Marking 9/11

CAA's observances of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 began much like that fateful day itself. It was a normal, pleasant, sunny September day in Washington begun with the usual morning routine and ablutions, followed by a fairly typical commute involving sluggish traffic and/or crowded Metrorail cars.

That day, as did today, a brand-spanking-new A-100 class had just commenced the day before at the Foreign Service Institute: the 169th today and the 104th back in 2001. So the not-particularly-cloistered hallways and common spaces, not to mention the over-burdened parking lot and cafeteria, at the Schultz Center were clogged with the shiny, smiling faces of the newly-annointed.

By the end of today's workday, reports from two of our Middle Eastern posts, in Libya and in Egypt, would bring news of angry mobs, damaged or looted buildings, and casualties.

Back on that fateful day, the trouble came much closer to home.

Even at this decade-plus remove, it is still difficult to put the 9/11 attacks into a bloodless, intellectual perspective. It's just too soon, the wounds are perhaps scabbed or scarred over but remain all too fresh.

So we remember our fallen, remember that many of them did not fall but had to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive, and are thankful for the many who survived. We remember the fire fighters and other first-responders, the police, the veterans-turned-private-citizens, and the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and while we mourn their loss we also celebrate their sacrifice and count ourself fortunate that such men and women yet live among us.

We also look at the last eleven years and marvel at the hundreds of thousands of American and allied soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and others who rallied to their colors and fought (and still fight) the wars their countries asked them to fight. CAA will take quiet (okay, sometimes not-so-quiet) pride in having once been among their number.

Are there lessons we should have learned from our experiences of the last 11 years? Almost certainly. But today the lesson that's over-shadowed my every interaction has been rage.

CAA isn't done being angry. While that's undoubtedly a huge personal failing on my part and something I should pray upon to Jesus most sincerely, it's not simply that I'm stuck somewhere between denial, grief, and acceptance. There's a bit more there that the subconscious is trying to get the intellect to comprehend.

America's enemies are still trying to hurt, humiliate, and if they can manage it, kill us. That much is clear.

What's also clear is that our enemies have a really hard time managing that anywhere close to our home shores and cities. Our enemies best efforts seem to be possible only in those places where we're trying to make nice with Janus-faced local government whose most impressive accomplishments seem to be their marvelously exact calculation of just how much mayhem they can plausibly get away with perpetrating against us.

CAA reads the news every day and wonders how anyone not blindered by wishful thinking can imagine the war is over yet. That's yet another reason he's so angry today.

re: "Springtime for Islamists in Libya?"

Neo-Neocon (" slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon ") is one of those who possess an Inigo Montoya-like sensibility regarding the meaning of words.

Money quote(s):

"The headline reads “interim [Libyan] ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.”

There’s that word again: expected. But those who thought they knew what to expect in Libya were either arrogant or daft, or both. And one of the many things that was clearly possible there was the ascendance of Islamist elements." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Wishful thinking, like hope, is not a plan. Nor is it a particularly useful analytical tool.

"David Warren contrasts the irony of the relatively orderly Bush-overseen judicial end of Saddam Hussein with Gaddafi’s extra-judicial lynching under forces promoted by Obama."

CAA has nothing but good things to say about Mr. Warren, one of our neighbors in the Great White North.

"Not unexpected at all. That’s why there is something to be said for what happened in Iraq, where—because we invaded and stuck around, despite the huge cost in blood and treasure—that country has at least a chance of coming out relatively well compared to others in the region."

From her keyboard to God's monitor.

10/24

re: "Our America"

LC 0311 Sir Crunchie I.M.H., K.o.E. at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") shared some 9/11 remembrances.

Money quote(s):

"Do not allow the emasculated wimps of our so called ruling class to tell you that 9/11 was “a horrific event”, a “disaster” or a “tragedy”. It was a deliberate act of war, nothing less. In those 10 years many have moved on and forgotten what happened that day. Others wish only to remember the dead, and downplay the evil cult of Islamofacism that killed them."

