Mar 20 2008
SurrenderMedia Fantasies
Had to laugh at the SurrenderMedia today as they tried to digest the 5th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. After their inability to grasp the threats and risks of this complex and dangerous world – so well illustrated when they declared the fact that Saddam Hussein was working with Ayman Zawahiri (AQ’s number two leader) for many years before 9-11 meant there was no connection between Saddam and AQ – it seems they are have to emphasize there other big weakness: impatience. The Washington Post attempted the “we are the media so we look down our noses at you commoners” trick by trying to show there is no difference between the GOP/Bush on fighting to win and the Clinton/Obama/Dems fight to declare defeat and bring the troops home – surrendering to AQ. Check out this accidental exposure of their faults and confusion:
THE FIFTH anniversary of the invasion of Iraq prompted a flurry of speeches from President Bush and the Democratic candidates who hope to inherit the White House next year. Sadly, what they had in common was their failure to grapple with hard realities — beginning with the elusiveness of any clear or quick path toward Mr. Bush’s promise of “victory,” or that of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to “end this war.”
Emphasis mine. Now where did anyone of any standing say Iraq would be quick (and of course ‘easy’)? Ignorance and haste is the sign of lazy minds and weak morals. If it ain’t quick and easy we can’t do it. But then all our problems (and those of the world) are hard and require long term commitment to fix.
This is one of the biggest problems with the left (and some on the far right) – they can only support the quick fix. They want their world views implemented now. The left though tends to really fall for the non-confrontational, let’s all just get along, why do we have to try so hard, kind of crap. That is why people sitting on welfare watching soap operas and wasting away seemed perfectly normal to liberals and abhorrent to conservatives.
No one said Iraq would be easy, and no one said fighting a religious ideology that is basically a suicidal fascist insanity, would be easy. No one who knows what they are talking about said it would be quick. To change hearts and minds takes time and resources.
The fact the left is bored with this necessary work is not a reflection on the job to be done. And since we are building a path to victory in Iraq it is clearly doable. The only people looking pathetic are those sitting behind desks in DC and NYC pretending they know more than anyone else on the planet, when in reality they are bunch of impatient fools who have yet to admit their own mistaken predictions. Too funny.
BTW, the thought about impatient dolts trying to pretend they must fix the world (heaven help us) first came to me last night when I heard Lou Dobbs claim it was time for journalists to develop non-partisan (cough, cough) plans to end the war in Iraq. General Dobbs reporting for duty! What a joke these people have become.
Well, I am curious myself if there is any evidence of the administration talking about a long term war. If Breschau is frustrated, can we provide him decent evidence? I’ll admit I’ve had not much luck, but my internet-fu is weak.
I’ll admit the reason I am curious myself is I was of the belief that the administration really did believe this would be a short war, which I admit I believed also, because fathoming that people given freedom and democracy would suddenly be hellbent on killing each other was just unfathomable to me. (Much like the idea of people using passenger airplanes as weapons of mass destruction was also quite unfathomable to me before 9/11).
I honestly can’t blame people for being so confused or for feeling misled about timetables, expectations, what’s a war, what’s a front.. what’s a theater , etc..
For me.. I’m well researched in Islam. Folks.. this war is never ending in our lifetime.
And when I say “war” I’m not talking about Iraq… we’re involved in a war that transcends national borders.. I’d call the war “War Against the 3rd Global Jihad”
If you dont study Islam (ESPECIALLY IT’S GEOPOLITICAL HISTORY) and if you cannot put yourself in the SPIRITUAL shoes of a devout Muslim in a post-Caliphate world and think like they do (and no , I dont mean turning them into Marxists.) then you simply have no frame of reference to even understand what is happening.
And let me tell you.. our Congressional leadership (all parties) have no frame of reference , our Dept of State and our intellegence agencies show absolutely no sign of understanding it.
The dandies in the Pentagon dont “get it” and it’s debatable about how many in the White House “get it”
The only part of our federal govt that might somewhat “get it”, are the guys getting dirty in Iraq/Afghanistan.. and some freakishly competent subdivision of the FBI who have been unexplictly effective in breaking up home-grown plots (it defies logic to say this is because of competence because no govt agency is showing any competence)
And you must divorce yourself from your emotional investament in supporting/hating Bush.
