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Defining the Conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (Update)
Here's a fun project for the readership. This should keep you busy through the weekend. I was reading a book chapter by Stathis Kalyvas (.pdf) and came across his definition of civil war, which will be familiar to those of you who have read this book:
Civil war can be defined as armed combat taking place within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign entity between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities.
This got me thinking about Afghanistan and whether or not we can define the conflict in Afghanistan as a civil war. Words like "authority" and "sovereign" seem to me to be in need of exploration (assuming we agree with the definition offered by Kalyvas). Even "outset" is tricky. That in turn got me thinking about Iraq as well. How would we describe the conflict there? Maybe we would say "conflict" is the wrong word and that "political violence" is more appropriate. I don't know myself, but I am interested in the thoughts of the readership.
Update: So I asked a serious social sciency question related to current wars for the readership to mull over the weekend, and I get ... a bunch of inane crap about the mosque they want to build in the old Burlington Coat Factory in Manhattan. Thanks, gang.
Can we included in the
Can we included in the definition of 'parties', the Bacha Bazi parties popular with the rank and file AND also the higher ups of Afghan security forces?
"Like a fraternity, this
"Like a fraternity, this class requires above all comity -- being in with the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side, and joining in despising the Outs. Once an official or professional shows that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths, and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members, "
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/
Well, if we date the outset
Well, if we date the outset (or onset) of hostilities in Iraq from the American invasion in 2003 (or the de facto protectorate over Iraqi Kurdistan beginning in 1991), and that of the onset of Afghan hostilities from the Soviet invasion in 1979, this definition seems perfectly sound to me.
In each case, the proximate cause of hostilities was intervention of a foreign force: in the first case to overthrow central authority previously able and willing to obliterate active domestic opposition, in the second to tip the scale to one of several factions contending for control of the Afghan government. However, in each case the great majority of deaths and injuries were the result of Iraqis and Afghans, respectively, striking at one another. In each case, therefore, use of the phrase "civil war" to describe much of the violence is appropriate.
I suppose this need not mean that all Iraqis, or all Afghans, would choose this label. The planting of a car bomb in Baghdad or massacre of some farmers suspected of talking to the government in Kabul might well be directly motivated by more immediate objectives than a vision for the country's future government: vengeance, avarice, simple bloody-mindedness. In Colombia, endless civil strife in the last century came to be known simply as La Violencia. If that phrase has an Arabic or Pashto equivalent, people in Iraq and Afghanistan might well prefer it to a phrase like "civil war" if they thought the latter implied conflict between two sides who knew their ultimate objectives and had realistic changes of attaining them.
http://spectator.org/archives
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/1
Plain and simple, it's
Plain and simple, it's tribal warfare reaching back over centuries. Particularly in Afghanistan, I don't believe the concept of central government is a mindset that would even allow 'civil' war to describe what is happening there currently. Walk a ridgeline, drop down into the next valley and values, mores and community standards may be a world apart from the village you humped through six hours earlier. Tribal divisions even divide what many people believe is a uniform Taliban.
Iraq is another story, but civil warlike only in the fact that a limited number of Islamic sects are trying to gain the upper hand. The concept of central government, thanks to Saddam Hussein, is easier for the Iraqis to get their heads around.
@ Twitter snarks, "RT
@ Twitter snarks,
"RT @Katulis: we just spent $1 trillion & fought wars for "freedom" in heart of Muslim world, yet we debate where mosques can go in US ..."
"Call it the BCF mosque."
I hope BCF sues and breaks your CNA$$es.
You are snarking about our sacred f*cking dead. 800 of whom no trace - not any DNA at all - was found. So they don't in any sense get buried. Their grave is that hole. WTF is wrong with you Exum? This isn't smart assery. It's sadistic and pathological.
It's coming out that he's radical, and it gets closer and closer to: he's all the way in the AQ corner, except he works by subversion instead of deeds.
Are we going to get some kind of apology or retraction if Steven Emerson and so many others are right about Rauf?
Not that the sheer insult of allowing rapists to masturbate at the scene of the rape shouldn't have tipped you off.
It's a Victory Mosque. Which don't worry - probably won't get built, and will certainly be desecrated (rightly) and destroyed by the locals.
You're making yourself a dead ender BTW. These remarks will follow you forever. And the Academic Gravy train won't give you a ticket if your contraversial.
I hope the Jihadi Iman was worth it. This is like defending Abu Hamza.
These definitions of civil
These definitions of civil wars are fun to analyze, until 5000 + of our people are killed there.
Isolationism is a dirty word, especially to globalists at CNA$, but I don't give a shit about how the wars in Iraq and Astan are defined. We have no business being in either country, yes, Astan too. We have been there far too long. 9/11 was almost 10 years ago, we fucked up and failed to kill the people who attacked us on that day and have settled into wog bashing and road building.
Both are expensive and fruitless.
