I feel like I've written all these words before, but the lotus eaters still are not listening.
"We have to understand that we're fighting a war against people who think that they are engaged in a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. They believe that this is not an earthly battle. This is a war between the forces of Christianity and the forces of Islam." - Reza Aslan…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - Syzygy
Your article is outstanding.
I'm in the middle of reading "Mugged by Reality" by John Agresto who was sent by the Pentagon to overhaul the educational system of Iraq.
I saw a connection between the Liberal and Conservative leaders in the U.S.
There is a parallel between the Suni/Shia association and our Congress. They're all trying to overthrow each other.
The Iraqi citizen was in total support of our liberation efforts. However, when we did, the educated student turned against us when we showed our lack of strength that you referred to as "When do we cry enough and put the foul beast down?"
The Iraqi knew their previous support of us would be their demise when we left and it became apparent to them, with the demands of our Congress, that we would leave. Therefore, they were left on their own hoping to survive their support of us. Our show of cowardice in battle and our inability to help the Iraqi s who were supporting us was too frightening for them.
The left-over Saddam regime, after our liberation, made it too difficult for them to continue their open support of the U.S. and our Patriots in the field knew it would be the doom of the American liberator if they remained supportive friends with the Doomed Iraqi and BOOM, we all fell down.
Congress continues its Suni/Shia interpretation of hatred and corruption among themselves at the expense of the American tax dollar while our Nation becomes irrelevant to their self-serving needs to overthrow the others party.
The Iraqi sees what I see. We have a leadership not qualified to handle the complexities of a parking ticket, let alone the following understanding:
Iraq is not about The United States. It's about the millions of lives already saved through the efforts of our fighting Patriots. Iraq is about what side of history we want to be on. Those who connect to Freedom for mankind or those who demand withdrawal, achieving tyranny for humanity as the reward of their cowardice and ignorance regarding the rewards of a Global Community through the power of strength, which has always broken the back of despots.
The cost of their cowardice is too high a price for mankind to pay. Maybe we can get Israel to do our serious fighting as someone above suggested. OR, better yet, deport Congress and Illegal Immigrants to Mexico and force Mexico to join Israel for our sake. I have every reason to believe Congress will thumbs up this one.
77 - moonraven
[Entire comment deleted]
78 - moonraven
Who is this Syz fellow?
Another crackpot "patriot" who wants to put the brand USA all over the fucking planet!
Disgusting.
Iraq is about 600,000 Iraquis killed as a result of the obscene invasion of old Sweat-Sock Stuffed Jumpsuit.
79 - troll
(moonraven - JOMs just another nasty troll...just like me and you)
80 - handyguy
Syzygy's post #76 is either drenched in heavy irony, intended as a parody of Dave's piece, or is written by a genuinely insane person.
81 - moonraven
Hmm: Chris disappeared my alert to Nalle's cloning himself again.
He ALWAYS protects Nalle.
82 - Christopher Rose
Wrong again o winged one; I don't protect Nalle at all.
In fact, if you were paying attention to reality as opposed to the inside of your own skull, you would have noticed that he and I rarely agree about politics.
If anything, I was protecting you from seeming excessively obsessive and mistaken. IF he were to do that, I would fix it, point it out and, if it were deliberate rather than a mistake, complain to the site owners.
83 - Dave Nalle
I think it's great when someone who has first hand experience of Iraq comes here to share his viewpoint and in particular his concern for everyday Iraqis in their increasingly difficult situation you call him 'dirty and slimy', a 'crackpot' and 'a genuinely insane person'. Good job spineless socialist buffoons. Especially offensive since he made one of the most significant and insightful comments on a thread which has been beset by pure idiocy.
I haven't been able to post on here until today because I'm responsible for much of the planning for our local town festival which happens this weekend, but I'm taking a break and wanted to make a few points.
First off, my article was written on 9/11 as such it was written in the context of that day, which was and should be a day of emotion. I didn't want to dilute it with a lot of technical bullshit or talking about the details of our failures in Iraq. I was sure, and rightly so, that others would bring those issues up, relentlessly unwilling to see how irrelevant they are to the larger general point I was trying to address in the article.
