This is a response to the latest column by Arnaud de Borchgrave, who argues against a US strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Or, actually, I guess he's arguing against an accidental war with Iran.
Anyway, you should read his article first. Here is my response. Blogwar in the Blogosphere - Alternate Version The time: 5 years from today. None of what de Borchgrave predicted has happened. The US was stared down by Russia and China, and allowed Iran's nuclear projects to continue unscathed.
At noon, Tel Aviv disappears in a nuclear fireball. Israel doesn't bother to ask who did it, because no country is going to accept responsibility for the 21st century's first act of genocide. The problem for Israel, now facing its most dire existential crisis in a long history of dire existential crises, is that it has to respond to survive as a nation. They cannot wait around for their next-biggest city to evaporate into a radioactive cloud. The Jews acquiesced the last time this happened, and by God, they are not going to do so this time.
The nuclear weapon that destroyed Tel Aviv came from one of three places: Iran, Pakistan or Syria (having destroyed one of their weapons reactors in 2007, Israel knows they have a nuke program). All three nations deny any involvement and condemn the loss of life, but point out that it is Israel's policies that have brought it so much hate, and it only has itself to blame. Israel doesn't know who did it, so they have a choice, and its a bad choice. Either do nothing and wait for the next nuke, and the next one and the next one until there is no more Israel, or attack everyone who could have done it.
They launch fifteen of their 150 nuclear missiles at suspected nuclear facilities in Iran, Pakistan and Syria. Let's say the Israelis are really, really nice about it and they don't target population centers. Still, the blasts and the fallout from this little middle-eastern nuclear war kill, oh, ten million people in Israel, Syria, Iran, Pakistan and anywhere downwind from the detonations, which includes most of the middle east and India.
Does anyone believe that a religious fanatic who has declared that Israel should be "wiped off the map", who has spent billions of dollars of his country's money supporting terrorism against Israel for no other reason than because it is full of Jews, is incapable of doing this? But back to our future scenario.
On the bright side, and most importantly, the U.S. didn't get its hands dirty, the Chinese still had cheap oil (well, until Iran's oil fields started glowing in the dark), and the Russians can still pretend they are a world power because they stopped America from stopping a religious fanatic from getting an atom bomb. Golf clap.
With their recent invitation for the Hitler of Iran Ahmadinejad to speak, Columbia University is once again touting itself as a "haven of free speech". And they can be counted on to invite very controversial events, but they won't allow anything as controversial as conservatism to appear.
Some of the times that conservatives have been blocked from meeting or speaking at Columbia.
I don't have time to go through the whats and whyfors of this. Suffice it to say that a foreign nation is going to bring to trial the former Secretary of Defense of the United States for war crimes. The "War Crimes" in this case being taking pictures of naked prisoners.
The Germans, they're an ideological lot. They believe in internationalism. So I say, let them choke on their internationalism. I suggest that the United States withdraw all military support from Germany.
1: All US troops out of Germany
2: No military or humanitarian aid to Germany
3: No sales of military hardware to Germany
Let the cloak of internationalism protect them from their enemies and support their failing economy.
It should be noted, for the benefit of those who don't know anything about me, that I'm a pretty conservative person. I've voted Republican all my life - I don't think I've ever voted for a Democrat. I don't trust Democrats to do the fiscally responsible, reasonable thing. I only trust them to experiment in huge ways with my money and, in the process, probably ruin some sector of American society.
However, I am looking forward to Republican defeat today. Whether they lose a few seats or a lot, it will be good. A big loss will be better than a small one - if the Republicans lose both House and Senate, that will be the best outcome possible.
I do not say this because I am suffering from "war fatigue". I'm not. I think Iraq was the right move, and I don't think we should pull out any time soon, because I don't think things there are as bad as they are portrayed by a biased liberal media. They're fairly bad, yes, but not bad enough to drive us out of the country.
No, I want a Republican defeat because the Republicans sold us out, and I want them to pay for it. I don't want Democrats to win, at all. A Democratic congress will be no improvement over the Republican one. But (and here's the stickler), it won't be much worse.
I won't drone on and on about policy, but I'll give you two specific examples of ways the Republicans sold us out: Immigration Reform and Voter ID's. Both of these policies have solid backing from the Americam people, in the range of 70-80%. This is a huge majority in American politics. So we have two policy issues that the Republicans should have been able to tackle easily. They control the presidency, the house and the senate. They should be able to railroad anything this popular through without much trouble. But they didn't.
Are they incompetent? Do they think that we're not paying attention? Do they think that since the Democrats have lost the last few elections that this is a mandate for a Republican government, no matter what, and they don't have to do anything? I don't know. It could be any of those reasons or something else. But they should have been able to pass reasonable immigration reform and a voter ID bill, but somehow, they just couldn't do it.