As citizens of this country it’s up to yourselves for you to learn about your enemy. It should be clear to all that our government is not goign to educate teh people.. the govt is not going to tell the truth about the world situation to the people.
Use your brains and learn about your enemies. Your enemies are not Republics.. they are not Conservatives,.. they are not Christians.
They are the portion of devout Muslims who believe in expanding the areas of the planet that come under the domination of sharia law.
If you dont study your enemy and instead believe that the world revolves around the childish and patethic political games in Washington DC then you’re never going to know what is going on.
And that’s just what the Islamists are counting on.
Well, okay – thank you, Vince, for contributing to the debate, and not simply insulting me. That was refreshing and informative.
Here’s my somewhat simple follow-up question: how does one “learn about your enemy”, if all of the primary sources of information (media, gov’t, etc) cannot be trusted? Where do I go to read “the truth”?
I swear to you I am not being snarky here – I am honestly curious as to how I can learn about this, when all of my usual sources (the newspaper, the library, the internet) cannot be trusted. Where do I go? How are we supposed to “learn”, since it is up to us?
URLs, book titles, magazine articles, etc. — anything would be helpful here.
Oh, and I should have done this first – but thank YOU, Bytor, for actually pushing this conversation in a positive direction. Every so often, I lose faith in the idea that people on the opposite side of the political theater than myself are concerned with ideas like “the truth”, or “justice”, or “honesty”, or “accountability”. Your stated reasons for supporting the war in Iraq were the most honest I’ve read in the past 5 years. They were completely reasonable, and ideas that i could 100% relate to. No spin, no liberal-bashing, no blaming anyone else.
So, with all my heart – thank you.
Here’s my somewhat simple follow-up question: how does one “learn about your enemyâ€, if all of the primary sources of information (media, gov’t, etc) cannot be trusted? Where do I go to read “the truthâ€?
I should clarify the “what” when I say that one should learn abuot the enemy.
The islamists .. all of them.. are working from principals that are rational to them. When I say to learn about the enemy I mean to learn about these principals.. and to take them at their face value.
The culture that Islam produces (and the non-Arab cultures that Islam impacts) produces a way of looking at the world, a morality, a mindset that is completely foreign than that they we in the West are familiar with.
It takes a deliberate effort to supress the Western cultural biases to really internalize and understand just how different a system it is. Your Western upbringing will cause you to either not believe what you’re reading, or perhaps cause you to view them in a Western way. You must not do that.. you have to accept the information about Islam as it is. You must take it on their terms.. because you will not be able to understand the enemy if you’re always trying to reintrepret what they’re doing based on Western considerations…
This is one of the sources of the falsehood that poverty contributes to Islamic terrorism. We assume the Islamists see the poverty around them and that this must obviously be the source of the moral outrage which prompts him to throw his life way. No! That’s a Western POV. The Islamic terrorist is not concerned about poverty at all.
The only reason I elaborated on that is because its taken me years to really understand it and to get rid of my misconceptions. Islam is not a religion where you can fill in the gaps using your experiences as a Christian or a humanitarian etc..
Anyway, on my website I have a few pages where I list some good resources..
For books:
http://home.comcast.net/~vincep312/books.html
On-line Video:
http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=VinceP1974
Blogs I read:
http://home.comcast.net/~vincep312/blogs.html
There’s a few things to keep in mind. Most Muslims are not interested in taking over the world, killing people, engaging in war.. they want to live their lives like everyone else.
But they’re not just anywhere, they live in societies shaped by Islamic culture.
Of the Muslims who believe in jihad (both violent and non-violent but just as dangerous) you’ll see that there are some core beliefs that ALL of them accept , but once you go from a strategtic level down to a tactical level that’s where all the differences are found.. that’s why to soemone not really clued into what is motivating so many different and seemingly independent movements there’s a tempatation to dismiss the groups as too disorganized to bother paying attention to.
