For those who do not worship at the altar of Captain Obvious, let me state it plainly.
I am not a diplomat. I have a real job with actual responsibilities. Plus, I hate tea.
At 37 I am old enough to remember when schools taught history. For the young generation, January 20th, 2009, is not what separates the Common Era from the BCE period.
The only lesson that needs to be learned from history can be summed up in two words.
Force works.
It has always worked. Force allowed Judah Maccabee, the predecessor to Paul Wolfowitz, to take down the Greeks. Hanukkah is not about dreidels and gelt. It is the Jewish July 4th.
The Roman Empire expanded by force. and was eventually conquered when it became complacent.
Yes, Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a single shot. Yet make no mistake about it. The Russians surrendered because they knew they could not win. That is how wars end. One side looks in the mirror and says, “we can’t win.”
A chess match ends when the king sees his entire defense eviscerated. He surrenders to stay alive. The card game “war,” ends when one player runs out of every single card. There is nothing left.
Very few world leaders ever seem to grasp this.
Alberto Fujimori got it. In South America, when leftist rebels took hostages, he led a brilliant raid, killed the rebels, rescued the hostages, and then added the exclamation point by putting his feet on the coffee table and lighting a cigar. He angered the leftists, the gun-control crowd, and the anti-smoking fringe. Sounds good to me.
Vladimir Putin got it. I know it is not politically correct to praise Putin, but has anybody noticed that rebel groups in Russia have taken up new hobbies? Does it seem interesting that Russian ships are not being hijacked by Somali pirates?
The pirates know better. They know that when rebels took over a school, Putin warned them that he would send his men in to kill everybody. Liberals declared that he would never let anything happen to the children. Putin knew that as awful as dead children looks on the news, giving in to the terrorists would lead to many more dead children in the future. He may not be Harry Truman, but he certainly ended the conflict. Apparently Putin does not let CNN dictate his policy decisions.
Benjamin Netanyahu has the potential to be one of the great world leaders, along with Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, George W. Bush, and Ariel Sharon.
Yet he had that potential in 1996. He ran as an enforcer and turned into a deal-making pragmatist. I truly believe in Bibi, but I worry that the Gilad Shalit situation is turning into a debacle.
The fictional invented creatures known as Palestinians have often been rewarded for their third world genocidal lunacy. They blow up discos. Israel drops leaflets. They kill innocent civilians in Pizza parlors. Israel drives Palestinian victims to the hospitals, which their relatives then try to blow up.
Palestinians release one or two Israelis, sometimes alive, sometimes dead. Israel releases hundreds of terrorists.
No, I cannot possibly know what Gilad Shalit’s family is going through. I will never understand their pain. I wore the dog tags around my neck in solidarity. I took them off and threw them across my bedroom in disgust when I realized that two of the three most recent kidnapped soldiers were murdered, and there would be no justice for their killers.
The day Gilad Shalit is released, Palestinians will be firing their guns in the air. The Jihad will continue, and they will plan the next round of kidnappings.
There was another solution, but it is too late now for this round in the never ending conflict.
When the next group of Israelis are kidnapped, and this will happen…Israel must take serious steps.
They must learn from Fujimori and Putin.
Force works. Two more words they must embrace: collateral damage. Finally, two more words: Scorched Earth.
God helps those who help themselves. Any people or nation that is not willing to do anything and everything to defend itself will not be around for long. The Holocaust is proof of what can happen when evil goes unchecked.
This means burning every village, razing every field, and sterilizing every prisoner so that they cannot reproduce a new generation of homicide bombers. Some say that Israel takes extra precautions because they value human life. Well if the Palestinians do not value human life, then that only provides extra justification for immediate and tough measures.
Time is running out. North Korea can kidnap a pair of American journalists and get rewarded with a photo op with a peripheral groveling ex-president because they have nuclear weapons. China can make their 1989 crackdown seem like child’s play tomorrow and the world will allow it because China also has nuclear weapons. What would our current leader do, something? Of course not.