So let them swing. I don't care. If they can't defeat a Democratic minority in hugely popular issues, then we need to get rid of them anyway because they're incompetent. If they think they don't have to work for us any more, they need to go.
I think this election will also show what happens when you have a president that cannot speak. I like Bush's policies, but every time I hear him speak I get this feeling of anxiety, like I'm just waiting for him to screw it up. A president should be able to use his bully pulpit to get things done. Bush is not capable of doing this, and Republicans are paying the price for it now.
I think I'll just vote independent this year, across the board. I'll be "taking votes away from Republicans", it's true. And that's exactly what I want.
First, it's patently obvious that Hezbollah is placing its military assets in civilian areas in order to cause civilian casualties. A Canadian "peacekeeper" (I still don't know what the term means), days before he was killed by an Israeli bomb, wrote in an e-mail that Hezbollah was using his location as a "shield" against Israeli attacks. This is because Hezbollah really does want civilian casualties.
Such an idea is abhorrent to us in the west, but from their perspective, it makes sense in a very nihilistic way. In the west, we think of wars in terms of defeating the enemy. If we defeat the enemy, we occupy their homeland and then the war is over. The forces aligned against Israel don't think this way. They can't win a standard "us vs. you on the battlefield" scenario against Israel. They just don't have a prayer. So their fallback plan is to, apparently, cause as much damage to Israel as possible (i.e. terrorism, as it has no military objective), while causing Israel to kill as many Arab civilians as possible. The hope is that when Israel kills civilians the world will react in horror and begin to punish Israel.
The first step in the anti-Israeli playbook is to harm Israel's legitimacy on the world stage. This is why they park rocket launchers next to schools, hospitals and UN outposts. It's a very Machiavellian strategy.
Interestingly, it works very well. I am always amazed that Hezbollah can launch literally hundreds of rockets into Israeli civilian areas, with no hope of achieving any military objective, and yet when Israel responds by trying to destroy the rocket launchers, the world is outraged by the civilian casualties. Israeli civilian casualties are utterly ignored, even though Hezbollah's intent was to kill civilians. This compares to Israel's intent, which is to destroy rocket launchers, and unfortunately, since Hezbollah positions them to ensure maximum civilian damage, civilians die there too.
But Arab rocket attacks on Israel and suicide car bombs in Baghdad are signs of true desperation. They are the last option for a defeated enemy. They can no longer hope to defeat the US militarily, or even to cause us to leave by killing us with ambushes and IEDs. Their only hope now is to cause enough civilian casualties that the situation appears untenable and we'll give up and go home.
As an afterthought, I am increasingly amazed by the Arab mindset, that these Arabs and Persians truly think they can take on and defeat the US military. Iran in particular really appears to believe its own propoganda. No matter how many times we utterly destroy an Arab army, the next one is utterly convinced that he's going to beat us.
I, Captain Rob of the Pirate Armada, do hereby declare that a state of WAR exists between the Armada and the Empire of India.
The leader of this hive of buzzing miscreants... huge hive, actually, but nonetheless, having banned our just and fair blog websites in order to protect his own regime from our criticisms, has left us no choice but to invade, conquer, subjugate and rule his land.
He has refused his Assent to Our Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance, and silence our pirate blogs.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies of sympathizing, fifth-column leftists, without the consent of our legislatures.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us, or at least thinking longingly about it, the scoundrel.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, destroyed the lives of our people and drunk our beer, the necessity of which for a happy and fulfilled existence is obvious and apparent.
Therefore, I have directed the 1st and 2nd Indian Ocean Fleets to... stay in the Indian Ocean and await word of possible (and in fact, we speculate, quite enjoyable) action against this wretched land.
I attended a two-day film school in San Francisco this past weekend. The class itself was fantastic, and I took notes so rapidly and with such vigor that I may never write properly again.
The class was held in the Film Arts Institute on 9th street, and on the second day, I ended up having to park my car on 6th, due to one of the massive march/rally/parade/social freakshows that San Francisco seems to have every few weeks. Part of its route went down 9th street, bisecting the city and cutting me off from my preferred parking spot.
Walking back to my car, I happened across something. As I hurried along in a fairly rough neighborhood with a $2000 laptop slung over one shoulder, I found the bit of graffiti written in clear white letters on a metal plate embedded in the sidewalk.
Four little words. A passing fancy for someone with too much time on their hands.
If you ever frequent San Francisco, you should go see it. It's easy to find. If you're walking from 9th street to 6th along Folsom, on the right side of the street, you'll find it just past 7th.