That’s wrong.. these groups may not agree on how to achieve their ultimate goals, but they’re all pretty much in agreement about what the ultimate goal is…. a reestablishment of the Kahlifah and once that’s achieved, the final last global Jihad.
The United States , our foreign policy, our Presidents.. everything… has nothing to do with the reasons why they’re doing what they’re doing.
The only thing you have to understand is that ALL of them know that the biggest force in the world that is in their way is us and we must be destroyed if their goals are to be attainable.
No matter what we do or don’t do, we are the number one target.
Leaving Iraq doesn’t end anything. Leaving Iraq sends them a message.. we cannot sustain a fight… we will withdrawel if they make it painful enough for us… we can be defeated.
Now regarding how one is to figure out what our government is up to…
I have some principals I use …
incompetence – this explains almost everything
ignorance – this explains 99% of the things that missed being done incompetently
ideology – the true battlefield of the war. The enemy is absolutely sure of theirs. We have none and refuse to acknoweldge the enemy’s
inflitration – The Islamists have inflitated the government, some media, our univeristies
Anyway.. the last thing I’ll say about our government is that whatever party you belong to or what your ideology is, you have to get over it. Even if George Bush made 20 billion mistakes a day it doesnt matter in regards to the objective reality of our enemy.
A lot of critics think that Iraq was too costly.. or that too many mistakes were made, or that they weren’t told the truth .. etc.. and so they use those problems to invalidate the whole notion that we’re at war.. or use the mistakes as a precedent to refer to in order to dismiss futures.
Example: “Hey Bush said there were WMD in Iraq and there weren’t any.. so therefore if anyone were to claim WMD in Iran that must be false too”
No.. that’s not true. Iran’s actions are motivated by Iran.. they are not a function of what Bush thinks.
This is part of what i meant by taking our enemies at face value and not projecting our ideas and values on to them.
Our country could be bankrupt tomorrow, it doesn’t mean we have the luxury of just leaving Iraq.
I cannot explain what Bush is doing. Why he called islam a Religion of Peace i’ll never know. But what I do know is that our enemies exist and they will exist long after Bush is gone.
breschau,
Not all information from the government is a lie or false. Same thing with the news media. Both are more ‘false’ than anything else because the people putting it out are human beings and have limitations.
The key to finding ‘the truth’ is to survey lots of sources and note those things that are not common (likely false or propaganda) and things in common – to a point. But the fact is on any subject you have to research, research and research, and realize what YOU synthesize out of the data is as valid as anyone else once you get a lot of it digested.
I read hundreds of articles a week, and I stay on a subject for years, slowly building up an experience base. I have to read stories from the left and right. For example it is best to always read The NY Times, NY Post, Washington Times and Washington Post on any matter and distill from the four of them a reasonable picture of reality.
Many government studies are actually quite good past the exec summary (where the pols put their spin). The recent report on Iraq and al_Qaeda and the Iran nuke NIE both proved that to be the case.
Cheers, AJStrata
OK, this might be a little longish. I’ll admit I have avoided posting before this because I do tend to question things, and I was nervous that when looking for answers I would be ridiculed as some sort of false conservative (truth be told I tend to be very moderate but when push comes to shove I always find myself on the conservative side of the line). There’s going to be things you read where I did not use the correct word or set of words to get my point across, and for that I apologize in advance.
Breschau, in the midst of people who are on a politically different end of the spectrum, you manned up and apologized for your actions. VinceP, your more recent posts have revealed a discussion and mindset that takes us out of the left/right ideological arguments and into a very informative account as to why you believe we have to be in this war.
Both of you have steered this discussion into civility.
Now, it has taken me this long to digest enough to really ask some questions.
Vince, I find it difficult to not inject the mindset I have always grown up with and try to apply it to their way of thinking. Heck, even the fight between Shiite and Sunni Muslims I look at the fights between Catholic and Protestant countries in Europe (what was that, 17th Century??) Hmmm…truth be told, I am not sure what I am asking, though I have reread what you wrote with great interest.