Once the homicide bombers get the ultimate bomb, it will be too late. Israel has a few years left at most to take the Palestinians and break them physically, militarily, emotionally, and psychologically. Only when Palestinians are totally broken will they stop their madness. They may never stop. If they don’t, they can cease to exist too. Rocket launchers are omni-directional.
I trust Mr. Netanyahu. There is no reason to trust the Palestinians. Ever. The only promise they have ever honored is their vow to try and destroy Israel.
Now is not the time to surrender.
Gilad Shalit may experience freedom. His parents will have their nightmare end. This is good. Yet the entire nation of Israel he fought to protect will once again be held hostage.
eric
“Force works.”
If you truly are a student of history, you know that force does not always work. Whether force actually works depends on who’s applying it, for what, and how. Force worked for Hitler, for a few years, and then it destroyed him, Germany, and left 50 million people dead. Nothing “worked” about that. Force never worked in Vietnam. It has yet to have ever worked in Afghanistan – in over 2000 years. It did not end Aparthied or Jim Crow. It will never help the Palestinians (a lesson they really should learn from how Aparthied and Jim Crow did end).
Judah Macabee did not “take down the Greeks.” I have no idea where you got that from. The fall of the Roman Empire had nothing to do, per se, with force or complacency. No idea where you got that from either. The Russian did not “surrender” the Cold War. Zero idea what they even surrendered! And Ronald Reagan most certainly did not “win” the Cold War. What did he win? The Soviet Union simply collapsed. It did not work. It was a failed state. Why you guys think Reagan “won” it or the Soviets “surrendered” anything to anyone is beyond me.
“The fictional invented creatures known as Palestinians…”
I’ll say this – Jews who say things like that about Palestinians are behaving no differently than Palestinians who say things like that about Jews. And as long as there are Jews – and Palestinians – who feel this way, the conflict there will never end. As the child of survivors of the Holocaust, our good host, of all people, should know just how evil and destructive it is to dehumanize human beings. Whether you like them or not, they are human beings, they have been there for thousands of years (probably longer than the Jews ever stayed there), you share common ancestors and traditions with them, and it is not for you to tell them what to call themselves.
If Israel were to apply a “scorched Earth” strategy of mass-murdering the Palestinian people, they would loose all support throughout the world, and would probably be destroyed, taking down millions of innocent people with them. Force, to a point, is necessary for Israel’s survival, but too much force, in general, hasn’t changed the status quo in decades. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity: thy name is Conservatism.
JMJ
” you truly are a student of history, you know that force does not always work. Whether force actually works depends on who’s applying it, for what, and how”
And bla bla bla and bla bla I wanna hear myself sound important and bla bla bla i’m smarter and bla bla bla student of history and bla bla bla a chance to say Reagan didnt win anything againyou go on and on but the fact is that the author said force works and so yes it does in the means he meant it to be applied.
All your semantic evasions to some other means and application of force does not change the fact that in this case the use of force works and is appropriate and Reagan was an elemental “FORCE” in the collapse of the Sovuet Union.
If you’d pull your head out of your politically bigoted rumpo for once you’d actually make a coherant truthful argument. But you’re so hell bent on beating up anything conservative that ytou will even avoid simple facts to construct something that sounds truthfull. You’ll even be as lame and pathetic in this endeavor to try and indulge in pedantry and sematics so you dont have to call it a war like everyone else or make the claim that the soviets would of collapsed anyway.
NO ! BULLSHT !!
Of course they were going to collapse but there had to be some elements contributing to it and Reagans policies were just that !
“They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity:”
Strawman argument to the umpteenth power.
Has the “scortched earth strategy” ever been tried by Israel ?
Of course not. So really, would you mind telling us where the hell you got that asinine argument from ???
We had this debate a while back and it was rendered to the truth that its the left whos employed all the same methods over the last 60 years thatr have failed.
I asked you for your suggestions.
You gave them to me.
