Casus Belli, Tom Clancy and War
Tom Clancy
Here....
Zinni has openly attacked the war, but Clancy reluctantly acknowledged his own concerns. He declined repeatedly to comment on the war, before saying that it lacked a "casus belli," or suitable provocation.
"It troubles me greatly to say that, because I’ve met President Bush," Clancy said. "He’s a good guy. ... I think he’s well-grounded, both morally and philosophically. But good men make mistakes."
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In a traditional sense Clancy is correct, No Casus Belli.
Perhaps the threshold has changed? What was the Casus Belli for the Monroe Doctrine? I'm sure the
Monroe Doctine did not requre actual attack on the US before we could act....US actions in Central, South America and Cuba used the Monroe Doctrine as a starting place. I believe the point was 'it's close to our yard, thus we have interests in your choices'. Yes it's arrogant to call the Middle East our backyard, we do have interests there, it is our backyard, don't point a gun at us even if it is made of orange-plastic (which we find out about after shooting you and scraping off the gun metal paint).
If Iraq succeeds the Bush Doctrine will lower the bar.
Either way democracy was a very high bar to shoot for. A Monarch is needed. I'd love Iraq to prove that they are capable of self rule.
Someone once said that walking along a precipice makes you think sharply and clearly. Hopefully some in Iraq will look at who wants them to lose and step up to the plate to help win. The only real loser can be Iraq for throwing away their chance.
If Iraq fails everyone else will then begin closing shutters and getting ready for the storm. Failure in Iraq will promote American isolationism--bad for India, Taiwan, Israel and Europe.
I've not given up on Iraq. They must have a few leaders.
Don't want to look like a 'monster' or anything....
From WAPO
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49787-2004May23.html
You can make this stuff up, but the problem is that fiction is supposed to make sense.....
> JERUSALEM, May 23 -- One of the key political moderates in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet deplored the Israel army's offensive in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, saying TV images reminded him of the suffering of his family during the Holocaust.
>In stark and emotional language, Deputy Prime Minister Yosef Lapid, who also holds the Justice ministry portfolio and is himself a Holocaust survivor, told Israeli radio that the country risked further international condemnation if the army continued its campaign of pursuing Palestinian gunmen, demolishing homes and expelling civilians from the heart of the populous Rafah refugee camp.
>"On TV I saw an old woman rummaging through the ruins of her house looking for her medication, and it reminded me of my grandmother who was thrown out of her house during the Shoah" or Holocaust, said Lapid in a radio interview after the weekly cabinet session.
>"We look like monsters in the eyes of the world," he added. "This makes me sick."
If we don't want the world to look on us as 'monsters', perhaps we should disarm, disband and hope and trust in the goodwill of the UN and other freedom loving, 'moderates'.
The article continued...
"The destruction of homes must stop because it is inhuman, un-Jewish, and causes us great harm around the world," Lapid said. "In the end we'll be kicked out of the U.N., we'll be put on trial in The Hague [site of the International Court of Justice], and no one will want to have anything to do with us."
Before 911, calling to remove the US from the 'UN' suggested one was a fruitcake.
Since 911 the curtain has been lifted, Buchanan-Duke-McVeigh paleoliths and Dean-Green-JFKerry machine leftists are united. Before 911 they were untied.
As a conservative I hate the label 'neocon'. I despise those in the previous paragraph. Give me a neocon nametag.
Star Trek III
Star Trek III is on now.
Kirk's son, as a Klingon hostage, is killed.
This is an old movie. This is an old story. Stupid hair and clothes.
One side is supposed to be obviously 'good' or more good. One side is supposed to be less.
The fact that in 'real life' people, in general, are confused about which side to support is beyond my ability to understand.
My gut reaction says we are so well off, so comfortable, that nothing matters. Thus there is no reason to pay attention, to care. No need to be concerned......
It was only a movie.
Weddings, Jenin, bombs in ambulances, weapons in mosques......
Same story as this.