Islamists and Jihadists (and their Western liberal apologists) regularl y throw the Crusades at us as an example of evil western imperialism. I think we should hold Islam to the same standard. Therefore, I demand an apology from the leaders of Islam for the invasion and rape of Spain and parts of France, as well as the subjugation of the Byzantine Empire.
Most people seem blissfully unaware that Islamic armies invaded Spain in 709, and by 713 had subjugated (with great violence) the entire Iberian peninsula. They then proceeded to invade what is now France, and were stopped in the vicinity of Tours by a very talented and brave leader named Charles Martel, in 732.
In the east things were scarcely better. The Byzantine Empire (Christian, that is) suffered its first invasion by Muslims in 1070. Conflict was sporadic for almost 400 years, ending with the fall of Constantinople to Muslim armies in 1453.
So by any reasonable metric, the "conflict between Christianity and Islam", such as it ever was, started with Muslim invasions of Christian territory. This includes Israel, which was part of the Byzantine Empire. This says nothing of the fact that it was the home of Judaism, having been ruled by various Jewish kingdoms since about 1200 BC.
It is an Islamic tenet that any land that ever was Muslim will always be Muslim. This is one of the core reasons that Muslims will never acknowledge Israel or Israel's right to exist. Modern Israel as a state has only existed since 1947. Before that, Israel was Palestine, predominantly a Muslim area. Therefore, since the place was once Muslim, it must always be Muslim, and Israel cannot be allowed to exist.
This line of reasoning seems to assume that Islam was always the predominant religion in the area, but that's not true. After all, Judaism existed for many centuries before Mohammed was even born. Palestine may have been recently Muslim, but before that, it was Byzantine, and before that, it was Jewish.
Therefore, I have decided that any land that was once Christian will always be Christian, and that Islam cannot be allowed to rule in these lands.
Therefore, I demand that the Muslims surrender the following territories, taken from their rightful owners by Islam:
Turkey Syria Lebanon Western Jordan Egypt Libya Israel/Palestinian Territories
These are all part of the Byzantine Empire, and were taken by force (and quite savagely, I might add) from them during the Islamic conquests that occurred during Mohammed's life and for 700 years thereafter. These lands were once Christian, and therefore shall always be Christian.
Morocco Algeria Tunisia
These lands are historically part of the Roman Empire, and afterwards fell under the rule of the Western Roman Empire, a Christian entity.
If all faiths are equal, then the Christian faith must at least be afforded the same right to these lands as the Muslim faith. If Palestine has a right to exist under Arab/Muslim rule simply because it was recently so, then Israel has a right to exist under Jewish rule, and has a much better claim to the area, due to a much longer history. Even if you, for some reason abhor the idea of a Jewish state in Israel, you must at least admit that it belongs to Christianity, via the Byzantine Empire. In comparison to these two claims, the Muslim claim to Israel is very tenuous.
A list of people murdered in the name of the Religion of Peace
Now, maybe these are the "fringe" of the Islamic movement. Even if they are, one has to ask oneself: "What is propelling these people to go out and murder other people?" Could it be that their religion demands it?
I would copy and paste the list, but I doubt this blog engine can handle the sheer size of it.
Of course, that's not what the article says, but that's how it's going to end up. Now that the strongest nation in the world has been "pressured" to fund Hamas, whose stated goal is the eviction of Jews from Israel and with an impressive history of attacks against them, the Palestinian Leadership will have plenty of money for car bombs and suicide attacks.
President Bush's approval rating is at a record low. It isn't as low as it is just because liberals hate him. They always have. It's that low because he's lost the support of the conservative base - totally pissed it away. He's out-liberalling the Liberals. Can anyone call the policy described in this article as anything but a total abandonment of conservative principles? Add to this the inability of Republicans to pass any sensible border controls and a ballooning federal budget, and how can Republicans expect to have any support any more?
Why should I care if Republicans win any more? They're no better than the Democrats with this sort of thing. Not a shred of difference.
Given that the Palestinians now face a big cash crunch, I have a few ideas for them. These are economic opportunities that take into account the particular talents of Palestinians, and ways to use these talents to make money on the global market. For your ease of use, I've written some commercials you can use for these new products.
Idea 1: Crazy Mohammed's Insta-Light Bomb Jacket
Narrator: Has this ever happened to you?
Suicide Bomber: I went into the middle of a really wonderful target - dozens of Israeli school children were all packed together really tightly. I pulled the trigger on my home-made bomb vest and yelled "Allah o' Ackbar!", and nothing happened! The Israelis saw my failed attempt and scattered - no virgins for me! Help, Crazy Mohammed!
Crazy Mohammed: My bomb jackets are made from the very best EU Aid canvas, and the explosives are packed in food cans we got from the United Nations in humanitarian relief! They'll blow up right the first time, or my name isn't Crazy Mohammed!