I was not surprised to see so many of the usual straw men thrown up in the comments. Most notable, of course, the accusation that I was tarring all Muslims with the same broad brush when so many of them are innocent of any wrongdoing or hostility towards the US.
Someone - probably the otherwise halfway sensible Handyguy - suggested that 99.5% of Muslims are not radicalized and just want to be happy. He seems to have failed to do the math on his theory, because that means that there are about a million of them who would like to blow themselves up by running a car bomb into one of our embassies or malls.
What he also didn't consider is that while it may only be a small minority (yet still numerically huge) who are willing to kill themselves in the interest of Jihad, there is still a much larger contingent who are willing to financially and politically support Jihad, including a majority of the population of nations like Iran who voted Jihadists into office. They're willing to put their own and their nations assets on the line and field a conventional army and covert forces in pursuit of that end. You folks ought to take some time to read up on Iranian covert operations in the region and around the world. These folks are sophisticated and very good at what they do and have tens of thousands of operatives all over the world, advancing the cause of a nation which is increasingly imperialistic and which supports an anti-western and anti-Sunni Jihad.
And yes, there are lots and lots of moderate Muslims who are great people and some of whom I've sat down with and had dinner and great conversations with and consider friends. A hell of a lot of the best ones now live here in the US because they realized that the path their brothers were on was one of destruction and doom, and that they had no future in their home countries with the direction things were going there. Those who've remained behind are the weaker ones who cannot effectively resist the forces of extremism in their midst. A violent and determined minority will drag a cowardly majority along with it in whatever direction it wants to go.
Another bogus argument raised is that all of the Islamic nations put together could never effectively challenge the economic and military might of the west no matter how weak we become. Sure, it's an easy assumption to make. I'm not even willing to come out and say that we'd have trouble putting down a giant Islamic empire if one developed. But the cost of doing so in money and human lives would be horrendous, and if we merely tried to contain such a development or ignored it, an awful lot of harm would be done around the world and to innocent people and nations in the process. Countries we consider allies would be well and truly fucked if a new Caliphate was established, most notably India.
To gonzo and handy and a few of the others who are in some ways reasonable people and have legitimate concerns about America's role in the world and problems with our current administration, I'm sorry about all of that, and just as concerned as you are. But in many ways your viewpoint is just as myopic as that of the Neocons. It's not all about America. We're a very convenient pretext for what's going on, but it would be going on without us too. When I talk about bin Laden and the Iraq war being largely irrelevant, it's because while they are great concerns to America, they are only small parts of a much larger picture. We could catch bin Laden tomorrow and pull out of Iraq the day after and this problem would NOT go away. We might put off the next confrontation for a few years, but we would not have addressed the basic problem.
And two comments for moonraven. First, while you may have been to the middle east on your little socialist hand-wringing expeditions, you haven't spent more time there than I have and you don't know more about the region, it's history and it's culture than I do. While you can try to bully others, it's not going to work on me. You're a useful fool for the fairly clever Islamist elite who use your soft-headed conception of socialist brotherhood and third world unity to their own advantage. Second, I'm not losing this argument, because there is no argument here. There's truth which is on my side and your usual delusional bullshit which isn't going anywhere.
Finally, to answer the question some of you are bound to ask, I don't have any solution. I have some ideas. I think we need an entirely different approach to the middle east and to dealing with Islam. I don't think overt warfare as we have attempted it is the answer at all. We need to look at the aftermath of WW2 and the things we did then to try to fight communism in Europe and figure out how we can apply some of the same ideas to the Islamic world. We need to educate and propagandize the hell out of them and find a way to advance that part of the world governmentally and economically so that the gap between rich and poor is smaller and there's less motivation to turn to radical religion and more opportunity for everyone outside of Jihad.
Hope that addressed everything. I'm off to construct drink stands or something.
Dave
84 - Dr Dreadful
Dave:
1. May I suggest you don't get so involved with your town festival next year. It seems to make you excessively grouchy.
2. What makes you think Syzygy has first-hand experience of Iraq?
85 - Michael J. West
Today 9/11 has become an intellectual event and a memory, rather than something which we react to emotionally.
Thank GOD.