"we just spent $1 trillion &
"we just spent $1 trillion & fought wars for "freedom" in heart of Muslim world, yet we debate where mosques can go in US"
We spent over a trillion dollars and fought wars for "freedom" in the heart of the Muslim world, so these backward, breast suckling, stone throwing, wife pissin' idiots stay in the Muslim world, not so they can build mosques all over the U.S. of A.
Whose team are you on, Ex?
I agree with Zathras.
I agree with Zathras. Afghanistan was externally sovereign, recognized by the international community. Internally, there was a common authority from the 1930s to the 1970s. It surely depends on how you define authority, though. As far as I remember, authority does not necessarily mean that you completely control the state territory. It's just that all parties accept the central government as being legitimate and responsible for certain public goods. That was probably the case before the 70s troubles began.
Kalyvas' book is great and offers a lot of useful insights, even if AFG and Iraq would not completely fit this definition of civil war. ;-)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/21/sweden.wikileaks.charge/index...
Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- The founder and editor of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been charged in Sweden with rape and molestation, a spokeswoman for the Swedish prosecutor's office told CNN Saturday.
Spokeswoman Karin Rosander said the charges were filed Friday night in relation to two separate instances, but she didn't have more detail about when the alleged crimes occurred or who the alleged victims are.''
===============================================
HAH HAH HA HAH ROFLMAO
If he did it, it's great.
If we burned him, it's better.
Dirty Jerzey at 11:44 P.M.:
Dirty Jerzey at 11:44 P.M.:
"You are snarking about our sacred f*cking dead. 800 of whom no trace - not any DNA at all - was found. So they don't in any sense get buried. Their grave is that hole."
So are their lives worth more than anyone else's?
I was one of the poor
I was one of the poor bastards who had to define the nature of the conflict in Iraq back in 2005 and 2006. "Civil War" was anathema because commanders, diplomats, politicians (much less Iraqi combatants) either were uninterested in defining their terms, were certain of their own personal but inconsistent definitions, or preferred a definition which suited their objectives. So of course the war in Iraq was a Civil War... but it wasn’t one at all...
I got sick of the debate, so when asked, and often unprompted, I tried to define the conflict(s) in terms of end-states with the crazy idea that understanding our end-states would enhance our planning. The various definitions of civil war I've seen or heard used (when defined at all) are neutral on the topic of participant end-states.
I was also writing and briefing for Commanders and Staff pukes. Endless discussions on definitions were not at all popular with exhausted majors and befuddled Colonels who had operations to plan and conduct. As a result I tried to keep my definitions simple, but hopefully not simplistic.
Iraq was, and still is, experiencing two revolutions , a counter-revolution, and two separatist/independence movements.
I defined revolution as an attempted overthrow of the existing or historical order with-in the borders of the country (recognized sovereign entity). Our first bunch of revolutionaries were the Takfiris/Salafist/Sunni Islamic Terrorists such as AQI, Ansar al Sunna and their fellow travelers who wished to establish a Caliphate in Iraq. They were against both the previous Baathist Order and the emerging Shi'a dominated/US supported government. The second bunch of revolutionaries were the Shi'a. By 2005 the Shi'a revolution was won, but far from over. The sectarian cleansing of Sunnis which became impossible to ignore after the Golden Mosque bombing was an expression of this revolution. Shi'a militias such as Jaish al Mahdi and Badr Corps wanted to make absolutely certain that Sunnis would never be a danger to them again.
The counter-revolutionaries where the former Baathists and Sunni Arab groups that wanted to re-establish Sunni Arab dominated control of Iraq. These are the guys who ended up becoming receptive to reconciliation once it was clear to them that the good old days weren't coming back any time in this generation.
I defined separatist movement as an attempt to establish or gain recognition for a new country or political entity within the existing borders. Kurds and certain Shi'a Arab factions in the south seeking greater autonomy or even independence from Baghdad.
There are two conflicts categories I left out. 1) Wealth-seeking or opportunistic violence such as kidnapping for ransom and 2) Anti-American violence. I left these out because the desired end-states of personal wealth and America out of Iraq were so universal as to be useless for the purposes of distinguishing between combatant strategic objectives.
On to Afghanistan. As with Iraq, getting rich and foreigners out of the country are shared visions by virtually all of the armed actors. I think the real dichotomy of strategic end-states is between those armed actors who want to run the country and those who just want to be left the f%^$ alone. The Taliban and the Central Government in Kabul are in the first category, but in obvious opposition. Just about every other Afghani armed faction fits into the second category. The Taliban are willing to accommodate this vision in the short-run in order to enhance their combat power. The Karzai Government on the other hand is not so accommodating and, as a result, support for the Taliban is still strong.
Ah, a Lewis Carroll citation
Ah, a Lewis Carroll citation seems most appopriate. Alas, I'm not a collector of such gems. The key question, it seems to me, is whether the words (like assumptions, see Milton Friedman, On the Methodology of Positivist Economics, circa 1953?, which I also have not read but have seen cited enough to grasp (what I think is) its main point) gain you analytic traction. Can you disagree with Kalyvas in re this one quote but still use his ideas to understand what happened/is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan?