Come on down to Crazy Mohammed's, where the prices are JIIIIHAAAAAD!!
Idea #2: Al-Ginzu Knives
When it comes time to cut the heads off of your kidnapped Christians, Jews and Hindus, you need the very best knives available. Our exclusive "Head-Off" knives have a extra-sharp edge, and are serrated to saw through the neck bones with ease!
Take a look at this video: This is our competitor's knife. Notice how the head remains attached, no matter how hard Hassam saws at it? If he were using an Al-Ginsu knife, that head would be on the floor and the body would be dumped in the street already!
Idea #3: Ladensoft Flight Simulator for Terrorists
This pared-down product gets rid of all the wasted flight simulator features, like taking off and landing. With Ladensoft Flight Simulator, all we teach you to do is fly the plane and find a big building! No time is wasted learning useless skills like taking off or lowering the landing gear!
(Product Note: Killing of stewardesses is not covered. You're on your own there!)
The US has unfortunately agreed to provide more aid to the Palestinians in their time of crisis. You may recall that the US and EU stopped financial aid to the Palestinian government after the terrorist Hamas organization took power.
Here are a few quotes from the article:
"The move comes after the World Bank warned on Monday the Palestinian Authority could face a breakdown in law and order and basic services unless foreign donors step in to pay the salaries of about 165,000 civil servants."
So? We're supposed to care about this now? They elected terrorists, which means the Palestinian people have tacitly approved of the murder of Israeli civilians. But now, we're supposed to get all teary-eyed for them, because if we don't ship them crates of cash, they might have a civil war, because as a people, they are utterly incapable of existing in a peaceful state without a massive bribe from the international community.
The observed alternative, though, is that when they get the aid money, they'll stop fighting each other and start in on the Israelis again.
"The United States also announced an additional $10 million in U.S. funding for medical supplies and equipment for the Palestinians but this would be directed through U.N. agencies and would not reach a Hamas government."
If you provide "humanitarian aid", you are merely freeing up the terrorist's money to be invested in more terrorism. If the Palestinian authority doesn't have to pay its salaries, it has money for bombing Israeli schools. And this all assumes that the "humanitarian aid" doesn't end up getting sold on the black market anyway, the way Saddam did.
" 'The thrust of the statement is that the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people,' Rice added."
Why can't the Palestinian people fend for themselves? Why is it that the most corrupt and violent nations always need a big cash infusion to survive? Hamas, maybe if you stopped investing in bomb suits and terrorist training camps, you could spend that money on your people, not that I think that's ever going to happen.
No aid for the Palestinians, period. If they can't exist as a nation without a constant stream of foreign money, then let them move to Damascus.
The US Government doesn't have the resources to monitor the border with Mexico. However, they apparently have the resources to monitor American citizens patrolling the border, and report their activities to the Mexicans.
Can someone tell me why the most powerful, most free nation in the world is cowtowing to second-rate, corrupt den of criminals that actively supports breaking our la ws?
Hey Mexico: If you are concerned that your people are being mistreated by the Minutemen (they aren't), then STOP SENDING THEM HERE.
Standing where I am, in a little suburb of Sacramento, California, I can see the future, and it is ugly.
Let me posit a few... posits.
There will be no meaningful sanctions against Iran for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. Europe does not have the political will to enforce sanctions, China is content to have Iran act as a thorn in the West's side (and will defer to them because they get a lot of oil from them), and Russia will veto any meaningful sanction that the Security Council approves.
There are other reasons. We can boycott Iran's oil, or Iran can boycott us. Either way, if Iran's oil goes off the world market, the price goes past $100 a barrel in about a day. If Iran attempts to close the Straits of Hormuz with mines or sunken vessels, oil will skyrocket and the world economy will be crushed. Note to China: That means you too. China is probably more vulnerable even than the US. We have significant domestic reserves, although they are greatly degraded by environmentalist opposition to refineries and new wells. If things get as ugly as I think they will, ANWR will be swiss cheese within about a year, and the Santa Barbara skyline will look like the Gulf of Mexico. In a few years, anyway.
So a nuclear Iran is not something the world is really prepared to stop. The painful truth of the matter is, the power is in Tehran, not Washington. They can cause us more pain than we can cause them, and they can cause a LOT of pain to places like Europe and China.
However, there is one place in the world that has even more to lose from a nuclear Iran than the rest of us have to lose by opposing it; Israel. Does anyone really think that Israel doesn't see Iran as a mortal threat? And after the Iranian mullahs latest round of promises to blow Israel off the map, does anyone blame them?