We went down the line and examined each one and discovered that its the liberals today that want to revisit all the same failed policies of the past. negotiate, peaced treaties, tear down settlements, kumbaya etc…
The only one that hasnt been tried is the one you say is a revisited policy resembling insanity ?
If its never been tried before then how the hell on earth can you say its a failed policy thats been tried over and over again ?
Yes, the scortched earth thing kick your a$$ into oblivion” will work and spare me this crap that Israel would lose all support because I’ve seen just how much support the UN is willing to give them no matter what and it doesnt seem like they’ve got much more to lose at this point…does it ?
“The fictional invented creatures known as Palestinians…”
“I’ll say this – Jews who say things like that about Palestinians are …”
Oh yeah ? Find Palestine on a 2009 map and you’ll look like you’ve got some kind of valid point.
They’re nothing but a bunch of squating nomads who conjured up from surrounding Arab states that some of their ancestors did belong to at one time and went and elected into power a terrorist organization supported by the largest state sponsor of terrorism on the planet.
Now they must lay in the bed they made.
Just like we must pay the price of having this idiot in chief you all call the president.
Nah, what am I sayin ?
Three years from now when hes the most disgraced president weve ever had, half of us are dead and the rest broke you all will just blame it on Bush because you’re totally incapable of owning anything as a result of your own idiocy.
” it is not for you to tell them what to call themselves”
Its not for you to tell us what to call anything.
You can run around crying about what an intelligent student of history you think you are but I have a different label for you whether you like it or not.
Of course why would we expect delusional freaks addicted to PC want it any other way ?
“Man made disasters” and you want to berate those who call things what they are ?
Force fails when applied “to a point”. “Force works” when applied massively. Force worked for Hitler for a while, but Hitler ran out of force. Hitler was destroyed by massive force.
Micky is right intellectuals love intellectualism and I guess they think they can talk their way out of anything. Talking “to a point” works. What intellectuals fail to see is when talking ceases to work. So doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result is an intellectual failure. Perhaps we all are guilty.
Force “to a point” failed in Nam because the enemy was willing to do what was necessary to win. Congress was not. Therein is the failure. The intellectuals in congress failed to do what was necessary.
Jers, your post supports the point I made yesterday. I must assume here that we all agree that an enemy exists and wants to destroy us intellectuals and all. Therefore, in order to avoid being destroyed, are we willing to do what is necessary? We have been applying “force to a point” and sending the enemy little notes and signs saying we are prepared to talk, at their pleasure. The enemy does not fear us. The enemy knows we are not willing to do what is necessary. The enemy wins.
Genocide is not necessary. Fear is necessary. The enemy must fear us. The only way to put fear in their hearts is to go where they live kill their goats and eat them. Leave not one alive. Be more ruthless than they are. Demonstrate that we are willing to use massive force.
Or, we could talk and talk and talk and expect a different result over and over again.
Perhaps it is unrealistic to want to survive and be free.
Toma
Micky and Toma, I think you’re terribly oversimplifying things here, as is our good host. History is written by the victors, and so people tend to think that therefore “force works.” Well, works at what? For who? How? In the purely physical sense, only force works at anything. In the natural world, nothing does aanything until a force makes it so. But “force” in that sense does not necessarily mean military force.
Jim Crow, the British Mandate in India, Aparthied, and many other injustices throughout were brought to end end not by might, not by war, not be violence, but by peaceful resistance. Remember, the Jews in Israel endlessly fought the Romans and for all their efforts was almost 2000 years of diaspora that for most Jews continues to this day. Force did not work for them. In the end, Judah Maccabee was killed by the Syrians. His revolution continued until eventually the Romans ended the existence of Israel. Force did not work for him either. We Americans murdered at least a million Vietnamese, won every battle we fought against them, lost 58,000 American lives, and in the end it was all for naught. Today we do cheap trade with the very communist regime we tried to defeat for the sake of cheap trade. As usual, the tragic irony is lost on conservatives.