But undertake the academia enterprise. A recognized sovereign entity? When? 1979? Post-propping up of Karzai? Between parties subject to a common authority? I'm no expert, but didn't new groups emerge between now and 1979, and maybe 2010, or maybe even "just" 1979 and 2001 ("what an unlucky country")? Does Kalyvas even take this phenomenon into account? I'd say Kalyas's definition renders the defining of Afghanistan as a civil war highly problematic - or perhaps more accurately, the civil war in Afghanistan renders Kalyvas's definition highly problematic - but I imagine one could use his ideas quite usefully to understand what is going on there.
ADTS
So its rape and molestation
So its rape and molestation charges now. Honest to god, we should take our entire intelligence services and rebuild them from the ground up. They could recruit from Special Education classes and end up with a more capable service.
At least the Brittish politely wound down their empire. We seem intent to make sure we look like asses on the way out.
@ V 906, "So are their lives
@ V 906,
"So are their lives worth more than anyone else's?"
1) Yes. To me. Probably to a lot of people around here.
2) But they're dead, so the question is what is the purpose of gloating over the grave?
3) What's your point? Where are you going with this? Moral relativism I suppose....
Well you do know this
Well you do know this Wiki-lester thing has the signature of Chicago and Rahmbo all over it....it's a pattern. Think Massa..
And I wonder who fixed it with the Swedes? Sec State perhaps....
Afghan was stable, not a
Afghan was stable, not a tribal war zone, from 1930 onwards. It was only when the Soviets and the Americans began to use it as a Cold War proxy theater in the 1970s that the downward spiral into violence began.
The Soviet Union at the time was simply another empire out to secure satellite nations for its own domestic benefit. If you look at Soviet activities in Warsaw Pact countries, you see the same pattern - economies rigged to serve the interests of the Soviet State, just as the economies of many developing nations have been rigged by the IMF to serve the interests of Wall Street and London. The question was, who was going to control Afghanistan? The Soviets and the U.S. then began dumping billions into the conflict, with the U.S. relying heavily on a Saudi-Pakistani link that lead directly to the proto-Taliban and Osama bin Laden via Saud Prince Turki and the Pakistani ISI. Remants of these links still existed, and played important roles in financing 9/11, the Cole attacks, and currently, Taliban fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The "civil war" in Afghanistan can be thought of as the period from the early 1990s (when the U.S. dropped all support) to the late 1990s, by which time Pakistan and the Saudis had thrown their weight behind the Taliban, with apparent U.S. support. Don't believe it? Try this:
Now, let's go back to say Sept 1996, courtesy Ghost Wars, Steve Coll:
Massoud sounded skeptical about the CIA's request for this meeting.The agency had ignored what Massoud and his men saw as the rising threat posed by the radical Taliban. There were some in Massoud's circle who suspected that the CIA had secretly passed money and guns to the Taliban. America had been a friend to Massoud over the years, but a fickle friend."
What of these radical Taliban, c. 1996?
They traveled behind white banners raised in the name of an unusually severe school of Islam that promoted lengthy and bizarre rules of personal conduct. . . The Taliban traveled in shiny new Toyota double-cab pickup trucks. They carried fresh weapons and ample ammunition. Mysteriously, they repaired and flew former Soviet fighter aircraft, despite only rudimentary military experience among their leaders.
What of the rekindled U.S. interest?
"Look, we're here." Schroen said. "We want to reopen the relationship. The United States is becoming more and more interested in Afghanistan."
Why the interest See Lutz Kleveman, "The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia."
www.newgreatgame.com
Unocal was actively seeking a pipeline route across Afghanistan to export Tengiz gas & oil etc., and the CIA was acting as a go-between for drumming up local government support. All evidence indicates that they decided (with some push from Saudi and Gulf Arab interests) to support the Taliban, not Massoud, and hence Pakistani ISI officers were allowed to lead Taliban forces against Kabul.
At the same time, Osama bin Laden had just entered the country in May 1996, on his own private jet. Saudi Arabia had already stripped him of citizenship, and Sudan had expelled him, but he was not yet being hunted day and night - hence, the private jet. Unocal and the CIA and the US State Department were not talking to OBL, but to 'moderate Taliban' who were in direct contact with OBL.
Now, this explains why the U.S. gave $43 million in aid to the Taliban in May 2001, doesn't it? Part of a package aimed at gaining support for the pipeline deal - this was pre-9/11, of course. They claimed it was to "stop the famine" - you think they'd do the same for, say, Cuba?
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/
The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row.
Protecting American citizens and hunting down terrorists takes a backseat when juicy oil contracts are on the table, says the State Department, which is packed with corporate slobs looking for payoffs from Wall Street for getting the sweetest concessions for them - but then, isn't the Pentagon rather similar? BearingPoint and the like really run the show.