86 - troll
*These folks are sophisticated and very good at what they do and have tens of thousands of operatives all over the world, advancing the cause of a nation which is increasingly imperialistic and which supports an anti-western and anti-Sunni Jihad.*
deja vu all over again
please provide sources for your claim about those 'tens of thousands of operatives' as some of us haven't seen anything that supports it - Vox's claims not withstanding
87 - moonraven
I believe you meant to ask for EVIDENCE.
Or is that only something that I need to consider.
Sources for most claims on this site--especially from Nalle and his clones--are always an OPINION piece that agrees with them.
88 - troll
...I do hold you to a higher standard oh moonlit goddess
sources are about all I can hope for from Dave
89 - Alec
Clavos " RE: OK, the Chinese and Indian cultures are not hamstrung by such niceties as "all men are created equal" and the Bill of Rights plus a modern, politically correct tendency in the US to regard any culture and/or philosophy as being equal to, and as valid as any other. This attitude leads us to allow cab drivers to refuse to carry passengers with alcohol, and install footbaths in public institutions, both ideas I doubt either the Chinese or Indian cultures would accept, at least not in the name of equality.
It is decidedly odd that one common reaction to 9/11 is to cause some people to look at the very foundational ideas that supposedly engenders envy and hatred against us, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights --- and the ideas behind them " as mere technicalities, unimportant ephemera that prevents us from doing what we need to do " righteously and indiscriminately kick ass. But if you don’t believe that all men are created equal, and not just US citizens who row the ideological boat the same way, then what exactly is the point?
Also, since China is still a totalitarian dictatorship (and odd that we love to trade with them despite their still being an evil empire and such), so I am not sure that it is a good model for much of anything.
India is another case altogether. Do you really understand the extent to which India strives to make equality and respect for all its peoples a tangible reality? Despite the squawks of nationalist extremist who would remake India into a Hindu version of Pakistan, the world’s most populous democracy, and its people, remains committed to the ideal of an inclusive democracy. For example, in a country that is over 80% Hindu, its prime minister is a Sikh. And Sikhs make up less than 2% of the country. Meanwhile here at home, some evangelicals and others are not quite sure if a Mormon is a real Christian or suitable to be elected president. One of India’s most revered heroes, Karam Singh, another Sikh, was the second person to receive the country’s highest military decoration, the Param Vir Chakra (“Bravest of the Brave,”), for his efforts during a 1948 battle against Pakistan.
So here is a country that strives to accept Muslims (at 14% of the population, a group that is about half the size of the population of Pakistan and most of whom consider themselves as much citizens of India as they view themselves as religious Muslims), Sikhs, Jains, Bahais, Jews and " gasp " even Christians, and to tolerate a wide range of religious and social practices. I am not remotely suggesting that all is sweetness and light in India, but I doubt that they need many lessons from us in handling diversity.
By the way, a while back I posted something about the ridiculous refusal of some Muslim cab drivers to accept passengers with alcohol, or dogs, because it offended their religion. Of course, this to me is much like pharmacists who refuse to dispense the morning-after pill, or even regular birth control pills, because doing so offends their religious sensibilities. Political correctness, and its antidotes makes for strange bedfellows.
Dave Nalle " RE: Another bogus argument raised is that all of the Islamic nations put together could never effectively challenge the economic and military might of the west no matter how weak we become. Sure, it's an easy assumption to make. I'm not even willing to come out and say that we'd have trouble putting down a giant Islamic empire if one developed. But the cost of doing so in money and human lives would be horrendous, and if we merely tried to contain such a development or ignored it, an awful lot of harm would be done around the world and to innocent people and nations in the process.
Sorry, this is just fear mongering masquerading as speculation, and empty speculation masquerading as informed prediction. Yeah, lots of Muslims fantasize about the restoration of a new Caliphate, but that it is likely to happen, that it will be powerful, that it would be opposed to the West, etc., is nothing but dreams and bedtime stories. By the way, is this theoretical Caliphate going to be Sunni or Shia?
The central paradox of religious extremism (and political totalitarianism) is that it is self-defeating, despite all its shrieks of purity and superiority. The Taliban, the former Soviet Union, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, expended so much of their energy in controlling and suppressing its own people, that they could never effectively export their madness to advanced countries. As Islamic extremist Caliphate would more likely collapse under the weight of its own totalitarian excesses. And so far, I just don’t see anyone, anywhere who is non-Muslim, who has seen or listened to the recent ravings supposedly coming from Osama bin Laden and said, “Hmmm. I think I’d like to try some of that subservient conversion to Islam.”