The Wedding Party
It's an imaginary scene from World War 2, though it could have happened. Battalion headquarters gets a report over the phone from a front line sector. 'Armor moving to our front, 300 yards out bearing 75 degrees.' The information is plotted in grease pencil on a 1:10,000 map with an an acetate overlay. The position of the platoon reporting is known on the map. A protractor marks out the bearing and ruler paces off the distance. A symbol for enemy armor is drawn on the acetate. Ten minutes later, more details come in. 'Armor is three tanks'. A number is written in beside the enemy armor symbol. Battalion asks the platoon commander if someone can get a better look at the armor. Twenty minutes later, another update is phoned in. 'Sir, I don't know what they are doing there, but the armor is ours.' The map plot is amended, and the symbol for enemy armor is changed to reflect friendly armor.
Sixty years later a reader browsing internet news stories gets breaking news that an American helicopter has killed forty persons at a wedding. But story goes on after he closes the browser.
More here....
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/
To the president from a father: Shame on us
From the Boston Globe.
Quotes from the article:
When Barbara's grandfather, George Bush senior, decided in 1991 not to continue the Gulf War into Baghdad, he was roundly criticized for being a "coward."
Most did not consider him to be a coward. Most figured it would be too costly, instead we allowed genocide to continue for more than a decade. That is what we should apologize for.
I digress....
In the end, he was right. He knew that there was a reason not to occupy a country for a prolonged period in an attempt to simultaneously toss out a dictator, find weapons of mass destruction, police the country, establish a new democratic government, and stabilize the entire region. He knew that it could not all be accomplished and that the endeavor would soon become quicksand in the desert.
In hindsight Bush 1 was wrong. We've been in Iraq ever since the end of Gulf War 1. We've been patrolling most of the airspace of Iraq preventing Saddam from further killing his people. The US should have ended Gulf war 1 before 911.
This war is a mistake -- a big mistake. The rest of the world knows it, and in our hearts, so do we. In World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, rich kids, poor kids, college kids, and dropouts all went. They all fought, and hundreds of thousands died. This time it is mainly the poor kids leaving on those planes and coming home in boxes.
What is not debatable is that the current war has been an enormous success. By every historical standard concievable the war has been a cakewalk. The problem is the lack of applying historical standards.
Quicksand in the desert? Does the author remember WW1? the Civil War? Almost any other war of the past 5000 years?
Let me guess, they probably believe being anti-war will change the world into a love-fest?
This war has no personal consequences for most of us who as '60s peaceniks changed the world.
They changed the world? The WOT has no consequences for our world? The antiwar movement is blinded by their hatred of W.
A must read:
This is why we fight
Don't Mess with U.S. (implies all of 'us').
'CPL Samuel Toloza of El Salvador who, outnumbered, surrounded and out of ammo in Najaf, said a prayer, pulled out a pocket knife and charged the sand rats, stabbing, cutting and slicing the turbaned murderers until reinforcements arrived....'
http://www.nicedoggie.net/archives/004184.html#004184
We will know we have won in Iraq when they play..... baseball.'
When I hear that several Iraqi baseball teams will be competing against an American team then I will know
'we' have won. I'm serious.
....Tired
.......-We are tired of the transgressions of a handful of soldiers in Iraq that mistreated a few terrorist suspects being portrayed as indicative of the entire U.S. military, and culture.
-We are tired of the non-stop apologies from the President on down to the Capitol Hill coat room attendant.
-We are tired of the words “atrocity,” “torture,” and “mutilate” being misapplied to the abuses of Arab and Iraqi terrorist and jihadist insurgents. In most respects, college fraternity initiations strike a remarkable resemblance.
-We are tired of a decadent Middle East culture that lends itself to selective outrage, all the while turning a blind eye as their governments’ torture and murder wholesale.
-We are tired of nearly every elected official, including President Bush, reminding us that Islam is a “peaceful religion” and “the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people.”
-We are tired of Iraqis not stepping up to help remake their own country into a democracy and showing the Middle East, and the world, that they want it bad enough to die for.
-We are tired of the Monday morning quarterbacking that has become a cottage industry in relation to the aftermath of winning the war and establishing the peace. If it were that easy, France and Germany would have signed on from the beginning.
-We are tired of WMD’s and the search for them. One way or the other, they will turn up.