"But we must kill them - we must incinerate them - goat after goat, camel after camel, village after village, army after army - and they call me an assassin? What do you call it when the assassins accuse the assassin? They lie - and we have to be merciful to those who lie, those nabobs. . . . I hate them. I do hate them." - Col. Kurtz
What's a nabob, you ask?
1. A Muslim official or governor under the Mogul empire.
2. A person of conspicuous wealth or high status.
"The real battle for
"The real battle for religious freedom lurks beneath the Ground Zero mosque controversy. It is sadly ironic that our public debate presents the mosque proponents as the partisans of liberty: That includes everyone from imam Feisal Rauf, the project’s sharia-touting sponsor, to President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, and the rest of the Islamist-smitten Left, to the GOP’s own anti-anti-terrorist wing. Yet, wittingly or not, when they champion this mosque and its sponsors, it is the agenda of an alien and authoritarian Islam that they champion — an Islam against which many American Muslims chafe."....
" By contrast, American Muslims grasp that 9/11 was an attack on their country, too. Their emerging leaders, such as Zuhdi Jasser and Steven Schwartz, have started organizations — respectively, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the Center for Islamic Pluralism — that promote freedom and offer Muslims an escape from the Brotherhood’s clutches. As Messrs. Jasser and Schwartz relate, American Muslims understand the significance of Ground Zero to our nation, to the families of those who were slaughtered, and to the enemy against whom we are still fighting. They know that, in contrast to the innate intolerance of sharia states, the United States opens its arms to people of all faiths, including Muslims. Like Ms. Manji, they are struggling, against daunting opposition, to forge an Islam that embraces Western values, that reveres religious faith but denies it temporal authority.
The Ground Zero mosque controversy is not about religious liberty for Muslims. It is about which Islam will thrive in the United States: the one that is fighting Americans, or the one American Muslims are fighting for."
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244349/which-islam-will-prevail-a...
The mosque story is
The mosque story is political fluff aimed at the upcoming U.S. election. I think you wanted yourself a Willie Horton , DJ Rove, not a whole religion! Eyes full o' pie, that's our Rove, but he always bites off more than he can chew. You needed an Islamic rapist-murdered who was released on parole by a bleeding heart liberal, Rove... tut tut. Losing it.
P.S. on the WikiPropaganda "back in the headlines" scandal:
Hmm... recall when Human Rights Watch ran into a problem with pro-Nazi memorabilia?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article70764...
By day, Marc Garlasco was HRW’s only military expert, the person that its Emergencies Division would send to conflict zones to investigate alleged war crimes.
He was a Defense Intelligence Agency employee from 1997-2003, then joined HRW. However, he had some secretive interests...
A lavishly illustrated $100 book he compiled and self-published is dedicated to his grandfather, who served in the Luftwaffe. On members-only sites such as Wehrmachtawards.com he was writing comments like “VERY nice Hitler signature selection”; “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”
His key contribution at Human Rights Watch was a major effort to blame Russia for Georgia's invasion of Ossetia. His prior attacks on Israel were probably necessary for 'credibility' purposes - or for personal reasons - but chances are, he reported to people like Furlong (private spy contracts in Pakistan - administered by Lockheed?) as well as his Human Rights Watch bosses.
Yes, the U.S. government uses such organizations for PR purposes from time to time, when it can - the neocons in particular loved this approach. The hidden hand - that's why they call Cheney "Backseat." (Rumsfeld's secret nickname is "Narcissus")
Julian Assange seems to fall into the same category, huh? It would be entirely unsurprising to find out he has a government or corporate intelligence background. The out-of-control private intelligence explosion has created many such false fronts for propaganda purposes. Indeed, it would also be unsurprising if Julian Assange was found to be the initiator of this story - he's back in the headlines, isn't he?
Seriously, Wikileaks has all the hallmarks of a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign, one in its earlier stages. The goal is to create a "news outlet" to feed stories to the press - one that regularly makes headlines - and that's a marketable commodity. There are already a few such contract-based "news outlets" in operation, secretly financed by philanthropic foundations or black intelligence budgets.
Take a look, in case you think they wouldn't try something like this:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197562/MI6-chief-blows-cover-wifes-Facebook-account-reveals-family-holidays-showbiz-friends-links-David-Irving.html
And it revealed that the intelligence chief's brother-in-law - who holidayed with him last month - is an associate of the *controversial Right-wing historian David Irving.
*controversial as in "the Holocaust didn't happen, and the Nazis had good ideas."
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/v
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/video?id=7617707
"Instead of granting this simple request, Disney dragged its feet forcing Imane to take her scarf off when arriving at work," said Ameena Qazi, a staff attorney at the Council on American Islamic Relations.