I understand why Israel reacts the way they do – because the Palestinians believe the same utter nonsense that “force works.” The Palestinians believe they must instill fear in Israelis. The Palestinians are fighting a futile endless battle but can never win the war. You guys sound EXACTLY like the Palestinians.
JMJ
As we over simplify you must over analyze.
What forces are we talking about inertia, centrifugal, gravity perhaps? Our world is the natural world, we live in the natural world. However, their are those who consider the natural world as the area between the elevator doors and a taxi cab. Intellectuals, you gotta love em.
Let me over simplify. In the natural world there are individuals who do not like you Jers, and these same individuals don’t like Mick and they don’t like me either. In fact these individuals don’t like any body that don’t believe what they believe. So they kill. They will kill you, me, Mick, eric, tipster, eagle6, dav and any body else they want to kill.
The problem comes in when one fails to recognize that these afore mentioned individuals are not intellectuals and cannot communicate on any level other than their own. They communicate by killing. Their message is absolutely clear and simple to me.
Just ask the families of the soldiers at Fort Hood. What communication did they recieve?
C’mon man, give us some more intellectual analysis, and history lessons.
Toma
Toma, I may analyze, but I still come to the same conclusion: I have no idea what Israel should do. The only solid opinion I have on the matter is that Israel should unilaterally pull out the settlements, create a viable space for a Palestinian state, and hope they fill their own political vacuum. To this day I just don’t see the point in the settlements.
As for people that want to kill us, fortunately we live in the greatest nation on the planet. I’m not afraid. If we are vigilant, we can protect ourselves just fine. We don’t need to elevate the status of these sleazy criminal terrosrists by going to war with them. they aren’t worth it and it isn;t necessary. On top of all that, this insipid GWOT is just creating more terrorists. I’m not alone in that opinion. And it’s not just a lefty thing. There is serious criticism of this approach from all sides – from the CATO Institute, to Libertarians, to Brookings, have serious reservations about the war on terror.
Fort Hood is a great example! I keep hearing all this nonsense that “political corrrectness” allowed this to happen. What a steaming – and convenient – load. The military has a shortage of psychiatrists – one of many shortages it has thanks to the Bush “administration.” There are supposed to be one psychiatrist for every 350 soldiers, but we’re now down to one per 750. that’s why that loony was able to stick around and wreck the havoc he did. More evidence that conservatives dont even know how to run a war, let alone when one is called for.
And you need a history lesson. The Soviet Union, for example, dissipated because Gorbachev and his contemporary compatriots saw it as ineviable and in the best interest of all parties concerned. Relatively peaceful movements, like Solidarity (a LABOR movement) also contributed. Then, after the Wall fell and the USSR broke apart, the Russians revealed that they were never nearly the threat that the red Baiters made them out to be. And still, after all that, you guys still have the audacity to claim that “Reagan won the Cold War.” What kind of comic-book universe must one live in to believe such simplistic nonsense?
JMJ
” You guys sound EXACTLY like the Palestinians.”
You still have no answer as to what the Israelis should do yet you prescribe the same falied methods and in the same breath accuse everyone of doing just that.
It all boils donw to the one thing that hasnt been tried yet and that is overwhelming force.
Palestinians are not able to apply this kind of force but Iran soon will. Which is why Israel simply must apply that overwhelming force first.
Especially since Iran has sworn to use it once it has it.
You’re a joke Jersey, you think posting all your over analytical BS along with the ever so predictable jabs at everyone elses intelect is going make it look as if you have a clue yet when you render everything down that you’ve posted to its real essence you really said nothing but instead launched a bunch of crap thats supposed to elevate your intellectual stature.
It didnt happen.
“The only solid opinion I have on the matter is that Israel should unilaterally pull out the settlements, create a viable space for a Palestinian state, ”
Just how insanely stoooopid can one person be ?
Yeah, thats right, lets allow a state that hates Jews be able to rise to a viable profitable entity thats able to grow an economy and an even larger military.
” after all that, you guys still have the audacity to claim that “Reagan won the Cold War.” What kind of comic-book universe must one live in to believe such simplistic nonsense?”
hey, its you whos being audistic in not reading for content.