Do all Muslims believe in this last global jihad? Truth be told, my contact with Muslims has been totally US citizens, and maybe they are like many US Catholics that I know, where they seem to pick and chose what aspects of their religious doctrine they tend to believe in (granted, this observation is about as unscientific as you can get – it’s just personal experience which is the only springboard I have to go off of).
AJStrata, being a guy who is in hot water just for taking the time to read this (stuff to do around the house, always working on a fence or a yard or being with my small child), how the heck do I find the time to get through all this information?
I still want to see people who talked about the war being a long process, because it may be obvious to people who are looking at a lot of different sources, but for those of us who only get the highlights, I can tell you we didn’t see that in the mainstream at all. It was all Rumsfeld’s comments and things like that.
Well, I’m getting yelled at, so I have to go. I didn’t get a chance to reread what I wrote but I still wanted to ask questions, so please be forgiving. 😉
PAX,
Bytor
Do all Muslims believe in this last global jihad?
I’m almost 100% positive that there isn’t one single thing that 100% of all Muslims believe in. Muslims are peolpe like any other… and so you’ll find the full spectrum of adherence that you would anywhere else.
So I believe that’s not the proper question. The proper question is,
“Are there any significant sects or groups within Islam, that are recognzied by thier co-religionists, which reject the Quranic mandate to spread Islam to the entire world by the sword”
And the answer is “No. All mainstream and traditional sects within Islam acknoweldge that Jihad is their sacrid duty and obligation to perform, when they are in a position to do so”
It’s a very clever belief system, because it states that if Muslims are in an inferior position , they are NOT to engage in violent jihad if there’s no chance they can win. This view allows for a great amount of adaptablity. So you can see from the 1800s until the 1960s there was very little Isalmic violence in the world.
That’s because that time period was probably the lowest the Islamic world ever was. The West was so much more advanced as well as militaristic. Islam had no chance against the West.. and so the jihad went dormant.
But now with oil money funding thier entire society they have once again regrouped and the jihad has resumed.
In Islam there aren’t denominations like there are in Christianity. Instead there are “Schools of Jurispudince”
Because the Islamic Sharia Law dictates all asepct of individual and national conduct, Islam is a very legalistic religion and the expressions of “denominations” is through a body of law articulated by a School of Jursipudience
Think of it like English Common Law… The UK has its view of it, the US has its view, Canada its view , etc..
The two main branches of Islam , Sunni and Shiite have their own various schools.
SUNNI SCHOOLS:
Hanafi (The extremist Pakistani school Deobandi is a mutant of this)
Maliki
Shafii
Hanbali (The extremist Saudi school Wahhabism is a mutant of this)
Salafism
SHIA SCHOOLS
Jafari
Ismaiiyah
Zaiddiyah
Alani
Alevi
There’s also a Sufi branch.
ALL OF THESE BRANCHES/SCHOOLS believe in Jihad against Non-Muslim and the eventual conquest of the entire world… and ALL OF THEM are working toward that goal in thier own indivual way.
According to Surah 2:177, A Muslim must accept all these things:
“It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believeth in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets”
So they agree with the doctrine of the Last Day. The Last Day requires the extermination of the Jews and the destruction of Christiniaty.
Anything that encourages or enables Muslims to be more devout to their religion eventually leads to radicalization then hatred and then war.
That is why all efforts to accomodate Islam in this country should be opposed with maximum effort.
I still want to see people who talked about the war being a long process, because it may be obvious to people who are looking at a lot of different sources, but for those of us who only get the highlights, I can tell you we didn’t see that in the mainstream at all. It was all Rumsfeld’s comments and things like that.
This is due to the failure of the Bush administration to provide proper home-front leadership and inform the public of the situation, who the enemy is, and what are our objectives are.
Bush did say in his Sept – Dec 2001 public address that we’re going to be at war for a long long time. That the war will outlast his term of office and that the war will consist of major battles (like in Iraq) and battles the public will never know about.
This time between 9/11 and before Iraq was where the White House seemed to be saying almost all the right things. They gave off the strong hint that they knew this was a war with Islam but that they couldn’t say it publically because we’re still dependent upon Muslim countries for many things and obviously can’t alienate them.