So Israel, with an estimated 150 to 200 nuclear weapons, is going to face a choice within the next five years. Either launch a full-scale nuclear strike on Iran, enraging the world, or sit around and wait for Tel Aviv to go up in a fireball. Now, maybe Iran will launch a nuclear strike on Israel and maybe they won't. That's not the question. The question is, do the Israelis have a realistic fear of such an attack? I think they do. Iran is a real threat to the very existence of Israel. When the threat becomes this acute, wars break out.
Israel has struck its Arab neighbors preemptively at least three times before. They destroyed the Arab air forces on the opening days of two different wars (the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Six Day War), and bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq, in order to prevent the Iraqis from getting a nuclear bomb. So a preemptive strike from Israel is fully realistic, and in my opinion, should be expected.
That's when things are really going to go to hell.
Israel does not have the conventional force projection ability to effectively counter the Iranian nuclear weapon program. The only nation on Earth that can realistically be expected to have this ability is the US. Russia could do it, sharing a border with Iran as they do, but won't.
I don't think we will do it either, though. I don't think we have the political capital, or indeed, the will, after Iraq, to go after Iran. I think we will impose some level of sanctions with some friends of ours, but they will not be enough to seriously impede the Iranians.
Ergo, Israel, lacking the conventional ability to stop Iran, and facing a threat to its existence as great as it has ever faced, will use the sole weapon at their disposal capable of doing the job. What weapon is that? I'll give you a hint: They have at least 150 of them.
Israel does not have the luxury of a deterrence strategy. Their entire nation can be destroyed by as few as three nuclear bombs. And the Iranians, fanatical religious extremists non pareil, cannot be counted on to act rationally. So I think the only realistic expectation for the region is that Israel will launch a full nuclear strike on Iran. I don't know how many weapons they would need to accomplish the task, but if the Iranian program is as decentralized as everyone says it is, the number could be dozens. I very seriously doubt it would be less than five.
The part about this terrible tragedy that people will be talking about for years afterward is this: We would have been far better off to have taken care of the problem before it got to this level. Comparisons will be made to Chamberlain and World War II. And one of the nations that will suffer most is one of the nations that could have stopped the tragedy in the first place: China. By preventing a solution to this problem via political means, they will push it inexorably toward a military one, and that great Iranian oil that they covet so much will do them no good as it burns in Iranian wells.
And of course, the rest of us will have a fine time adjusting to $200 a barrel oil.
Rosie O'Donnell will replace Meredith Viera on "The View", ABC's morning talk show. This staffing decision means one of two things; either ABC is completely ignorant of the idea of leftist bias in the news, or it just doesn't care. I don't know which one is true, and in the end, it doesn't really matter. I think it must be the latter.
It is evident that the mainstream media has no interest in allowing any shift in its editorial bias, despite mounting evidence that their credibility, and thus their most critically important quality, is being pissed away. People are not blind. They can see bias. The MSM isn't half clever enough to conceal it, and increasingly, doesn't appear to even be trying to conceal it.
They know that the mainstream media is biased heavily toward the left, but they don't see it as a problem. For an organization that is tasked with the important function of acting as the eyes and ears of the US population, it is a startlingly glib position.
They'll probably regurgitate some weak justification, such as saying that while O'Donnell is on the left, she is balanced out by the other women on the show. I wouldn't be surprised to see this at all. To the left, Rosie is "comfortably left," moderate leftists are centrists, and centrists are closet Republicans. Of course, conservatives are Nazis.
Thank God we don't have to trust them any more, because they're proving, with every decision, to be eminently untrustable. One wonders, though, just how much of their audience they'll have to watch vanish before they wake up.
Perhaps they should rename the show "The View From the Left."
Thus, Russia has chosen to side with the Iranians in the growing conflict over its nuclear program. One cannot come to the conclusion that this position is a reasonable act of an impartial state. Russia knows that Iran cannot be proved to be producing nuclear weapons, because Iran is refusing to allow UN inspectors to fully investigate its sites. Ergo, the only way we can only get "proof" that the Iranians are building a bomb is for them to test one... either in Iran, or on Israel.
In addition, Russia has agreed to sell surface-to-air missile systems to Iran.
China's position is unfortunately very similar to Russia's, except at the moment we are tripping over ourselves to welcome a communist dictator to America and slobber all over him.
It is all part of the calculus of international relations, I'm afraid. It has been said that nations do not have friends, only interests. Russia and China have decided that their interests are best served by supporting the development of the Iranian bomb.
Why is this? One can only speculate. These two countries may believe that in the international competition of states, Russia and China can come to some advantage by causing the US to spend a lot of money and influence trying to reign in Iran. I can't agree with this, though, even from a Machiavellian perspective. Russia's problem is not the United States, it's problem is Russia. Bleeding us in a foreign war does nothing to help Russia, but apparently they disagree. And China's best friend is the US, even though the US's best friend is not China - which is to say, we treat them like a friend, and they treat us like an interest.