I said Reagan was a crucial element in the fal of the Soviets. I didnt say he won the cold war single handidly as you so disenegenuously asserted.
But, thats how you are. You can only make a half a$$ed argument if you distort and over complicate things
“You guys have the audicity”. I have never mentioned Reagan in any post to date. I have never mentioned the Soviet Union. I don’t write about Israel, why, because it does not matter.
It does not matter how many shrinks per soldier. It does not matter what Israel does or don’t do. “Reservations” about the war on terror solves nothing. Analyzing and studying the history of Islam and blaming the Bush administration or any administration is meaningless.
Jihad, “Allah Akbar” has meaning, purpose, objectives, determination. Jihad could not care less how the Soviet Union collapsed. Or who has “reservation”. Jihad has infiltrated the military therefore it is in every room in our house. Jihad has become a personal war. Are you prepared to fight a personal war? Are you prepared to fight for your life in the streets, at a football game, at the mall. No you are not and neither am I. But it is here. It is only a matter of time. Another Muslem will pick the time and pick the place and boom, more dead Americans.
Analyzing, blaming, preaching and having reservations will not stop them.
No one has tried massive force. If Iran wants a nuke, send them one. Does anyone else want a nuke? Speak up.
But Toma, you are barbaric, unrealistic, simplistic, down right idiotic. How can you propose such a thing?
It is not a proposal merely an observation. Do I have reservations?
Toma
Micky, I may not have the right answers, but it’s pretty obvious what some of the wrong answers are! If you do something over and over again and it doesn’t work, then it’s probably not the right thing to do.
And did it ever occur to you that if the Palestinians did have a viable and prosperous state, they wouldn’t have the impetus to be so problematic? Prosperous people are far less likely to make trouble than people who are down and out.
And finally, Reagan was never a “crucial element” in anything other than the weakening of our nation for the profit of the rich. Reagan worship is stupid.
Toma,
Why are you so worried about terrorism, anyway? The is America, man! Since when do we tremble at the likes of these dune loonies?
And what kind of massive force are you talking about? You’ve nwever elaborated. Are you talking about nuking a billion people? Are you talking about bilaterally the US and Israel declaring war on a few dozen nations? What are you talking about? We’re using “massive force” in the Middle East right now. We’ve been doing it for years. It hasn’t gotten us anywhere. There are more terrorists and more anti-US and anti-Israel sentiment than ever before. What exactly are you suggesting we do?
JMJ
How can I make this any clearer? We know where the so called taliban lives and sleeps and eats. Destroy them with what ever is necessary. We know where they get their weapons. Destroy them with what ever is necessary. What is it about “kill their goats and eat them” that you do not understand?
Were the soldiers at Ft Hood afraid of terrrorism? Were the people in the towers afraid of terrorism. Need I go on?
So you are not afraid, well bully for you. The terrorists are not afraid either.
“Micky, I may not have the right answers, but it’s pretty obvious what some of the wrong answers are! If you do something over and over again and it doesn’t work, then it’s probably not the right thing to do.”
What does it take for you to get it thru your thick freaking skull that what you’ve been suggesting is exactly whats been tried over and over again and that brute force is the “ONLY” thing that hasnt really been tried yet ?
Yet at the end of each segement you always ask or say the same damn thing all over again ? Do you see the irony in what you’re doing ?
Over and over again you keep saying that we do the same thing over and over again.
Its insanity on your part because what I am prescribing “HAS NOT” been tried over and over again.
Are you stupid or just being intentionally obtuse ?
“Why are you so worried about terrorism, anyway? The is America, man! Since when do we tremble at the likes of these dune loonies?”
yeah, thats the mentallity after the Cole, the embassies and the trade towers that got us 911.
Thats the exact same attitude you blamed Bush for having even with the memos you say he was getting, but now its convenient for you when you want to make your anti war case ?
“And what kind of massive force are you talking about? You’ve never elaborated.”