In order to read between the lines, this requires one to have a substantial education about our enemy. I think those of us who knew a lot about Islam understood the secondary goal of the Iraq war was to get US Forces in a position where we would be able to tack on the greater enemies to us.. Saudi Arabia and Iran. Iraq was a logical starting point because Saddam Hussien was practically begging to be invaded by his violating the UN resolutions so many times.
I dont think anyone was under the illusion we were going to be out of there real quick. What no one anticpated was the failed culture in Iraq. Because the Adminstration has horrible public leadership they allowed the Democrats to steadily become more and more critical of what was going on until finally the Democrats started engaging in out right lies starting with Joe Wilson. Bush did nothing to defend himself.
This effectively ended any chance that we would take on Iran or Saudi Arabia… all we had left as far as a mission goes was to stablize Iraq and leave. Failure of the Leftists and Democrats to stand united with the President undermined the grand strategy.. a strategy that I think was never commuinicated to the public becausae you cant declare to the world “in 5 years we’re going to bring down Saudi Arabia and Iran” and one that he never sat down with Congress to get on his side.
I really dont think any amount of planning would have changed the post-invasion story at all. So its true they sorta didn’t think through what would happen after Saddam fell, but I dont think even if we were able to predict the ensuing conflicts that it would have been able to be contained.. I think the process that has unfolded was inevitible.
The Democrats still refuse to see the global conflict for what it is… a global jihad. They are engaged in a 1960s type poltical framework completely blind to the realities of today.
A lot of Republicans aren’t much better.
our government as a whole doesn’t understand jihad, doesnt’ understand what motivates the enemy and certainly has no clue how to fight an ideological war.
There is going to be a lot of blood spilt after the US Election. We have signaled to our enemy for way too long that we’re not serious about fighting them. We have signaled to them that if they push just hard enough all the Code Pinks in this country are going to demand we leave.
We have signaled to our enemy, who has been fighting Non-Muslims for 1,400 YEARS that after just 5 years of fighting them , we’re too tired and just want to be left alone.
There’s major consequences in store for us. To a Muslim, weakness is a provokation. Islam is a tribal warrior religion.
We haven’t seen anything yet.
This *did* take a sudden turn into civility, didn’t it? Vince, while I disagree vehemently with most of what you’ve written, I honestly do thank you for taking the time to write it out in such detail.
First, to get the beating of the dead horses out of the way, I do wish Strata would retract his statement that “no one said Iraq was going to be easy”, because I think it’s been fairly clear that (at least) Rumsfeld and Cheney did. We can argue semantics about what they “really meant” if you wish, but I still feel that statement was misleading at best and dishonest at worst.
Vince, you say: “All mainstream and traditional sects within Islam acknoweldge that Jihad is their sacrid duty and obligation to perform, when they are in a position to do so.”
That’s an interesting perspective. Do you have a quote or link for it? (I haven’t yet had the time to go through most of what you supplied earlier – my apologies, busy weekend.) Does their religion or religious texts specifically state that they need to push Islam to the rest of the world through violence, or is it just that, similar to Born-Again Christians (of which my wife is one), they had a sacred obligation to spread “the true world” to everyone around them, in order to save their souls?
Now, onto the second main point: invading Iran is one thing (and as I said above, I’m seeing the same sorts of misinformation and outright untruths coming from McCain, Bush and Cheney now with Iran, that we saw concerning Iraq in 2002/2003). But, war with Saudi Arabia? From the Bush Administration? Seriously?
http://www.slate.com/id/2103239/entry/2103433/
“Saudi money bailed out Harken Energy when George W. Bush was on its board of directors. That’s how he made his fortune. Bush 41 and James Baker traveled to Saudi Arabia repeatedly for the Carlyle Group to woo Saudi investors and win contracts. The Bush family remains close to Prince Bandar, even though Bandar’s wife actually funded two 9/11 hijackers—indirectly and inadvertently, of course.”
http://www.footnotetv.com/f911chap3-2.html
“The United States gets more oil from Saudi Arabia than from any other country, and the United States has sold billions in military equipment to Saudi Arabia over recent decades.” (This link is actually critical of the author of the previous link, but is included in order to balance out any questions of bias.)