We are sending them billions upon billions of dollars in investment capital every year, which they are using to strengthen their military. For what? To invade Taiwan (a part of the world, incidentally, that was never a part of Communist China, and to which the Chinese have absolutely no legitimate claim)? Japan perhaps? South Korea, via its proxy North Korea?
For those who think that Russia and China are constructive members of the global community, please keep in mind that they now actively supporting a fascist, terrorist regime. Russia is essentially an ally of Iran now, China a willing supporter.
Mahnoud Ahmadinehad, the President of Iran has stated, in agreement with the Ayatollah Khomenei, that Israel "must be wiped off the face of the map." Such a sentiment is nothing new in the world of Islam - they've been swearing to do this since Israel became a state in 1948. This was the first time that such a high ranking Islamic leader has expressed the sentiment, though, and more importantly, the west fears that he may actually be able to do it.
The Iranians have sworn publicly that they have no interest in nuclear weapons, that such weapons are forbidden by Islam, that Iran only wants peace, and on and on. These of course are bald-faced lies. They are only the latest in a string of Islamic lies that has wound through the region since Mohammed broke a peace treaty with his opponents, the Koreish, and invaded them, two years into a ten-year peace treaty. Since then, the prevailing school of thought in Islam is that peace treaties are to be pursued only in order to take the pressure off, so that the eternal war against the infidels can continue when Islam is in a better position to fight. Saladin did the same thing when he agreed to a peace treaty with the crusaders, only to break it when his position was sufficiently improved. And before the word "Crusader" sufficiently turns you off, let us be reminded that the Crusaders were in Israel not to take it from the Muslims, but to take it back.
In the coming years, we will see what America and the world will do to stop fanatical Muslims from obtaining nuclear weapons. If not, will the Iranian mullahs fulfill their promise to wipe Israel off the map, or are they lying about that? Let us pray that they are, although the constant invasions, terrorist attacks and intifadas would lead the rational person to believe otherwise.
This is not America's conflict, this is the world's conflict. A nuclear Iran is sufficiently psychotic that it is conceivable that they will use their nukes to strike Israel. Now, maybe you don't care about Israel, maybe to you they are just troublemakers. That opinion, although shallow and misguided, is fine. Please be aware though, dear reader, that Israel has, by good estimates, over 150 nuclear weapons. If they are attacked, they will counterattack. If three or four Israeli cities are burned to the ground, Israel will return the favor in spades. They will, in all likelihood (and quite justifiably) try to destroy the nation that is trying to destroy them. Are we as a world prepared to hang onto our stubborn pacifism and allow this to happen? What will the world be like when Israel has indeed been wiped off the map, and has in turn destroyed the entire nation of Iran?
As an American, I don't want to see it happen, but there are plenty of others who don't seem to care whether it does or not. America cannot make the world care. We can only present a warning, and hope that the rest of humanity is willing to head off this catastrophe. If they are not, then let them live with the consequences. It will be pale shelter to say that we tried to stop it, but sometimes, pale shelter is all there is.
Item 1: A while ago ("a while ago" translates into "I'm too lazy to go look for the exact date"), Isaac Hayes, the singer/songwriter and voice for Chef on South Park, announced he was quitting the show in disgust over South Park's treament of Scientology, a pseudo-religion that Hayes is involved with.
Well, now suddenly people are saying ("People are saying" is a lot like "a while ago" - you can look it up) that Hayes didn't actually quit South Park, and he couldn't have, because he suffered a stroke on January 17 (that date is actually valid, you don't have to look it up).
Is this striking you as a little bizarre? No matter which side you believe, whether Hayes quit the show or didn't, something really smells funky here. If he quit the show, where did this stroke story come from? And why didn't we hear about it earlier? If he didn't quit the show, who told the South Park folks that he did?
That funky smell is, I think, Scientology - again. In the modern, love everyone, we're-all-equal world we live in, Scientology is supposed to be treated like any other "belief system" - it's all good, different strokes, live and let live, and so on. Well, I'm sick of that. Scientology, as evidenced by this latest episode, is a freakish collection of wierdos and twits, and the "belief system" itself is a bunch of witless, moronic shit that nobody in their right mind would be stupid enough to believe. Scientology is crap, folks - more idiotic than any religion, pseudo-religion or "belief system" I've ever seen, and I've seen a few.
Which brings me to point 2... or actually it doesn't, but I'm not great at segues.
Item 2: Islam.
You really should learn as much about Islam as you can, because I guarantee, you'll be shocked by what you learn.