Just like the recent shootings in Aurora are not a "tragedy." They are an atrocity, a crime. A tragedy is if the theater's roof collapsed on the movie-goers.

"We are told that we must embrace those who hate us. And the gains of the Long War, paid for with the blood of our nations finest, are squandered"

&

"(T)hese arrogant elitists who sneer at our national character, the bureaucrats who write the regulations which have kept the rebuilding from being done 10 years later, the academicians who belittle our exceptionalism, they are not the real America. They do not represent our greatness, our strength. These people, raised in a safe world, are kept free by those they demean. They are safe and secure to spout their anti-American ideals because the true Americans sacrificed and bore the heavy burden. And even when they are smacked in the face by the ugly reality that there are those who wish them dead, they still maintain their utopian world view. That they live in a country secure enough to do so is a testament to those who stepped up when our nation called. It is a testament to you, the real Americans." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

9/9

re: "Islam v. Islamism . again"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") posted a correction and clarification.

Money quote(s):

"I make a habit of using the term “Islamist” (or “Islamism”) to distinguish the aggressive and often violent sharia agenda of America’s enemies from “Islam” as it is practiced by millions of Muslims — in America and elsewhere — who are not Islamic supremacists and who do not seek to impose Islamic law on civil society. I added that Messrs. Horowitz and Spencer also draw this distinction."

&

"Robert (Spencer) emailed me over the weekend. While he seemed to agree with most of what I’d written, he offered this correction: He does not use the terms “Islamist” and “Islamism.” In his view, the “Islam/Islamism distinction is an artificial one imposed by the West, with no grounding in Islamic history, theology, or law.” "

There's a lot of quibbling over terminology on this and related issues involving "moderate Islam" (is there such a thing or are its practicioners merely Muslim apostates), "Islamists," "Islamicism," and of course the ever popular "Islam is a religion of peace" narrative.

Not to mention (but I will) the diversional Greater and Lesser Jihads.

"The error does not alter my contention that CAP’s charge of “Islamophobia” is without merit. Again, there is nothing phobic about fearing the nexus between Islamic doctrine (as classically rendered in, for example, the sharia manual Reliance of the Traveller) and the threat Muslim terrorists and stealth jihadists pose to the West. Moreover, the fact that Robert sees the Islamic doctrine in question as Islam rather than as one credible interpretation of Islam (which I call Islamism) hardly makes his concerns irrational." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

10/24

re: "Silent Scream: The Sudan Ethnically Cleanses Its Christians"

Rob Miller at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") described the traditional next phase after partition: ethnic cleansing.

Money quote(s):

"The government of the predominantly Muslim nation of Sudan has stripped its 500,000 to 700,000 Christians of citizenship and has put them on notice that they have one week to leave the country. Even sub-Jim Crow dhimmi status is to be denied them."

This sort of thing happens whenever a multi-ethnic, multi-confession country partitions into two (or more) states.

That doesn't make it right, but it does make it pretty predictable.

"(T)he government of Sudan has declared that all whose "parents, grandparents or great grandparents [were] born in the South Sudan or [who] belong to any southern ethnic group" are no longer citizens of Sudan and must leave by April 8...or else."

&

"The Sudan has always been a borderland between Arab and black African, between slavemaster and slave. And increasingly, between Muslim and Christian. During the decades-long jihad by the Sudan between the early 1980s and today against the black Africans to the east in Darfur and in the south, conservative estimates put the death toll at over 2 million. Al-Bashir has already been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, something the Arab League has thumbed their noses at, with al-Bashir able to freely attend meetings and travel all over the region without fear of arrest. The charges he was indicted for -- the mass rapes, the slavetaking, the wanton murders -- make what's going on now in Syria look like a particularly sedate bridge party.

In July 2011, the jihad officially ended when the largely Christian South Sudan achieved independence, although sporadic attacks by al-Bashir's military and aircraft still continue in places like the Nuba Mountains and along the South Sudan borders.

Due to the discord caused by the breakaway, al-Bashir is under pressure to turn the Sudan into a extremist fundamentalist, Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Islamist state." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

One of the critical issues still outstanding between Sudan and South Sudan are that the border between the two states has never been officially demarcated.