Yeah I have, many times.
You’ve either got a really bad memory or just wanna play games.
“What exactly are you suggesting we do?”
I’m kinda streamlined in my applications.
I say bomb the hell out of a few villages killing everyone in them. Regretfully there will be innocents that get killed, and I mean it when I say that, but I believe in the long run less innocents will get killed because the village people will get tired of that real quick and turn on the radicals.
Right now they’re all being given cover by people they’ve managed to manage by instilling threats.
I think thats the best way to limit collateral deaths and get to the enemy that much quicker.
I think thats why we see this problem over and over no matter where radical Islam has pitched its tent be it with the Palestinians, we saw it in Iraq, we see it in Pakistan and of course Afghanistan.
They take every village/city hostage by simple threats and the people comply.
This method I’m sugesting worked in Iraq starting with Falluja where the people finally tired of the innocent deaths caused by American and insurgent forces fighting and began a campaign of their own exposing to us where the bad guys were so we could kill them and consequently left the US troops no reason to remain there once they were all dead.
Instead were going to see these mealy mouthed PC feel good rules of engagement take place dragging this thing out much longer than needed resulting in more deaths simply due to the length of time required.
Were going to be there for a long time unless we come up with the balls to actually do what no one wants to admit needs to be done.
Liberals dont know how to fight.
The amount of energy they put into running from the fight is enough energy to win ten comprable wars.
Freaking intentions, thats all you guys are good for.
“And finally, Reagan was never a “crucial element” in anything other than the weakening of our nation for the profit of the rich. Reagan worship is stupid.”
As I’ve said before, your ignorance and political hatred gets in the way of your abilty to be the least bit rational. If you could see it youd be ashamed. But then again I’m the king of understanding denial, so all I can do is pray for you while letting you know just how stupid I think you are.
Reagan was at the helm during the collapse of the Soviets, he was an integral part of that collapse.
Just because you’re brainwashed into thinking anything conservative is bad doesnt mean that level headed people dont see the man for what he was.
“And did it ever occur to you that if the Palestinians did have a viable and prosperous state, they wouldn’t have the impetus to be so problematic? Prosperous people are far less likely to make trouble than people who are down and out.”
If you fail to acknowledge the reality that the Palestinians and the government they elected has the main objective of ridding the planet of all Jews you wouldnt of said such an incredibly stupid thing.
I dont know about you but the last thing you do is allow your sworn enemies to live right next door while prospering and growing.
Everytime the Palestinians have been given a handout or a hand up they have attacked anyways.
Everytime they recieve monies from the US or the Israelis or international aid they convert it into weaponry and starve their people.
You’re ignorant enough to think that will change because they all have jobs and homes ?
And you talk about insanity ?
Oh yeah, and if that doesnt work then clean their clocks period.
Glass parking lot.
Desert.
Flatten.
Zippo.
Nadda.
All gone.
No more enemy anywhere.
A few well placed nukes.
It makes a hell of a lot more sense than the efforts that have been nothing but repetitions of old failed techniques that over the last 60 years have gotten hundreds of thousand of people killed.
Face it, grow up.
There will be no peace unless one or the other is gone.
Toma, the Taliban are native Afghanis. They blend right in with their tribes. You kill one and his brother comes next, you kill him and then it’s his cousin, you kill him and it’s his nephew, and it goes on and on forever until you realize that the only possible outcomes are either endless war or genocide. Regardless, many a power has attempted to pacify the Kush. None has ever succeeded. I highly doubt we are going to change that record.