Again, this is not to say that Islamic terrorism is not a threat. But a potentially transformative one? History is not on its side.
RE: Countries we consider allies would be well and truly fucked if a new Caliphate was established, most notably India.
More empty navel gazing. Is this a new Caliphate or a restored Mughal empire that we are supposed to be worried about here? Of course, one of the reasons the Mughals fell, is that the Muslim zealots then in control so alienated the subject peoples in India that they would never rally to support the Mughals against outside threats; and was so convinced of the superiority of its Islamic purity that they could not imagine that technologically advanced people like the Dutch and the English could ever dislodge them.
Additionally, it’s ironic that in the days when the Soviet Union formed the base of conservative fear mongering, the United States (both Democratic and Republican administrations) titled toward authoritarian Pakistan and against India in its foreign policy because India had the temerity to be non-aligned, and refused to kowtow to US policy demands, and also despite the fact that a supposedly unreliable India had fought Communist China and defined the Chinese by establishing Tibetan refugee camps. Meanwhile, the US later embarrassed itself by backing Pakistan against the Bangladesh Independence movement.
90 - moonraven
Alec,
Is there a POINT somewhere in your comment?
I sure as hell don't see one.
Consider this: Most if not all restaurants in the US have a policy of refusing to service to anyone they do not choose to serve.
(I remember Ernest Borgnine (?) throwing his diner sign to that effect on top of Rock Hudson's chest after he knocked him to the floor in Giant.)
Your funniest bit, however, is this:
"I'm not even willing to come out and say that we'd have trouble putting down a giant Islamic empire if one developed. But the cost of doing so in money and human lives would be horrendous, and if we merely tried to contain such a development or ignored it, an awful lot of harm would be done around the world and to innocent people and nations in the process."
And what about even that TINY country in the Middle East called Iraq?
Ever heard of it?
91 - handyguy
My objection was to the tone of this piece, and the tone of the responses from those who agree with Dave. This kind of huff-and-puff we-must-be-strong-and-kill-the-beast belligerence makes the world a worse, more dangerous place. It will never, not ever, move us closer to security and peace. And it will convert more Arab moderates to opposing us and, verbally at least, supporting the Islamists.
The fact that more than one person suggested "just nuke 'em" and the author of the piece and others basically welcomed this as a pleasant if impractical fantasy - rather than shouting it down as disgusting moral idiocy - is repugnant.
To claim that the majority of Iranians are Islamist radicals is similar to claiming that the majority of Soviet citizens in the 1970s were Communist radicals. The Soviets had sham elections too, but no one would have thought to use the results as a measure of what Russian citizens really felt.
And I find the "this is bigger than America, bin Laden, and Iraq" argument just pompous. Utterly unproven. It comes close to the level, intellectually, of the theories being put forth on that other, more loony 9/11 thread with the Grassy Knoll weirdos trying to outdo each other.
It's just as possible to argue that the Islamists were losing, were at the end of their rope, before 9/11. They had tried unsuccessfully to get the 'Arab street' to rise up in revolution against the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the Street didn't respond. So they launched one last big attention getter with planes as bombs, probably having no idea it would have such a gigantic aftermath.
There's never been another attack like it, and the attacks in London and Spain and Bali were all by local groups and not nearly as large-scale. I believe, though I can't prove, that this is because there is no 'world-wide network' of terror...just a number of dangerous yet tiny groups of malcontents. [The most recent ones in London were pathetically inept.] And nearly all the 'terrorists' arrested in this country since 9/11 were barely worthy of the name. None of them actually did anything, though some may have talked about it.
If we had responded differently after 9/11, had used both military force and diplomacy in ways that would maintain the sympathy of the rest of the world [instead of making us pariahs], the Islamists might have dried up and withered away. Instead, we've spent six years basically saying, 'Nyah, nyah, come on, hit us again, we triple dare ya!' And maybe now they will.