"The Iranians already have an arms factory in the Sudan to supply Hamas and their allies in Somalia, Yemen, and Central Africa. If my sources are correct, they also maintain training camps staffed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezb'allah members, some of whom have been killed by Israeli air strikes on arms convoys headed north in the desert towards Sinai and Gaza.

What al-Turabi and his allies want from Bashir is a full-on Muslim Brotherhood-ruled sharia state, comparable to Iran, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan under the Taliban.

After South Sudan seceded, the Islamists demanded that Bashir implement this, and they have pledged to drive him from power if he doesn't. They formed a party headed by al-Turabi known as the Islamic Constitution Front and drafted a sharia-based constitution that the imam of Khartoum's Grand Mosque endorsed, saying Bashir must "either rule by Islam or go." "

&

"The ethnic cleansing of over half a million Christians is only a first step.

What's notable about this is the hideous silence. There's little or nothing being reported in the media on this. For all the noise about the new Responsibility to Protect Doctrine that was evoked on Libya, the United Nations has nothing to say about what's happening in the Sudan, even though it violates the organization's own charter.

No one is talking about a no-fly zone to protect black Christians under air attack in South Sudan by the Bashir regime, even though our huge air base in Djibouti is within flying distance. The infamously misnamed U.N. Human Rights Commission is preoccupied with Israel to the point of derangement, and the Muslim countries running it will see to it that it stays that way."

&

"For all the demonization of Western Imperialism so popular these days, it was those hated imperialists who largely destroyed the slave trade in the 1870s and brought a measure of peace, civil order, and decency to the country for a brief time. It is our supposedly more modern and compassionate societies that have seen the horror that has gone on in Darfur and in the South Sudan and done nothing...except react with silence.

That silence comes from fear of offending Islam, no matter how egregious and hateful the actions of a significant number of its followers become and no matter how deeply those actions offend our civilized norms."

&

"It reminds me of nothing so much as the 1930s, when the appeasers in Britain and here in our own country reacted with the same indifference while Hitler armed his legions for conquest and ethnically cleansed Germany's Jews."

4/4

re: "Iraq Pullout - Not A Cause for Celebration"

LONGTABSIGO at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") commented on strategy.

Money quote(s):

"I must have been absent in strategy class the day they taught that you can declare a war over unilaterally."

Well, you can. But normally you destroy their ability to make war and occupy their capital first.

Oh wait, we did that.

At least one bright observer theorized that we've fought at least three wars in Iraq already, since invading in 2003.

So which war is that we won this time?

(Hint: Identify your enemy.)

(Take your time.)

(Another hint: Read the Max Boot quote towards the end of the linked post.)

"But the rationale is not even adversary-based. It is ostensibly because DOD and State Lawyers cannot work out an appropriate Status of Forces agreement such that US Troops would not be subject to the arbitrary whim of Iraqi law (even if taking an action deemed to be "in the line of duty" by US law/standards).

I've heard of "lawfare" as a check against offensive action out of fear of risk or possible bad press. But an inabilty to convincinly negotiate as a rationale for major troop reduction?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

10/21

re: "Terrorists sightseeing in San Antonio"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") correctly described our enemies.

Money quote(s):

"It has been a long time since foreign terrorists successfully perpetrated anything heinous on US soil. That is partly due to the fact that our enemies are losers, but eventually they will pull something off."

There are, after all, quite a few of them making the attempt, and quite a large bankroll behind them.

"(W)e are fortunate that these scumbags are dumb as dirt, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then and it's only a matter of time. Anyone up for a little profiling? I would say some "country of origin". age, sex and religious affiliation selection points might narrow down the search a bit, eh?

Nah, instead we will rely on the ignorant incompetence of those who wish to slaughter us."

Not to raise too big a fuss, but our criteria, post-9/11, for extra "administrative processing" for visa applicants who meet just about all Uncle Jimbo's listed selection points had this covered.

Not sure if it currently does.

10/19

re: "Infuriating idiocy about Islamists"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") presented an award.

