, he only used religion as a tool of control. While he did not follow Asatru or any other version of it he was fascinated by it. Richard Wagner was his favorite composer. He did, as you correctly identify use it to build an alternative identity, or more accurately encourage a warrior mentality.
There is nothing cowardly about not advocating mass annihilation of an entire people.
But there is something cowardly about not stopping a monster like Hitler from committing mass annihilation of an entire people or any other unjust crime. Back to the rape/murder across the street analogy.
Oh, and the celts as a people didnt exist either. Its a collective term. Just a fyi.
I said nothing about the Celts. I said," Norse/Aryan/Indo-European.
Still I would debate the Celts or, Keltoi issue, but instead I'll send you here
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