Saddam had them, used them, and produced them. The question should be “where are they?” -not- “did he have them?”
-We are tired of the more than five million Muslim/Americans who seem to have lost their ability to denounce terrorism. I call these Muslim mutes “enablers,” and quite frankly, so should anyone who has come out against terrorism.........
Here
A 'Hornets' nest has been stirred up. The WOT is not won....
A hornets' nest has been stirred up, and the "War against Terrorism" will, inevitably escalate until there is no freedom in any country, because the only way to "win" the war against "terrorism" is to annhilate the planets 2 billion Muslims, or to have the rest of the world capitulate.
You have hit the gnats on the head. Either we win and Muslims have a chance at freedom, including the choice to make stupid mistakes like most of U.S., or major Muslim cities and people will be destroyed.
Right now I hate and despise Muslims (and their paleolith watermelon enablers).
Something inside says I need to look harder for those who are not 'them'. Of course 'they are not here' but where?
Neocons, Paleoliths, OH MY.....
I've been looking for a new name for conservatives who despise 'neocons'.
I did a Google search this morning for 'Pat Buchanan racist' and my first link was:
http://aztlan.net/pat.htm
Keep in mind, I cannot understate the following, 1. Buchanan is a normal conservative on CNN 2. he is very different, more David Duke-like,
b in writing
(read him at WND.com for example).
Anyway my point is that Atzlan.net came up 1st with Google.
A few more lines down I found this:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Pat_Buchanan
Within that link, which I liked a lot because of all of the
i other links,
I found this http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Paleoconservative
'Paleoconservative'.
To make a short story long, I like 'paleolith' (read old rocks) to describe Buchanan-Duke types.
The other reason I type all this is that for the second time I saw an Atzlan.net link today. The second atzlan link was in reference to the Berg killing.
http://aztlan.net/fake_video.htm
Ramble, ramble, ramble, blah, blah blah......
There is an interesting connection between many fringe groups which needs more scrutiny.
reductio ad absurdum
"...a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been wrong, since it gave us this absurd result. This is also known as proof by contradiction. It makes use of the law of excluded middle - a statement which cannot be false, must then be true..."
Stolen from:
here
and
here
The Mirror of Fallujah
This was posted before the murder of Stern. Read and mark the whole thing:
"...Yet I fear that we have not seen anything new. Flip through the newspaper and the stories are as depressing as they are monotonous: bombs in Spain; fiery clerics promising death in England, even as explosive devices are uncovered in France. In-between accounts of bombings in Iraq, we get the normal murdering in Israel, and daily assassination in Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, and Chechnya. Murder, dismemberment, torture—these all seem to be the acceptable tools of Islamic fundamentalism and condoned as part of justifiable Middle East rage...."
VDH
Intentionally split infinitives.
I have an affinity for split infinitives.
I like them.
To me split infinitives sound better. With that said, I essentially will not bring up the topic again.
;-)
Wartime Elections
"...It's one thing to criticize actual policy decisions -- that's legitimate, and it has happened in every war. No President should ever be above question..."
"... It's worth remembering that in 1864, there was a peace candidate named George McClellan. Once a popular general who even defeated Lee at Antietam, McClellan ran with the promise that he'd negotiate an end to the bloody Civil War and bring our soldiers home.
Of course, a negotiated settlement would perforce have left slavery intact in the South and left the Union broken into two countries. In other words, the only possible "negotiated settlement" was to give up on the only two issues that mattered in the war.
McClellan was defeated. But it was a close election.
There are a lot more parallels, actually, to that pivotal wartime election of 1864. Our President back then was a Republican who was vilified as a monster or baboon, as an idiot or bumpkin by his oh-so-sophisticated enemies. He was accused of bungling the war and he was mocked for his countrified speech and good-ol'-boy sense of humor.
But it's his face we see on our pennies and five-dollar bills. Because he fought that just war --the bloodiest in our history -- to the only conclusion that would have left us a chance to be a great nation. His opponent never would have.
I'm not saying W. is any Abraham Lincoln -- though he might yet turn out to be. But I definitely am saying that his opponent this year is a George B. McClellan, but with less charisma ..."
Read the rest here.