Money quote(s):

"This wins the prize for complete inability to admit the blisteringly freaking obvious point that al Qaeda is an Islamist terror group, they are at war with us and we are at war with them. This member of the Defense Department wastes bushels of oxygen evading the simple fact that our enemies are religious fanatics of an easily-identifiable flavor, identifiable because they shout their "god's" name as they hack the heads off living men and women. It is sad reminder that our "leaders" would rather bury their heads in sand, that our enemies tread wearing the iron sandals of violent Islamist extremist ideology, than be shunned by the "right"-thinking left as politically incorrect."

He does have a point. Patterns and indicators, as any intelligence analyst will tell you, assist one in identifying opposing forces.

12/15

re: "Still Think Islam Is Just One More Innocent Religion?"

The Curmudgeon Emeritus at Eternity Road noted a symptom of Britain's reaching the demographic tipping point.

Money quote(s):

"Muslims sum to about 2% of the Sceptered Isle’s population. That’s the level of penetration at which Muslim militants commence thrusts such as the above. It’s possible at such a low national percentage because Muslims tend to form exclaves: concentrations within which their greater aggressiveness gives them local dominance. Secular law soon ceases to operate within such an exclave; Muslims who would prefer it are intimidated into compliance by their more militant neighbors.

In the past few years, we have seen thoroughfares in major European cities, most notably Paris and Amsterdam, daily taken over for Muslim prayer recitals. At such times no one can pass those streets. More often than not, the local authorities decline to act. What, react against a public prayer ceremony with police power? With violence? To the Europeans, the possibility doesn’t exist." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This strategy of colonization is not new nor is it unique to Britain.

7/28

re: "Fort Hood massacre nothing more than “workplace violence” per DoD"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") disagrees with the premise.

Money quote(s):

"What happened at Ft. Hood wasn’t a case of “workplace violence”, it was a case of a radicalized Islamist going on a murderous rampage because of his radicalization. It was also a total failure of leaders to recognize the threat and act on it well before it ended in the death of 13 at the Texas military installation.

Why facing up to this seems to be such a chore for DoD and this administration remains the mystery."

Integrity. I'm sure that's a word that comes up at various times during the professional education of our top military leaders. That and oldies (but goodies) like "Loyalty Upwards and Downwards" and "Men first, Mission Always."


12/7

re: "Action Figure Therapy"

Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes ("") remarked on a disconnect between civilian leadership (and military leadership at the policy-making level) and the troops.

Money quote(s):

"One of the objectives that it would be nice to see a SECDEF try to achieve, is to retain some semblance of respect from the troops. That is not a vital and minimalist goal, of course…you could say it is one for the Generals but not for the suits that hold civilian command over the armed forces…but it would be good if the working relationship was a good one, or if there was at least some effort expended to make it a good one."

Well, if you're planning to get-rid-of (i.e., "downsize," "re-engineer," or otherwise "rightsize" a lot of them anyway, what matter if you have a good relationship?

"I understand this argument about recruited-terrorists, how when these pictures appear it makes it look like the United States is declaring a war on Islam, which is not a perception we can afford to have out there. But there is something about this that I’m having a tough time figuring out: One, this would obviously be a vexing puzzle for us, and a dangerous one, far more important than many of the others. How do we expect to win at it, then, without discussing it more openly? Since 2004 the only rule that’s been in place about it is “just don’t do it” — with a strong undertone of don’t talk about it."

This has been an ongoing sore point with a lot of folks since just after the 9/11 national realization that someone is at war with us.

(And that we have real problems talking about or defining just who that someone might be.)

"(T)wo: Has it ever occurred to these geniuses that some may be reacting to situations like this with a quite reasonable attitude of “I’m not going to take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously”? There’s quite a lot to be said for a response, from the top, of: Look, if you don’t want your dead body defiled, don’t shoot at our guys."

Just so.

1/13

re: "Islam Is Islam, And That Is That"

Federale ("That Is The Sound Of Inevitability") remarked on willful blindness and those who promote it.