I know the establishment line is that Bush's policies have prevented further attacks. I just don't believe it. Those policies have distorted and spat on the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions, and have decimated the ability of our military to respond to real, as opposed to imagined or manufactured, threats. But they haven't made us safer....quite the opposite.
92 - Alec
moonraven - RE: Consider this: Most if not all restaurants in the US have a policy of refusing to service to anyone they do not choose to serve.
(I remember Ernest Borgnine (?) throwing his diner sign to that effect on top of Rock Hudson's chest after he knocked him to the floor in Giant.)
Uh, that was a movie, not reality. Ernest Borgnine did not appear in the film. But wasn't the point of this scene to demonstrate that bigotry was bad? Maybe they re-edited it in your neighborhood.
And pharmacists are licensed to dispense legally prescribed drugs. Are you suggesting that a pharmacist can disregard state licensing authorities and arbitrarily decide whether or not to fill a prescription? So, a pharmacist could say to an elderly person, "I refuse to give you your heart medication. I think that you have lived long enough." Would this be in the angry libertarian alternate universe?
RE: Your funniest bit, however, is this...
Uh, you quoted my reference to Dave Nalle's earlier post, not anything that I wrote.
Thanks for playing.
93 - Dave Nalle
1. May I suggest you don't get so involved with your town festival next year. It seems to make you excessively grouchy.
I'm running one less festival than usual this fall. I ought to be the picture of calm or at least 33% calmer. It's more the 9/11 truthers who piss me off, and the ability to read but not have time to respond to some of the stuff I see on BC.
2. What makes you think Syzygy has first-hand experience of Iraq?
My mistake. Like I said I'm moving pretty fast here. I mistook his second hand comments from the Argresto book for first hand. However, my basic point stands - that someone who brings some knowledge even from a book to the discussion ought to be given a bit of respect and consideration.
Dave
94 - Baronius
Alec, surely there are some Hindus who wonder if a Sikh should be prime minister. Let's not be coy here: some Americans don't want a Mormon president, but none of them have blown up a bus over it. There's no land dispute between Utah and Colorado. I respect India (except for its culture) and think they've done an amazing job governing themselves in awful conditions. The presence of Islam hasn't made their job any easier.
95 - Lumpy
Regarding the earlier comment on the difficulty of controlling the population in a totalitarian system. The mistaken assumption here is that the people would opppsw the regime. When they support the regime and are motivated by religion they donlt require much suppression.
96 - gonzo marx
oh yeah Lumpy..like..i dunno, the Holy Roman Empire?
those folks sure lasted a while, but could they in today's world?
on and on...Gandhi said it well when he stated that in the entirety of human history, "evil" always loses in the end...
just a Thought
Excelsior?
97 - Dave Nalle
please provide sources for your claim about those 'tens of thousands of operatives' as some of us haven't seen anything that supports it -
Then you bone up on some of what's going on in the Middle East. However, unlike Moonraven who never backs up anything she says I'll gladly provide some support.
Here are a few links, mostly dealing with the deployment of Revolutionary Guard units in other countries. The Revolutionary guard have over 100,000 men and are the primary covert and asymmetric warfare arm of the Iranian government, with units operating in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and through their association with Hezbollah, which is basically part of their organization, they have agents just about everywhere in the world.
General info on the Revolutionary Guard
Revolutionary Guard in Iraq
Revolutionary Guard in Iraq
Extensive thinktank report on military capabilities of the Revolutionary Guard in PDF format
I can provide dozens of other articles if you like.
Dave
98 - Tony
This might be one of the first times in a long time in the "regular world" of blogs and links I stumble upon by chance that I've seen someone actually admitting that people are different. I can't draw a definite conclusion from this piece, but it's something at least, even if it goes in directions that are unwise.
99 - RJ
"India is another case altogether. Do you really understand the extent to which India strives to make equality and respect for all its peoples a tangible reality?"
One word:
Caste
100 - Clavos
Bingo, RJ!
101 - RJ
"The fact that more than one person suggested "just nuke 'em" and the author of the piece and others basically welcomed this as a pleasant if impractical fantasy - rather than shouting it down as disgusting moral idiocy - is repugnant."
"Shouting it down" is what the Left is best at...