===================
CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) was formed in 1994 by the Brotherhood’s Hamas-support wing, with seed money from an Islamic “charity” — the Holy Land Foundation — later shut down for financing foreign terrorist organizations. These Muslim Brotherhood satellites purport to speak for American Muslims. In fact, they speak for anti-American Muslims, most of whom are outside the United States. They demagogued the case as a phobic criminalization of Islam itself, just as they have libeled America since 9/11 as being “at war with Islam.”
http://files.intellicontact.c
http://files.intellicontact.com/00/03/11/00031155/322084b80ffe460c987a47...
http://images.newsphotos.com.
http://images.newsphotos.com.au/images2/Lores/20333209.jpg
Rabbi Menachem Stern's
Rabbi Menachem Stern's stringy brown beard is hardly an unusual sight in his Brooklyn neighborhood. But in trying to become a chaplain in the U.S. Army, Mr. Stern has gotten tangled in a military bureaucracy that has made exceptions for other beards, but not his.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870379180457543959127446136...
Public: Where's the
Public: Where's the separation of state and religion here?
Private: Private enterprise should be able to dictate whether they want religious symbols in their place of business.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7092768.ece
The 26-year-old died when her headscarf became entangled in the wheel of the go-kart and tightened around her neck during a family day out at Port Stephens
"Public: Where's the
"Public: Where's the separation of state and religion here?"
It's not in the Constitution. It's in a letter sent later by Thomas Jefferson.
Now if you don't want State religion, or a religion proscribed by the State - it's the First Amendment.
This is political activity and mischief (Fitna) directed at NYC and America. And it's being done by people who have a stated aim of establishing Sharia Compliant Law, to include working it into US Laws. They're called the Cordoba Foundation, and the Sharia initiative is called the Sharia Index Program (SIP) - which began in 2006 with the intent of grading how Sharia compliant countries Laws are. Rauf has been working on it for years.
Oh and yes it's a brazen statement of Victory at the site of what was indeed the Takfiri Muslims greatest victory, over the Great Satan.
To answer your question again: "Public: Where's the separation of state and religion here?" A: In Sharia, none.
And their is no "private" in this version of Islam.
Hijab women always ask us
Hijab women always ask us why we have the sign: "No Hijabs Allowed".
And they always say, "Are you guys racist or hate Islam?"
And we always just say, "No, that rule is there to save you life."
This is WHY we should
This is WHY we should aligned with Syria, not the Gulf States:
http://www.abigmessage.com/syria-quietly-bans-the-burqa-and-the-nijab-in...
Bassam Kadi, director of the Syrian Women Observatory, referring to the niqab, said: “It’s an imported symbol of religious extremism and contradicts the moderate Islam we know here. If [a woman] wears a niqab, she is forcing an attitude on society. She is making a statement. That is not acceptable in a school”. Bassam Kadi was explaining why he did not take up the cause of those female teachers who were fired and who approached his organization for help.
(There're also more men wearing capri length dishdashas, the Salafi movement is spreading, we should support Syria)
Hell support Syria as
Hell support Syria as well....
Let's get some options here!!
As far as downtown, it's our mess, we'll clean it up.
I don't see it getting built. Listen to the people, DC. For one thing the Hard Hats are all taking a pledge not to lift a finger.
For another - those guys were the ones who cleaned out the hole, along with cops and firemen, and locals.
The Govt master plan was GTFO of their way.
And if it does somehow get built.....sometimes you get what you're begging for.
DJ at 10:34 A.M.: "What's
DJ at 10:34 A.M.:
"What's your point? Where are you going with this? Moral relativism I suppose...."
My concern is with the use by some of the words "sacred" or "hallowed" to describe the WTC site and/or the victims of the attack. The use of such words in this fashion is not consistent with a number of tenets of Christianity.
Do you believe that a person has the ability to determine the relative worth of the lives of other people?
Can the worth of a person killed by a drunk driver in Alabama be accurately compared to the worth of a person killed by a drunk driver in Kansas?
To rephrase my question at 9:06 A.M. to avoid any misunderstanding concerning moral relativism:
So the lives of the victims are worth more than the lives of any other American?
Like Korea and all US wars
Like Korea and all US wars since, Iraq and Afghanistan are civil wars - American civil wars.
That is, the most powerful and important forces on both sides are entirely American in nature. On one side is the American ruling class (as so helpfully defined by Professor Codevilla, linked above), and on the other its kulak or peasant class - a symbol of which is Sarah Palin. The result is always the same: Sarah Palin gets thrown through a plate-glass window. That this happens in a foreign country, with actual US soldiers fighting on only one side, still does not make it anything but what it is: a contest for political authority in Washington, DC.
Consider, for instance, the bizarre trial-by-press of General Lavelle. (The Wikipedia entry is actually quite good.) What gave the liberal establishment of 1971 such a solicitous concern for the civil rights of North-Vietnamese SAM batteries?