I used to be one of these "this religion is as valid as that religion" people, but Islam changed my mind about that. You probably think that Islam, like almost all religions, carries essentially a positive, peaceful message. It's not true. Islam is a religion of war, conques t, slavery and destruction of all non-Islamic faiths.
Our idiot press has done its best to pound the lie of "tolerant Islam" into your head, begging that we be "tolerant" in return of this religion. Well, I've had it with that. What you've been taught about Islam by the press and by liberal professors is exactly as reliable as anything else you've ever heard from them, and that is to say, not reliable at all.
Here's something you probably have never heard of: "Dhimmitude". This is a charming belief, hard-coded into the Koran, that teaches that Jews and Christians are supposed to be treated as "protected people". That sounds wonderful, doesn't it? The Koran teaches that as a Jew or a Christian, you're "protected" under the laws of Islam.
The essence of dhimmitude is this: A conquered population of non-Muslims is to be treated as second-class citizens. They have a legal status distinctly below non-Muslims. They are forced to pay a tax (the jizya), and are expected to submit to Islamic law. The status of their places of worship is technically protected, except that they are prohibited from building new churches, and prostelyzation of Muslims is punishable by death. Also, during worship services, they aren't allowed to be "loud". Public practice of non-Muslim religions is forbidden.
If a dhimmi kills a Muslim, he is executed, as he has lost his "rights" as a dhimmi. If a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, though, this does not apply.
The rights of Jews and Christians under Islamic law is, for all intents and purposes, roughly equivalent to the rights of Jews under the Nazis in the early years, before the Holocaust began in earnest. As a result, historically, Christians and other religions under Islamic rule practically disappeared as adherents found the humiliation and degradation of dhimmitude too much to bear and abandoned it for Islam.
And while you're thinking about the humiliating and debasing status as a dhimmi, consider yourself lucky; those who don't qualify as dhimmis can be executed at will, and such a fate is encouraged by Islam.
In the west, we seem to fear being labelled as "Crusaders". I think this fear is misplaced. The biggest problem with the Crusades is that they weren't nearly big enough, and their objective was far too conservative. Their objective should have been, in fact, the eradication of this putrescent religion once and for all from the earth.
If you're a Muslim and you want to write to me and complain about my treatment of your faith, I ask that you first either learn more about it, or be prepared to address issues like women's rights, slavery, dhimmitude and the violent nature of the religion and of Muhammad himself. If you just write that I'm an intolerant asshole, I'm not going to respond, because you're stating the obvious.
After Brokeback Mountain was defeated in the "Best Picture" category of the Oscars, the Hollywood Left has begun to wring its hands and wonder if it is not sufficiently liberal.
"Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don't want cowboys to be gay," said Larry McMurtry, 69, who shared an Oscar for best adapted screenplay with Diana Ossana for "Brokeback."
Unbelievable. The film goes home with three Oscars, and yet liberals, besotten with White Guilt and God knows what other neuroses, must search deep within themselves (and within all of the rest of us) to find out why their favored horse didn't win the race.
Read this entire article. Is any mention made of the quality of the film that won (Crash)? Is the debate centered in any way on a discussion of the quality of the two films? No. Nowhere. The entire debate, at this point, is whether Hollywood is liberal enough to award a Best Picture Oscar to a gay movie.
If Oscars are awards for great achievements in liberal filmmaking, then they have some merit. I think that they should just come out and admit, however, that their criteria for a good film has nothing to do with how good the film is.
This movie should lay to rest any lingering ideas that George Lucas is a good director.
The script: Well, the plot is pretty good, but the dialogue overall is too weighed-down by cliche and hamfisted attempts at political commentary.
One gets the impression that Lucas was trying to create a modern-day "High Noon", which was an allegory for McCarthy's war on Hollywood communists. But Lucas seems to be unfamiliar with the concept of subtlety. In one scene, the Emperor actually paraphrases George Bush's famous "If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists" line. It's a weak, misguided attempt that detracts heavily from the movie.
Directing: Lucas isn't a terrible director, but he's not great either. He isn't sophisticated enough to understand that the dialogue is stilted and cliche, so his directing does nothing to improve it.
The pace of the movie seemed fine, if a bit slow. The action scenes were mostly "I've seen this before in the other Star Wars movie," though. We have the Big Battle Against All Odds, the Jedi Killing Everything Against All Odds, and of course the introductory Huge Space Scene With Infiltration of Mother Ship (Against All Odds). None of it is particularly exciting because none of it feels like there is any real danger.
I guess I can sum up my feelings about this movie thusly: It feels like a documentary about a fictional place. It doesn't draw you in like it should. You don't feel anything while you're watching it.
Production: Well, there's plenty of great CGI work, but I think this movie shows that you can't rely on CGI to make a film interesting any more. To be fair, I don't think Lucas went into the project thinking that the CGI was going to have to carry the movie, but in the absence of a good script or good directing, that's what is needed.