102 - RJ
"It's just as possible to argue that the Islamists were losing, were at the end of their rope, before 9/11. They had tried unsuccessfully to get the 'Arab street' to rise up in revolution against the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the Street didn't respond. So they launched one last big attention getter with planes as bombs, probably having no idea it would have such a gigantic aftermath."
Riiight.
Because it's reasonable to think that tens of thousands of Islamic lunatics around the world, who had dedicated their entire lives to jihad, and with the nation-state of Afghanistan acting as a training camp and safe-haven, would have just shrugged and given up if Bush had not responded to 9/11.
Riiight.
103 - RJ
BJ Clinton did almost nothing in response to the first attack on the WTC, the bombing of the Khobar Towers, the bombing of two American embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole.
And yet the Islamic extremists still attacked us on 9/11.
Clearly, not responding to the repeated attacks on, and mass-murder of, our citizens was not a very strong deterrent...
104 - RJ
Actually, Osama himself stated in an interview that he was emboldened by our cutting-and-running from Somalia (again, on BJ Clinton's watch).
Sorry, pal. Your attempts at historical revisionism will not go uncommented upon.
105 - RJ
"And nearly all the 'terrorists' arrested in this country since 9/11 were barely worthy of the name. None of them actually did anything, though some may have talked about it." [emphasis mine]
Correct. Those attacks were prevented from occurring thanks to a proactive, anti-terrorist Bush administration, which has been aided greatly by the Patriot Act (which you surely would like to see repealed).
106 - Arch Conservative
"The fact that more than one person suggested "just nuke 'em" and the author of the piece and others basically welcomed this as a pleasant if impractical fantasy - rather than shouting it down as disgusting moral idiocy - is repugnant."
How fucking repugnant was it on August 6, 1945?
It saved many many lives on that day.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
107 - Arch Conservative
Gee .....I guess the next time I see one of the left leaning BC editors sticking up for the ACLU I can call them hypocrites.
They censor me for calling someone an asshole and then stick up for an organization that provides legal defense for the first amendment rights of pedophiles like NAMBLA.
I guess the words perspective and objectivity are missing from the Blogcritics dictionary.
108 - troll
thanks for the sources Dave - Cordesman's work is an interesting read...but you'll have to come up with more to justify your exaggerated claim of "tens of thousands of operatives all over the world"
Cordesman reports that al Quds (the branch of the IRG responsible for foreign activities comparable to our CIA) was recently scheduled to be increased in size to 15 thousand with significant responsibility within Iran (think Langley and its administrative branches/training centers around the US) in addition to its foreign activities - this doesn't fit with your notion of "tens of thousands of operatives" available for foreign deployment
and while Cordesman states that there are al Cuds operatives is many countries (think CIA-like spying ops) he points out that its primary focus of activity is in the usual suspect areas: Iran's neighbors (Iraq and Afghanistan) - Lebanon - Gaza and the West Bank - and Sudan
...by overstating the case you weaken it (here think WMDs)
109 - Christopher Rose
Arch, re your #107: ahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha mwuahahahahah ahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahah
ohmigoawd, ahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahah mwuahahahahahahah *gurgle* hahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahaha ahhhhaaaaaaaa!
Fuck me, that's the funniest thing i've read in weeks - and that includes three Bill Bryson books.
Not only are you the living personification of someone who has no fucking clue what perspective or objectivity mean, you have no idea what you're talking about.
hahahahahahhahahahahahahah hahahahahahahah man, you're funnier than moonraven and more full of double speak than someone with two tongues. What a loon! hahahahaha hahahahah hahahahahahahahaha!
*wipes tears of laughter from eyes and struggles in vain to get up off the floor* Oh man! Here, have a quote from someone you surely look up to:-
Frink: Oh, no, please no. I have a funny story if you listen. I even wrote theme music, here listen.
Ha ha, mm-m hey hey, Professor Frink, Professor Frink, He'll make you laugh, he'll make you think,
He likes to run, and then the thing, with the... mm-m person... Oh boy, that monkey is going to pay.
110 - Dave Nalle
thanks for the sources Dave - Cordesman's work is an interesting read...but you'll have to come up with more to justify your exaggerated claim of "tens of thousands of operatives all over the world"
Did I not include links on Hezbollah and the activities of the Republican Guard outside of Iran? The RG has about 125,000 men. They've got people deployed in Lebanon and Iraq. Hezbollah basically works for the Iranians and they have cells in scores of countries, including on many US university campuses. I'd have sworn I included links on both of those things.