Money quote(s):

"Words of wisdom from Prime Minister Recep Erdogan of Turkey. Spencer Ackerman and Joe Lieberman seem to disagree. They think there are peaceful manifestations of Islam. Well, there are Muslims who don't practice their religion to varying degrees, but Islam is Islam; vile, warlike, dangerous, hateful, and bigoted against whites, Christians and Western Civilization.

However there has been much ado about recent FBI training that exposes Islam for what it is, Islam. The Danger Blog in particular is waging jihad against some who agree with Islamic scholars and political leaders like Erdogan who accept Islam for what it is; A warlike religion opposed to Christendom. And doing so violently.

Unlike DHS which views the threat to America as coming from white, Christian, heterosexual, gun owning veterans, the FBI has been ignoring PC and providing accurate information about Islam to its agents. That, of course, is unacceptable to the left, as Islam is a religion of peace."

Good for the FBI. You've got to get fairly well into the IC before you'll find folks (analysts and others) who'll call a spade a spade, there being since 9/11 the declaration from the White House on down that "Islam is a religion of peace."

Frankly, CAIR needs to be thought of as being the post-9/11 equivalent of the old German American Bund.

"(T)he FBI does not use Mafia attorneys to vet its organized crime training either. And wisely so, because just as so-called Italian-American groups denied the existence of the Mafia, and communist front groups denied that there was Soviet subversion in the U.S., Islamists deny that there is any radicalization problem among American Muslims, but Major Nidal Hassan, the Times Square Bomber, Najibullah Zazi, and the Arkansas Recruiter Shooter are just a few of the local Muslims that became radicalized by becoming more devout. The FBI training is not as Ackerman claims playing into the hand of Al Queda, but accurately describing the process of radicalization and its connection to the very nature of Islam. The more Muslim a Muslim, the more danger that Muslim presents to America."

CAA recently read a statistic (can't remember where, somewhere online) that at 80 percent of American mosques, visitors can get radical materials and propaganda. This should surprise no one except to note that 20 percent of may not be centers of Islamist radicalization.

9/18

re: "Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood Favoritism Will Lead to War in the Middle East"

Keith Davies at Big Peace attributes to malice what can adequately be explained by naïveté.

Money quote(s):

"Over the last year we have seen our government sell out Hosni Mubarak, the key leader who has brought relative peace and stability in the region. Instead, we have jumped on board with the “Arab Spring” which has led to Islamists taking power. My colleagues and I are not privy to CIA intelligence, but if we were able to predict such things based on common sense and our expertise in Middle East affairs, why could not our government see? Or maybe they can. It seems our government is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and, along with political correctness from politicians who choose reelection over common sense, has allowed the Middle East to become a powder keg ready to explode."

Still and all: once is happenstance or accident; twice is coincidence (even if some folks don't believe in "coincidence"); but three times is enemy action.

12/3

re: "Ten Years After"

Francis W. Porretto at Eternity Road aims to influence your opinions.

Money quote(s):

"I've received a fair amount of email this past week, inquiring about whether I planned to write something on the tenth anniversary of Black Tuesday: September 11, 2001, when Islam openly declared war on the United States. Yes, I said Islam, not "terrorists," "extremists," or "fundamentalists." We have it on the authority of a head of state -- Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey -- that there is no "moderate Islam;" there is only Islam. Any number of imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and so forth have said the same -- and have proceeded to justify the atrocities of Black Tuesday as a response to the "humiliation" Muslims have endured at America's hands.

What humiliation? Daring to rise and progress out of the seventh century. Proclaiming a doctrine of individual rights beyond what their scriptures allow. Treating persons of all races, sexes, and faiths as possessing a perfect right to be as they are and believe as they do. Letting women read, drive, and go about in attractive clothing, unaccompanied by a male chaperone.
We "humiliate" Muslims and Islam by being Americans: believers in freedom, a secular state, and an objective rule of law and justice." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

There're what, a billion muslims in the world? That's almost as many muslims as there are Catholics! Surely all of them aren't at war with the United States?