The conclusion is simple - without the CFR on its side, the North Vietnamese air-defense network would have ceased to exist, permanently, about twelve hours after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Extraordinary measures had to be taken. They were taken, continuity be damned. Winning is more important than continuity. And the American establishment, New Left and Old, was most certainly the winner in the Vietnam War. The losers? The last of the old WWII-era American "securocrats" - LeMay, Rickover, and the like.
A guerrilla war is always a theater piece. If the combatants fight by the same rules and are equally competent, the government will always win - that's what makes it a government. What creates guerrilla war? Incompetence and/or treason - the two being very difficult to distinguish. This explains the success rate of guerrilla movements against Communism - something like 1 for 47 (the 1 being Afghanistan). The British and French Empires in their day, of course, were even more effective.
Another way to say this is that, without assistance from some faction within the formal government, the rebels will always lose. You'll note that it was impossible to throw a stone in Manhattan or on the Hill without hitting a friend of Uncle Joe in the '40s, Mao and Fidel in the '50s, or Uncle Ho in the '60s. Thus, these wars are best understood as American civil wars. The active ingredient is the influential American sympathizer; the ragged, ignorant guerrilla is always replaceable. An interchangeable part - like a gun. When A shoots B with gun G, the student of history does not say: G shot B. (He leaves this task to the New York Times.)
Therefore, every pilot who was shot down and tortured, killed, etc, was more or less tortured, killed, etc, by Ted Kennedy. Or, if you prefer, David Rockefeller. Their little brown brothers in the black pajamas were just incidental tools, of no importance whatsoever, quickly forgotten as soon as the Rockefeller machine could take down Nixon and his incredibly-dangerous "silent majority."
And the kulaks, being natural bitches, rolled over and took it. McCarthy is given a kangaroo hearing, banned in the press, and shortly thereafter dies of a mysterious illness, slanderously described as alcoholism, in Bethesda Naval Hospital. Which happens to be the same hospital that Forrestal went out the window of, ten years earlier - right before he was planning to buy the New York Sun, and turn it into an anti-Communist organ. McCain, tortured in Uncle Ho's camps, later became an honored colleague of Sen. Kennedy himself. His body survived the Hanoi Hilton, as did his mind - I'm not so clear about his testicles. The "Reagan Revolution" amounted, in practice, to the second coming of Nelson Rockefeller. And the kulaks, being natural bitches, rolled over and took it... in the '50s, in the '60s, in the '70s, in the '80s, and on and on and on.
Even now, all their "antigovernment rage" amounts to no more than an odd pushing sensation in the lower back. "Also, doctor, I keep finding little streaks of blood in my stool." Obviously, it couldn't be that your Stockholm Syndrome master in DC is bending you over a chair every five minutes, for the benefit of every Bacha-Bazi lech in the Hindu Kush. Or if it is, the anesthesia has only just started to wear off!
No - the American kulak simply can't handle the truth. He certainly can't handle the fact that the only reason we face an insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the rules of engagement, enforced by witch-hunting campaigns in the NGO and press world, require it. I suspect that sImply by declaring martial law and rolling back all doctrine to its own field manuals as of 1940, the US military could eradicate the Taliban within months. Note that even trying this experiment would require more or less the complete eradication of the American Left.
Therefore, it will not be performed. The parallel to Vietnam is uncanny - with President Obama in the LBJ role. Why does history rhyme? Because when shit happens for a reason, that shit easily can happen again.
Some day, though, a real rain will come and sweep all this scum off the streets. Our present political situation certainly looks a lot like the late days of the Roman Republic. Sarah Palin, alas, seems more our Clodius than our Caesar. But wouldn't Mattis, McChrystal and Erik Prince make a heck of a triumvirate?
I see why we didn't progress
I see why we didn't progress much the last few years, except by the military. When it was fighting.
This is the Takfiri Mecca (they can't go home). That and a gloating triumph. The prophet did not build a mosque overlooking the mass grave of the Quarysh he ordered killed. Umar did not enter the Temple of Jerusalem. They would have found it unseemly. Of course that was a different breed.
The answer is the Loyal and decent Muslims must declare the Jihadi here as "Takfiri" outcasts and apostates, and then cast them out. None to gently, as it's not a matter for being gentle.
Or the Muslims risk the American People (forget this hapless government) casting all out. Remember these same hard hats that are refusing to build it spontaneously rioted by the many thousands in 1970 against a hippie peace sit in. Ironically the initial wave came running over from the WTC Construction site.
This is a lot more serious than a peace protest. And the Hard Hats have nationwide pissed off backup.
Your choice. I would make up my mind fast.
Elf, What are you talking
Elf,
What are you talking about a hippie peace sit in and a wave running into the WTC? I was born in the 80s, I don't know what you're talking about and google of hippie peace sit in's running into the WTC yield nothing.
To even be discussing the
To even be discussing the mosque is asinine. To the best of my knowledge, the constitution gives them the right to build their mosque. If people want to throw Salmonella-laced eggs t it later, then so be it.