Al Quds is a recent development to augment these resources and provide Iran with the kind of services Hezbollah was giving them, but more directly.
To say they have 'tens of thousands' of operatives outside of their country is if anything an understatement.
Dave
111 - Cindy D
Clavos and RJ-
RE: Indian Caste System.
Just three words:
Constitution of India
Right to Equality
14. Equality before law."The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.
15. Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth."(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them....
It goes on to make illegal discrimination in all facilities designed for use by the general public.
...17. Abolition of Untouchability." "Untouchability" is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of "Untouchability" shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law."
Those backward, freedom-hating, bastards actually use the word constitution. I wonder if there is any parallel to be drawn between historical USA slavery (despite the fact that ALL men are created equal) and the Indian caste system.
112 - handyguy
RJ:
"Sorry, pal. Your attempts at historical revisionism will not go uncommented upon."
I'm speculating about the recent past, not revising history. There are many gaps in our knowledge about Islamists and their plans and intentions both before and after 9/11. Pretending that you know everything and that I'm making up fiction is just smartass rhetoric, not real argument.
You accuse 'the Left' of shooting things down. Yet your entire comment-output on Blogcritics consists of smirking frat-boy one-liners.
Bin Laden had basically been exiled to Hillbilly-land, aka the Taliban's Afghanistan. ["Tens of thousands" of followers, my ass. Talk about revisionism!] No one else would have him. His influence began to go way up only after we named him Public Enemy Number One. And then we proceeded to provide him with recruiting posters: Iraq; Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo. We have helped to empower Al Qaeda through Bush's boneheaded policies.
I didn't suggest doing 'nothing.' I suggested that if our policy hadn't alienated most of the rest of the world, including allies in western Europe, we'd be stronger and the Islamists weaker. We got here because the Bushies proclaimed not to care what the rest of the world thinks of us. This was folly.
"Those attacks were prevented from occurring thanks to a proactive, anti-terrorist Bush administration, which has been aided greatly by the Patriot Act (which you surely would like to see repealed)."
Easy to say, impossible to prove. No big plots, not any, not one, have been revealed in any of these arrests or trials. Do you just believe whatever the government tells you, without any proof? You and Nalle have called me naive...and you're not?
And yes, I object to the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping and holding prisoners without charges: pretending the Bill of Rights is irrelevant, in order to fight a mythical 'war,' supposedly in the name of Freedom and Democracy! It's the equivalent of "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
This Alice-in-Wonderland doublespeak is hurting our country and making the world a more dangerous place. It too "will not go uncommented upon."
113 - troll
Dave - Stoll in your NY Sun link reports "hundreds of IRG in Lebannon"
your Debka link doesn't report the numbers of IRG deployed in southern Iraq to ward off a US invasion - and the primary function of the 125,000 strong IRG as described by Cordesman is national defense
...however - if you are including all of Hezbollah in the ranks of Iranian operatives then you are correct
114 - Clavos
"I wonder if there is any parallel to be drawn between historical USA slavery (despite the fact that ALL men are created equal) and the Indian caste system."
There is indeed a parallel, but with one significant difference: slavery (in the USA) no longer exists (though admittedly there do continue to be problems with racism), while the caste sytem in India is very much alive and kicking, despite their freshly minted "constitution."
From the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, edition of Saturday, August 18, 2007:
"It is well known that caste discrimination against Dalits is rampant in India. In an overt form, it is both a political reality and social fact. Dalits are subjected to violence, especially in rural areas, their women raped, and their land stolen. Dalits perform the most dangerous and odious forms of labour in Indian society including that of manual scavenging (removing human or animal waste) or performing low-end ‘dirty’ wage labour in tanneries."
115 - Dr Dreadful
Clavos, that's true, but I think Alec's point was that India is at least striving to achieve equality in spite of its history. As in America, though, constitutional ideals have often been systematically ignored in the name of economic and political expediency.
Some measure of India's success in this is surely that despite much internal and external strife, the world's largest democracy is still stable and thriving sixty years after independence.