As for Fort Hood – it was preventable. So was 9/11. the terrorists strike at our vulnerabilities. The Europeans dealt with air terror back in the sixties and seventies. Now, when you fly into a European airport, you see armed expert soldiers all over the place. They fixed the vulnerability. At Walter Reed, Hasan’s fellow officers knew he was a problem, but rather than deal with him, they shipped him off to Hood, like Catholic Bishops passing around perverted preists from diocese to diocese, and he blew a gasket and went on killing spree. I haven’t heard of anything like that happened in another military’s ranks in my lifetime. Americans can be a little aloof and unrealistic. Yes, we are safe, but we can’t get lazy. Again though, that doesn’t mean we should go all over the world playing whack-a-mole with a trillion dollar military just to feel a little safer. Sometimes defense really is the best defense. War is only going to make things worse, playing right into the hands of the terrorists. Intelligence, law enforcement and quiet diplomacy is the smarter way to deal with this.
Micky, we’ve been doing it you guy’s way for 8 years now and it’s FAILED. Acting like belligerent morons ourselves is not going to solve this.
JMJ
I must say that you are wrong Jers, but that is nothing new. Mark this day and remember your posts. Quiet diplomacy is folly, Intelligence agencies are being investigated and demoralized by your Muslem leader, law enforcement will read them their rights, then boom more dead americans.
Let us remember your answer to terrorism. Oh, I’m sorry “man made disaster”. We will have the opportunity to “talk” about this again.
Toma
My “Muslem leader”???
Toma, It’s very hard to take you seriously when you write stuff like that. Obama – who is not a Muslim, was born in America, is a practicing Christian, and is very mainstream, too mainstream if you ask me, in every way – is surrounded by a lot of hawks: Clinton, Gates, Petraeus, McChrystal. He’s doing pretty much exactly what Bush was doing on both the home and foreign fronts. The surge he’s proposing in Afghanistan even has the exact same number in increase in troops! It just goes to show that no matter what he does, the Right will not support him.
My way is most certainly NOT being tried, at least not nearly enough for my liking. Obama is continuing the military approach to the insipid GWOT. On the othe rhand, quite opposite of Bush, a majority of the world is backing him and trusts him to do the right thing, and that’s good news.
There are people on both the Right and the Left who agree with me about this – that Afghanistan is a lost cause and for other reason as well we should get out of there, even if just to vacuum Al Qaeda back out of Pakistan where they can do a lot more damage than they can from Afghanistan. You know the old expressiion “keep your enemies closer?” Well, it would be nice if we could at least know where they are and have that place be as difficult to work from as possible.
I don’t think you guys understand what I mean when I talk about diplomacy. I’m not talking about negiotiating with organized crime syndicates, like Al Qaeda or the Afghan heroine traders. I’m not talking about appeasing or making concessions to rogue states. I’m talking about diplomacy with our friends to assist us in dealing with terrorism, rather than pissing them off at every turn so that their political impetus and capability to assist us is weakened. Do you get that?
JMJ
Let me get back to that diplomacy point for a sec…
For example: a lot of not-so-smart people on the Right keep talking about “Radical Islam” and “Islamofascism” and “Jihadis.” Well, to most of the Muslem world this makes it sound like we’re at war with Islam. that’s not good. We need the supprt from our friends in the leadership of the Muslim world. They can’t help us if we keep pissing off the Arab Street. They’re not going to stick their necks out without the support of their people. We have to be careful when we talk about this issue. Dummy, blunt, drunk bar-talk is not going to help. We need to carefully measure our words. that’s why Obama gave that speech in Egypt. Not to “apologize” for anything, not to “appease” anyone, not to “concede” anything, but to change the rhetoric so that our friends in the Muslim world could gather the political capital to help us suppress terrorism. I guess that was to subtle for the Right to understand. Personally, I think the pundits and pols on the Right knew better, but they spoke out against the president anyway because America’s national security means nothing to them. They just want power and war.