"If you're a person of wholesome values and rational mind, you were as outraged about Black Tuesday as I was -- and you remain so, as I do. If we differ at all, it's in what would constitute the appropriate responses, short and long-term, and the enduring stance America ought to take toward the perpetrators, their enablers, their apologists, and their co-religionists.

Needless to say, even among men of good will, that's a wide spectrum of opinion. What I'm here to do, today and every day, on this and every subject of public import, is to pull your opinions toward mine. Anyone who writes op-ed is trying to do the same. " (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA.)

I know it's supposed to be a bad thing to hold onto anger all this time, but frankly I've come to doubt whether the veracity itself of that bit of modern-day folk wisdom. Anger isn't always a bad thing, it seems to me. It can help keep you focused on whatever, presumably important, thing that has angered you. After all, if the thing is still making you angry, maybe the fault isn't you after all.

Not to rule that out, you understand. Let's not rule anything out, let's keep an open mind to all the possibilities and then start to rule them out, based on facts and observations.

Regarding the bolded portion of the excerpt above, I have no quibble with Mr. Porretto's wording except the final three (including one compound-) words: "and their co-religionists." And I'll tell you why:

My issue, my anger, my "eternal hostility" remains with "the perpetrators, their enablers, (and) their apologists." And while I certainly don't limit that hostility to "their co-religionists," nor do I intend to categorically sweep them into the "eternal hostility" category unless, by their perpetration, their enablement, and their apologetics, they place themselves therein.

Frankly, those who are in essence accessories, before and after the facts of 9/11, constitute a sufficiently broad category within both the non-Muslim and Muslim worlds as to provide no end of enemies.

But, as we are in a war, not a criminal court, the object is not conviction of the guilty (including the accessories) but their defeat. So let not your heart be troubled.

"We are at war with Islam, and have been since Iranian "students" stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, took 52 Americans hostage, and kept them for 444 days.

Don't bother to argue with me about this. Either we are or we aren't. If we aren't, the evidence for the proposition demands a better explanation than any I've heard. Worse, there's no objective evidence that we aren't, and no Islamic apologist has dared to present any.

But we're not fighting that war. We're acting, in large measure, as if some other force were responsible for the crimes and atrocities committed in Islam's name. We're acting, in other words, as if Islam and Muslims generally are the victims rather than the cause and the perpetrators."

A couple of points:

First, while certain Islamic actors (including entire governments) have been at war with the U.S., indeed with Western civilization, for at least since the Tehran embassy takeover, we have not ourselves been at war back. At least not until 9/11 when the war which had been being waged against us abroad for all these years came crashing into the home front. No pun intended.

Second, the first (and last) victims of the Sharia-based ideology of militant, fundamentalist (and occasionally socialist) Islam are always muslims themselves. Muslims who disagree, muslims to aren't fundamentalist, aren't militant, aren't murderous enough; they are always the ultimate victims of our Islamist enemies.

This is not to minimize our role as an obstacle to a Sharia-controlled world where muslims may be terrorized and murdered without hindrance, since there won't be anyone else left to terrorize and murder; we're the Great Satan, after all. And with that greatness comes great responsibility.

"In part, it's because of the barrage of propagandization we've received about Islam, about American "imperialism," and about our duty to "tolerate" this totalitarian creed. Like it or not, people's attitudes and unconscious assumptions are shaped by the Legacy Media even today. They see, hear, or read a "news report" and accept it as undiluted, unpolluted fact. They read a bit of op-ed from some eloquent columnist with whom they agree on less weighty matters, and they accept his rendition rather than performing their own. They hear persons whom they admire, and whose good opinion they crave, declaim in this or that fashion, and they accept it and parrot it back to him for no better reason than their need for his approval.

And in part, it's because we've become uncomfortable with the concept of evil. We simply dislike the idea that there are persons in the world whose ultimate aim is our subjugation or destruction. And since it's an abstraction, not represented by any individual we have close at hand, we scowl and shrug it away.

Got a hot flash for you, sports fans: There is evil in the world. Now and then it's codified into a creed and set down between book covers. The Communist Manifesto. Mein Kampf. The Koran. Those who embrace such a creed are embracing evil.