116 - Cindy D
Well, unlike most of you, I have developed a plan. We could enlist the following people: Franco, Lumpy, Ruvy, RJ, JOM, Syzygy, Arch, their counterparts in the larger population and the progeny and relations of the whole lot, into an army whose job it would be to nuke-up, blow-up, or otherwise eliminate whoever needs it.
Please don't object to my plan on the grounds that it is ridiculous. It is the same exact type of plan the aforementioned have proposed in their posts. The only difference is that if a person's first reaction is to destroy people, then I think they and their families should be the ones to get out there and do the job.
This would serve the additional purpose of either stirring some remote twinkling of humanity within them or at least the sane world would be rid of them.
117 - Cindy D
Clavos,
So, basically you're pointing to a difference in timing rather than a difference in values.
Parallel:
"...though admittedly there do continue to be problems with racism..."
"It is well known that caste discrimination against Dalits is rampant in India."
118 - troll
Cindy - I think that you've stumbled onto the administration's strategic plan for the future
119 - Cindy D
Or, better said--what Dr Dreadful said in #115,#116
120 - Cindy D
You think so troll?
I thought the administration that supported the Iraq war was busy aiming "be all you can be" advertisements at its best target market while excusing its own children from being "patriotic" participants because they're too busy doing things like, well, living.
Unfortunately, they couldn't support such a plan without subjecting themselves to it. So, therein lies the downfall of my plan.
121 - Clavos
"So, basically you're pointing to a difference in timing rather than a difference in values."
No, not exactly. The caste system (slavery) in the USA no longer exists, while in India, it's still very much alive and thriving.
Discrimination on the part of some elements of our society (a minority of racists) is a far cry from an institutionalized caste system, wherein an entire segment of the population is prevented from enjoying the full benefits provided by the constitution. Read the article I cited; it goes way beyond mere discrimination in India.
122 - moonraven
This has gotten WAAAAAAAAY too silly.
Not a single commentator has had the slightest experience with Muslim cutlture or the Middle East.
Yet you think you can read the minds of a billion and a half people--simultaneously.
Most vacantly gringo beahvior I have seen yet on this vacant site.
And Nalle, as usual, providing as sources for his ignorant comments the Usual Right Wing Propaganda sites (euphemistically called "conservative think tanks").
You folks are all completely fucked.
123 - Maurice
#122
you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing others of ->
" September 13, 2007 @ 16:58PM " moonraven
In Idaho you are either a skinhead survivalist or a Mormon.
I think it's YOU that's weird.
You have no idea what life is like in Idaho and you certainly are making yourself look hypocritical here.
124 - troll
*Usual Right Wing Propaganda sites (euphemistically called "conservative think tanks")*
moonraven...haven't we established that pretty much all information left/right up/down true/false is propagandized grist for the politics mill - ?
I have no reason to dismiss Cordesman's facts and figures out of hand but would certainly want 'independent verification' before investing money in his stock
what bothers me rather than Dave's choice of sources is his penchant to go beyond them in his claims adding his own twists based on logical extrapolation and political license
...and certainly you're correct that we've seen the high quality of intel and planning that these think tanks can crank out as in the run up to our latest misadventure in the middle east
125 - Cindy D
Clavos,
I did read your link and thought it was an excellent article.
I agree with you, my parallel leaves something to be desired.
Let me try to say what I mean from a different angle (while keeping in mind Dr Dreadful in #115,116 said much better, what I meant to express):
Declaration of Independence ratified July 4, 1776 (all men are created equal)
...almost one hundred years later...
13th Amendment - Abolition of slavery, enacted December 6, 1865
...almost 150 years later...
19th Amendment - Women's Suffrage, enacted August 18, 1920
Gay people still are not equal.
The caste system in India is said to date to about 1200 BC. It is an ancient socially and politically entrenched system. Yet, from your article, the Prime Minister himself likened caste discrimination to apartheid.
I would never claim that the caste system isn't abhorrent or pretend that everything is rosy over in India.
My point is that India is striving for the same freedoms and equalities that we hold valuable. We are only a couple of hundred years old and still it has taken and will continue to take us time to make progress. India cannot be simply dismissed as a country that has no regard for the values we hold dear.