Once you go down the road to dictating who can build what where, then you are just a pale, shriveled imitation of an American resembling a piece of shit.
B.T.W. it's two blocks from ground zero. Would it make a difference if it were three? How many blocks does it have to be?
"At 7:30 a.m. on May 8,
"At 7:30 a.m. on May 8, several hundred anti-war protesters (most of them high school and college students) began holding a memorial at Broad and Wall Streets for the four dead students at Kent State. By late morning, the protesters—now numbering more than a thousand—had moved to the steps of Federal Hall, gathering in front of the statue of George Washington which tops the steps. The protesters demanded an end to the war in Vietnam and Cambodia, the release of "political prisoners" in the United States, and an end to military-related research on all university campuses.[2][5][6]
At five minutes to noon, about 200 construction workers converged on the student rally at Federal Hall from four directions. Nearly all the construction workers carried American flags. Their numbers may have been doubled by a number of other counter-protesters who had joined them as they marched toward Federal Hall. A thin line of police formed to separate the construction workers from the anti-war protesters. At first, the construction workers only pushed but did not break through the police line. After two minutes, however, the workers broke through the police line and began chasing students through the streets. The workers pursued those with the longest hair and beat several severely. Attorneys, bankers and investment analysts from nearby Wall Street investment firms tried to protect many of the students but were themselves attacked. Onlookers reported that the police stood by and did nothing.[2][5][6]
Some of the construction workers and counter-protesters moved across City Hall Park toward New York City Hall. They mounted the steps, planted their flags at the top of the steps, then attempted to gain entrance to City Hall. Police on duty at City Hall initially barred them, but soon the mob pushed past these guards. A few workers entered the building. A postal worker rushed onto the roof of City Hall and raised the American flag there to full mast. When city workers lowered the flag back down to half-mast, a large number of construction workers stormed past the police. Deputy Mayor Richard Aurelio, fearing the building would be overrun by the mob, ordered city workers to raise the flag back to full mast.[3][2][5][6]
Rioting construction workers also attacked buildings near City Hall. They ripped the Red Cross and Episcopal Church flags down from a flag pole at nearby Trinity Church. Then they stormed two buildings at nearby Pace University, breaking windows and beating students with clubs and crowbars.[3][2][5][6]
More than 70 people were injured, including four policemen. None of the injuries were severe, although most of the injured required hospital treatment. Only six people were arrested.[3][2"
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Hard+Hat+riot
They were joined by workers
They were joined by workers from the nearby WTC site under construction.
"a pale, shriveled imitation
"a pale, shriveled imitation of an American resembling a piece of shit."
Yes that's the point of building it there. To let us know what we've become. And how we fit in.
At least if the worst happens, we'll be Lorded over by men, instead of BOBO's.
"Lorded over?" You are one
"Lorded over?"
You are one pathetic pussy.
Elf: you need to get laid,
Elf: you need to get laid, man. Preferably by a Muslim hijab wearing woman.
or Ahmed, the smelly guy
or Ahmed, the smelly guy from 7Eleven.
Visitor on GZ Victory Mosque
Visitor on GZ Victory Mosque at 2:39 P.M.
"And it's being done by people who have a stated aim of establishing Sharia Compliant Law, to include working it into US Laws. They're called the Cordoba Foundation, and the Sharia initiative is called the Sharia Index Program (SIP) - which began in 2006 with the intent of grading how Sharia compliant countries Laws are."
Could you explain how Sharia Law can be worked in US Laws?
Abu M,you been vectored in
Abu M,you been vectored in some bot that targets trolls.
Elf, you thinking with your emotions again. You dont see how thisplays out in the rest of the world. The imam of the projet was hired by GWB to ounterAQ propaganda. And now he is the enemy for not being Pc about Hamas? Do you seriously want to equate Sufis with AQ, making the transition from religious to agressive that much easier? You guys are recruiting for AQ. gtf.
"Lorded over by real men". Im so looking foward to the Iranian/Pakistani combined fleet trying to enter the Med.
"Lorded over by real
"Lorded over by real men"
You watch too much "Lord of the Rings" and play a little too much "Dungeons and Dragons", go out and try to get laid, my friend. A woman's vagina will do wonders to your over all world view.
Thanks for all the free and
Thanks for all the free and utterly wrong pyschobabble.
I'll deal with the serious points by Fnord and Visitor Shariah Curious below...
Re sharia, even Lee Smith
Re sharia, even Lee Smith gets this one: http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/42898/lawless/comment-page-2/...
@Fnord, You've been
@Fnord,
You've been suckered. He's not any kind of peaceful Sufi. He's Muslim Brotherhood second generation, Al-Azar U alumni (which is the Harvard for Jihadis) and about to be exposed defending Wahhabism. Then there's the "America was a co-conspirator for 9/11" remark shortly after it happened. And yes Radical ties going back to the 80's, to include HAMAS (which was run operationally of course from the USA for years). ISNA, MSA, CAIR all of which are suspected by the US Government, and have been repeatedly exposed by the Press here. CAIR has also been named an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the HAMAS operatives and fundraisers the Feds sent to prison.