Yes, it's a Christian's part to hate the sin but forgive the sinner and pray for his repentance. But it's a free man's part to fight the evildoer with all his power -- especially when at the end of the contest, one of you will be dead, and the other free to go on as he's done.

We are at war with Islam. We've been at war with Islam for forty-one years." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

See my remarks above. Islamic terrorists (including entire governments) have been at war with us for each of those forty-one years, but for much of that time we brushed aside the insults, the murders, the treachery, and the attacks against our military, our diplomats, and our civilians, as mere nuisances to be ignored or somehow bought off. Actual warfare, at least since the Jefferson administration, against Islamic terrorists, bandits, and pirates (but I repeat myself) has been quite rare, and more the occasional skirmish indicental to various rescue or other reactive and defensive missions.

"Try reading this concise report on Muslims' behavior in Western countries to which they've been admitted. Try rationalizing its evidence against any other conclusion than that Islam is an aggressive program of totalitarian conquest of the world, with a few theological trimmings as protective coloration.

Try imagining how "tolerance" for such a creed could eventuate any other way than in mass slaughter of the "tolerant" and the subjugation of the survivors."

Those with eyes to see need only observe developments in the erstwhile "Arab Spring" nations for a sneak-preview of what may be in store, Ralph Peters notwithstanding, for Western Europe.

9/11/11

re: "Obama Continues to Ignore Iran's Arming and Training of Shiite Militias as American Soldiers Die"

Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") defines an enemy.

Money quote(s):

"American soldiers in Iraq are being attacked and killed with increasing sophisticated weapons provided by Iran"

That statement has been true since at least 2004.

"Training is being provided by the Revolutionary Guards, which supports Shia terrorism worldwide.

A stern response in the form of a series of "accidents" at Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases or among IRG commanders might get Iranian attention, and if carefully targeted, could decapitate the leadership authorizing the attacks without overt war. It would be fighting Iran on its own terms, in the kind of guerilla warfare fighting Americans have excelled at since Major Benjamin Church led the first American ranger units in King Philips War a hundred years before we were an inkling of a nation.

We know how to defeat Iran at their own game. We simply need the political will to engage in this kind of conflict and win.

Of course, there doesn't seem to be the political will to counter Iran"

A truly lovely idea.

re: "Obama to give Re-Election speech on A-Stan tonight"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") has concerns about our strategy in Afghanistan.


Money quote(s):


"When fighting an enemy that thinks in centuries and millenniums, announcing that you only have the vision and fortitude to manage a year and a half to oppose them is nearly criminal.

Afghanistan and the larger war against Islamist extremists is one we are quite poorly suited to fight. They have a long war mentality and know this is a clash of civilizations"

The Huntington question is one I'm still undecided about.

One of the reasons is that it's difficult, frankly, to credit tribal Afghanis with being part of any civilization to speak of, at least in other than the most broad and general of definitions.

"(E)very weakness that al Qaeda and the rest have properly stated about us; we don't have the will or intestinal fortitude as a nation to fight them as they do to fight us. They don't have to beat us to win; they simply have to outlast us"

The flip side to this is that all we have to do is not lose.

"They were slaughtered in the thousands by the Soviets, and yet they simply cringed away, licked their wounds and returned. They were toppled by us in one of the most amazing uses of Special Operations force multiplication in 2001, and yet they simply cringed away, licked their wounds and returned. Now we have again dealt them crippling blows and even finally killed their head goat-raper, does anyone doubt they will again cringe away, lick their wounds and return? Who will stop them, the kleptocracy of the Karzais, the Afghan Security forces, the international community? Hell no!"

One of the advantages of being part of an only nominally literate culture is that your institutional memory has a very short shelf life. Usually that's a disadvantage, but if keeping up your tribe's will to fight requires that you have a fairly short memory for the times you got your butts kicked, it can work in your favor.