This whole dummy, blunt, bar-talk type of rhetoric being spouted from the Right is the same sort of nonsense that cost you the ’08 elections. Up until ’06 and especially ’08, the GOP was garnering large percentages of the Hispanic vote. Then came the rabid, hateful, frothing-at-the-mouth anti-“illegal immigration” movement from the Right. They didn’t go after Big Agro, in which 75% of it’s workers are “illegals.” They didn’t go after Walmart, infamous for bringing cheap, “illegal” labor with them wherever they set up shop. They didn’t go after the very GOP that allowed for all this and oversaw more “illegals” entering the country than ever before. They didn’t go after “Free Trade,” the primary reason for “illegal immigration.” No, these obvious racists went after the poor shlubs crossing into America to look for jobs. And their nasty rhetoric, and obvious hypocrisy, made them look like what they really are: racists. And sure enough, the vast majority of the Hispanic vote went over to the Dems, because the Right made it sound like they were simply against all tan-skinned, Spanish-speaking human beings – even those on the Right who are not.
Stupid, nasty rhetoric gets you and me and we nowhere. DIPLOMACY, Toma. DIP-LO-MA-CY. Learn about it.
JMJ
FOL-LY. RE-MEM-BER your words.
Toma
“Micky, we’ve been doing it you guy’s way for 8 years now and it’s FAILED. Acting like belligerent morons ourselves is not going to solve this.”
What are you ? Totally retarded ?
We were safe for 8 years until the libs came along.
Iraq did not fail, Afghanistans height of failure was at the hands of Obama.
Period.
You on the other hand are the absent minded clueless moonbat whos prescribing whats been failing across the middle east for the last 60 years.
Take your DIPLOMACY and shove it where you do your best thinking.
You’re dillydallting Clinton got us 911.
Your ever so DIPLOMATIC Carter got us nothing but a bunch of tee’d off Iranians and Palestinians and your Obama has made things worse in Afghanistan and resulted in the first attacks on American soil in 8 years.
Oh, by the way, I’ve never seen anyone write so much and say absolutely nothing
“Not to “apologize” for anything, not to “appease” anyone, not to “concede” anything, but to change the rhetoric so that our friends in the Muslim world could gather the political capital to help us suppress terrorism. I guess that was to subtle for the Right to understand.”
Oh my God !
What freaking good did it do ?
Why dont you ask the guys at Ft. Hood.
Where are the moderate muslims trying to suppress terror ?
HUH ?
What a freaking joke la la land you live in
“The surge he’s proposing in Afghanistan even has the exact same number in increase in troops! It just goes to show that no matter what he does, the Right will not support him.”
As long as hes sticking to July 2011 as a withdrawal date then its all a bunch of bullsht posturing jersey !
Hillary and Gates came out saying that the date depends on the situation and conditions at the time.
The white house said NO.
The date is firm.
All hes trying to do is balance the amount of blowback hes going to get from each voting base. He doesnt give a rats a$$ about winning anything but an election.
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“I’m going in with 30,000 troops”
Thats for the ones that believed him when he said it was the necessary war, whos votes he doesnt want to lose.
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“I’m pulling out July of 2011 no matter what”
Thats for all the anti war idiots whos votes he doesnt want to lose.
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So please, if you’re going to run off idiotic rhetoric not based on facts at all then take it where you’ll have someone whos idiotic enough to buy it like the KOS.
And as long as Obama keeps changing his tune midstream as he always does and lying about how many jobs hes created and in districts that dont exist I suggest for you own sake you dont try to defend anything he does anymore because inadvertently hes only setting you up to look like a fool.
“My way is most certainly NOT being tried,”
LIAR.
We went thru this a few months back using an itemized enumerated list and came to the conclusion that all your suggestions had been tried and failed before.
You listed them and I gave you examples in history where they’d been tried and failed.
This is the reason you’re not worthy of honest discussion and why I’ve so many times cast you into the “irrelevant” bin.
Because you honestly dont care abouit solutions and saving peoples lives. You only care about shooting people down even if you have to lie to do it.
I would hate to be a person dependent on you who had no memory Because you always evade from truths that have been confirmed in the past and just blab on as if these things were never established.
I could prove to you today that the sun has come up everyday since the creation of earth (yes, your insane enough to argue things like that) and still tomorrow you would argue the same point all over again as if it had never been settled.
When you make accusations of people you have to be able to prove it.
You cant and yet you still lauch the accusations.
That is the epitome of whats ruining this country