And yes they're (ISNA, MSA, CAIR) consulted by and often supported by the USG. Which BTW is paying for Rauf's current junket wherever he's traveling low key in the PACRIM. As we speak. Whereabouts unknown.
I don't know what my govt is up to, take your pick. You can probably bet on two things: 1) DoS is being treacherous, and 2) incompetence.
The actual Sufi Iman around here (across the river in Jersey City - where WTC 1 plot and Blind sheik posse enterprises were hatched) warned Congress at risk of his life in 1997 that there were very bad people in his community and if Congress didn't act (it didn't and hasn't) that something terrible was going to happen (it did).
========
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/testimony/2.pdf
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1669&wit_id=4792 (4 of 8)11/18/2005 5:43:11 PM
http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1669&wit_id=4792
"Singapore’s main newspaper recently published an interview with Sheik Muhammad
Hisham Kabbani, the Lebanese-American chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of
America and a distinguished Islamic scholar: “Back in 1990, arriving for his first Friday
prayers in an American mosque in Jersey City, he was shocked to hear Wahhabism being
preached. ‘What I heard there, I had never heard in my native Lebanon. I asked myself: Is
Wahhabism active in America? So I started my research. Whichever mosque I went to, it
was Wahhabi, Wahhabi, Wahhabi,Wahhabi.’”
In an interview on October 26, 2001, with PBS Frontline, Dr. Maher Hathout, identified by
PBS as a senior adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the spokesperson for the
Islamic Center of Southern California, this very question about Saudi influence in America
is posed by the interviewer. Dr Hathout answered: “[T]hey send imams and books in
Arabic. And these books are translated into English and the translation is not always very
good. And they are talking about an environment that is obsolete, the world-view of the
unbelievers fighting the believers. So it comes very irrelevant to the diversity and the
pluralism in America. These books are all over the place, because they can afford to make
very glossy magazines and distribute it for free” (emphasis added). MPAC has announced a
policy of not accepting Saudi support."
========
Rauf's the primary project manager (if you will) for the Cordoba House's actual major project well under way: S.I.P
The SIP - Sharia Index Project - which measures how Sharia Compliant a countries Laws are - to include the USA.
It has had several meetings with Islamic (Islamist) scholars from all over the world since 2006, and continues to draw on Islamic authorities for Shariah to improve their already developed metrics.
Here let Rauf tell you himself.
http://www.cordobainitiative.org/?q=content/shariah-index-project
Oh it seems since the lights came on some of the web pages have been taken down... so
http://bigpeace.com/cbrim/2010/08/17/ground-zero-mosques-hidden-websites...
=====
Finally Dear Maybe 70% of the American people are wrong and our Progressive/Liberal "Ruling Class" (as we've taken to not so fondly call them) are right. But what is incontestable is 2/3 of us HATE THE VERY IDEA and apparently won't stand for it. By the way the "Hard Hat's" construction workers won't build it. I wouldn't want to be a contractor associated with it either.
Bloomberg can pay for it if he's so set on it. He's used to buying whatever he wants...not sure who's gonna build it. Perhaps Halliburton?
@ Visitor Sharia curious
@ Visitor Sharia curious 936,
Through the Courts. In fact there's a Federal trial now concerning whether AIG (chief US backer of SCF - Sharia Compliant Financing) can participate in such SCF activities since it is basically being kept propped up by the US Taxpayer (bailouts) and whether this crosses the Church/State line. In fact this trial is probably the main event - the mosque an infuriating distraction since it will never get built.
Former Federal Prosecutor Andrew McCarthy - who spent a decade chasing, prosecuting and investigating WTC 1 bombers and then AQ can explain it better. I think he's fairly well informed...by American Muslims...
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244349/which-islam-will-prevail-a...
(and yes he post's at NRO. Which far from being a right wing racist hate machine expelled the John Birchers from polite company in the 50's).
and in response to the financial crisis which offers opportunities for SCF to exploit..
http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2008/10/islamist-opportunism-in...
All scare tactics, go back
All scare tactics, go back to your WWF and UFC and Food Network. Elf, is just throwing some scare stories to ruin your Sunday. Go back to BBQ'ing, nothing to see here.
And I've answered the
And I've answered the question "why not?" in it's various permutations repeatedly....at length...
Now can someone answer why build it there ? ???
I am aware of the supposed Constitutional Right. I disagree, but noted. A right however does not explain why .
I will maintain there can really only be one overriding reason (as well as some lesser ones).
Victory.
VICTORY
VICTORY
However I will entertain other suggestions....and attempt to do so in the best humor I can muster.
ELF
CAIR I never thought you'd
CAIR I never thought you'd cheer me up. Saalam!!
LOL
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