"If we had left in 2002, we could have claimed a victory and then proclaimed that we will bomb the living hell out of any Islamist bastards who pop their heads up. We didn't and in staying we planted a flag in the ground." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The "Pottery Barn" rule is so much horseshit. The West, collectively, has forgotten the merits of the punitive raid or action. After all, it's hardly "reconstruction" if you're building something they never had to begin with.

"(W)e did fight them and killed them in bunches, but that was a tactical victory for the prowess of American fighters. This battle in the greater war? That we will watch al Qaeda and their allies claim for a win."

The demographic reality of high birthrate cultures mean our enemies have some advantages in the long run. Doesn't mean they're guaranteed a win in the end, but that's how they're betting at any rate.

re: "China: Please Repudiate Your T-Bills That We Own And Impose Trump-Level 1000% Tariffs On The Shoddy Crap We Sell You"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ knows (as does China) that warfare is fought in many dimensions.

Money quote(s):

"This was sort of inevitable, and it's pretty bad. China has long supported every indecent country in the world, because America has alliances with most of the decent ones."

China has, and has had, for decades, a Non-Interference Policy (NIP). That essentially meant that it would do business with you and not worry overmuch about your internal affairs. Sort of the stance China would like the rest of the world to take regarding China's internal affairs.

"China has now made it official: an attack on Pakistan (terrorist hunting) is now to be taken as an attack on China.

They have extended their own security zone to the terrorist state of Pakistan, which means China is now officially a terrorist sponsor."

Ace is, as usual, a few steps ahead of the rest of the United States, including with regards to treating the state of Pakistan as an actual enemy of the U.S., rather than as a partner in the war on terrorism, &tc.

I'm not saying he's necessarily wrong, but perhaps prematurely right.

"(L)ucky us. We just found a trillion and a half dollars we thought we were in the hole for, but now we're not."

Chinese strategists plan for assymetrical operations in all theaters, all dimensions, of war, particularly against peer or near-peer opponents. Included in those battlefields will be the financial and economic dimensions. Being prepared to return fire effectively isn't the worst idea I've ever heard.

re: "How ‘Friendly Persuasion’ Subverted the Enemy Assessment Process and Robbed Our Warriors of a Chance to Win and Survive in Afghanistan; Three- "

John Bernard, 1st Sgt. USMC (ret.) at Big Peace recently had a multi-part essay illuminating a piece of how our leadership has been deliberately misled.

re: "Lawfare v. Warfare: Bin Laden family uses a little “Alinsky” on US and Obama"

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") gets this exactly right.

Money quote(s):

"The death of bin Laden is being described in some quarters as an “extrajudicial killing”. In fact, bin Laden was always considered to be an “unlawful combatant” by us and as such had no such protections. In warfare, the targeted killing of an enemy, in this case unlawful combatant, is quite legal.

So what you are seeing here are competing premises, one saying terrorism is simply a criminal act and therefore terrorists must be treated as common criminals would be treated as well as afforded various rights because of that status. The other says they are enemies who have declared war on the US, committed numerous acts of war and, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, are “unlawful combatants” and enemies whose targeted killing is an accepted practice of warfare.

Lawfare vs. warfare.

I think we’ve been pretty clear since the beginning, with the AUMF (which the Obama administration ironically used as the legal basis for its raid into Pakistan), that we’re at war (and yes, I also accept the AUMF as a declaration of war) what we consider these terrorists.

Second guessing by all the world’s hand wringers should simply be ignored. This is not a criminal matter. It is a military matter and it was executed as such. The lesson it teaches other terrorists who’ve declared war on “the Great Satan” is we are relentless and remorseless. Those are two good messages to send."

re: "Douglas Murray: 'Will They Actually Prosecute and Outlaw Seditious Behavior?' "

Secure Freedom Radio at Big Peace relays some good news from across the pond.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he British government has changed their modus operandi when dealing with subversive organizations. They are cutting off access and funding to groups that either support violence against the British government or foreign governments, while supporting organizations that follow British law and norms as well as speak out against violence towards foreign governments. But Douglas questions if the government, “will they actually prosecute and outlaw seditious behavior,” which is the only truly effective way to combat such an enemy."