Editing: With all the script and directing issues, I don't think the editors could have done much better.
Sound: Pew! Pew! Pew! Yippee.
We should thank Lucas for one thing, though: Jar Jar Binks is mercifully absent from this movie.
I think most of us can agree now that Iran is the biggest threat to peace and democracy in the Middle East, and it seems to me like they're building up a head of steam about something. But what?
I think it's evident to most of the world's experts, as well as foreign policy luddites and geopolitical neophytes, that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. What concerns me isn't the Iranian bomb. They can't use it against anyone who won't nuke them back in spades. The US is obviously capable of turning Iran into a self-lighting glass-top parking lot, and Israel is estimated to possess between 150 and 200 warheads.
So Iran is not going to nuke Israel if it manufactures one bomb. What does scare me though is what's going to happen when Iran has 20 or 30 nuclear weapons. Then the whole equation changes, and a fanatical and religiously extreme person (like the current Iranian leader) might get the idea that an overwhelming first strike will destroy Israel before it gets the chance to respond. Further, he may be suffering from delusions that Allah will stick his mighty hand down out of the clouds and block the Israeli missiles. This is the level of intellectual achievement that seems to be the norm among the most fanatical Muslims, a group that is well represented in the Iranian theocracy.
The root of the problem is, of course, that the world needs what Iran and other Middle Eastern tyrannies have (oil), and we give them huge amounts of cash for it. What this is leading to, I believe, is an ever more populous and powerful Middle Eastern political block that seeks to return to a respected position on the world stage. Some want to go further, of course, and conquer the world for Allah.
Now the newly-elected terrorist leadership of "Palestine" has invited Iran to support it in the absence of US and Western aid, which is being cancelled as a result of Palestinians electing terrorists. Iran particularly, and Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia in addition, cannot be allowed to dictate world events from their fanatical Islamic positions. To even allow them to participate in any way in the Israeli/Palestinian issue is unacceptable. It thus behooves us to defund Iran.
How does one do this? Well, there are subtle ways and obvious ways. We are already costing Iran some amount of money by our presence in Iraq - they spend a fair amount of money (no one knows how much for certain) funding the insurgency there. Supporting a democratic counterinsurgency in Iran itself is one option. Nothing sucks money out of the coffers like angry demonstrators and general strikes. If that doesn't work, we can turn off the spigot, the source of Iran's money, at any time. This is an expensive proposition, as it will definitely have a huge impact on oil prices all over the globe, but if we want to and we have the political will, we can do it. Iran exists and functions as a nation at our behest.
If we choose to, we can reduce the amount of oil shipped from Iran by 98%. It remains to be seen how bad things will get, and they will have to get very bad before we start bombing Iranian oil facilities. But if Tel Aviv disappears in a nuclear fireball, I think that will probably do it.
Having recently subscribed to an online music service, I'm currently searching out all the old songs that I liked, but never bought.
I'm 39 years old now. This is the part of my life where I start to decry modern music and tell the youngsters how much their music sucks, and how much better it was in my day. I've been trying to avoid doing such a cliche thing, but I can resist the impulse no longer.
Everyone gets to my age and comes to the same conclusion, it seems. But I'm beginning to wonder if the recording industry intends to make sure it's true.
It's not just me. Music really does suck now. It's getting worse instead of better as time goes on. In 40 years, turning on the radio will result in instant projectile vomit attacks and permanent brain damage. Music will be regulated by the BATF and there will be liberal consumer groups insisting that it be banned, like DDT.
It's not that I think the music of "my generation" is better than anyone elses - music from preceding generations is better than today's music too. Take for example "Follow You, Follow Me", a fairly typical pop ditty that Genesis produced in 1978, a bit before my time. Lyrically and musically, it's about two orders of magnitude better than any of the watery swill that comes out today.
Do modern "musicians" even try to make interesting music any more? One trend I find particularly fascinating is the use of parts of old songs in new songs. This way, the talentless "artist" can cash in on some of the sentiment of the previous popular song without exerting himself on writing things like notes and chords. Hell, he doesn't even have to choose a tempo, or pay royalties! He can just write some more inane lyrics about killing cops or bitches or whatever, lay it over the sample, and head right to the top of the charts.
And don't even get me started on some of the finer bands of the past like Oingo Boingo or Talk Talk, or the fantastic Kate Bush. Let's not concern ourselves with the exceptional artists, let's just talk about middle-of-the-road good bands like Cheap Trick or The Who.
Hell, I listened to "Come on Feel the Noise" from Quiet Riot the other day. I wondered why nothing that good has come out recently. And Quiet Riot sucks.