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/conspiracytheories/saudi.html
“Sept. 11/2001
The attack occurs. The morning of the attack George Bush Sr. is meets with members of the Carlyle Group in Washington. Bin Laden’s own brother is at the meeting. Members of the Bin Laden family are allowed to leave the U.S. without questioning two days later.”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018518.php
“Bush certifies Saudi Arabia as ‘war on terror’ ally”
Also, isn’t it a commonly-accepted fact that the reason for Bin Laden’s attacks on the U.S. were a direct consequence of the presence of US military in that country? Is there some reason we think that attacking this (sovereign) country (who has been proclaimed OUR ALLY) would actually *help* that situation?
I am really trying not to sound like I am outright dismissing your opinion on this matter – but, what have you ever seen or heard that made you think the Bush Administration ever thought about invading Saudi Arabia (or thought that/desired a future administration would do so)?
Breshau : You’re making the classic mistake of somehow making the truth about Islam to be a function of what the Bush adminstration says.
This is very simple. The govt is wrong. And has been wrong for a very long time.
I’m not going to get into a point by point debunking the stuff about Bush… if you see a conflict between what I wrote and what Bush says, then Bush is wrong. I am not a politiician. I dont need to lie or talk in code, or take international relations into account with waht I say. The government does.
Critics of the Bush administration really need to take a step back and look at the world situation for what it is. I’m sorry but so many of you look no further than you disagreement with him and just have in your mind that there is no independment worldwide Jihad movement because if bush is wrong about some other thing then he must be wrong about everything.
The Muslims have their own agenda.. and they are pursuing it and would be pursuing it no matter who the President is, or what the president has or has not done.
Vince, you say: “All mainstream and traditional sects within Islam acknoweldge that Jihad is their sacrid duty and obligation to perform, when they are in a position to do so.â€
That’s an interesting perspective. Do you have a quote or link for it? (I haven’t yet had the time to go through most of what you supplied earlier – my apologies, busy weekend.) Does their religion or religious texts specifically state that they need to push Islam to the rest of the world through violence, or is it just that, similar to Born-Again Christians (of which my wife is one), they had a sacred obligation to spread “the true world†to everyone around them, in order to save their souls?
In Islam, one of the very last verses that Mohemmed revealed is called the “Verse of the Sword”, this was one of his last commands to Muslims before his death. In Islam there is the concept of abrogration. This means that if Mohemmed say “The sky is purple” on Monday and then one Friday he said “The sky is made of cotton candy” , then the verse he revealed on Friday replaces the one he said on Monday.
Because the Verse of the Sword is one of his last revelation, it overrides all previous commands on how Muslims should relate to the Non-Muslim world.
The Verse of the Sword reads:
“Sura 9:5 When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful”
Of course this verse doesn’t exist in a vacumn… all of Sura 9 is one of the chronologically last revelaed part of the Koran and violence is command all through it.
Mohemmed is considered the perfect man in Islam. All people in all time should copy his example in temrs of the things he did do, and avoid doing things that he forbade to do.
The koran is considered the literal letter-by-letter word of God written by God himself. (Christians / Jews beleive the bible was written by men but inspired by God).
Because God Himself wrote the Koran, there is no questioning what it says.. There is no critical analysis. There is no concept of allegory or turning literal commands into metaphors.
islam is submission.
So based on all the principles above.. ALL of Islam recognizes the obligations of the verse of the sword and the requirement to dominate the world when they have the ability to do so.
If you are honestly seeking info on this then this is a good analysis
http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/swordverse.htm
I really suggest you read it and internalize it.
And do not let your political pursuastion or your opposition to whatever Bush said or did interfere with your study because Muslims do not come to thier religious views based on the actions of the United States government. .. they have a 1,400 year history of lauching jihad to all areas that they had an ability to do so.
They were not able to do it in most recent history until the oil money started to flow and now they have resumed it.
On a different page you questioned whether or not the Iranian policy was correct.
I asked you if you know what a twelver is. You haven’t answered. Do you know what a twelever is?