Four years in. An inch of time. Four years in and the foolish and credulous among us yearn to get out. Their feelings require it. The power of their Holy Gospel of “Imagine” compels them. Their overflowing pools of compassion for the enslavers of women, the killers of homosexuals, the beheaders of reporters, and the incinerators of men and women working quietly at their desks, rise and flood their minds until their eyes flow with crocodile tears while their mouths emit slogans made of cardboard. They believe the world is run on wishes and that they will always have three more.
Wow. Thanks for that link, Kate; it’s a compelling essay. Indeed, it does unfortunately appear that a number of our fellow citizens have developed the attention span of a newt (cf Cleese). The current set of experiments we are running in the middle-east will take at least a decade or two to play out. The interesting questions are when and how the newts will, as the essay suggests, snap out of it.
What a load of crap! Goebbels would be proud.
You’re right Iberia, it is a load of crap. A huge load, towering a full three feet below the load that you just put forth.
Goebbels? I’m surprised you spelled it right.
Aside from the fact that you apparently have some vague idea that Goebbel’s is associated with misleading people, any other reason why you think your comparison doesn’t relegate you to the ass end of bad analogies?
but…. but……. donny rumsfeld said it was only gonna take a quick little intervention, dubya had his part down pat ‘mission accomplished’ and the whole cast and crew spoke in unison on the 50 billion price tag…..
what went wrong?
Any other reason? Read any of Goebbel’s speaches or articles and you’ll see where the right wing gets it’s boiler plate. For example:
3w.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb45.htm
30 Articles of War for the German People
by Joseph Goebbels
——————————————————————————–
These are the articles of war for the German people, who are now engaged in the most fateful battle of their history. Countless of Germany’s best have sacrificed their lives in their spirit both at the front and at home for the life and freedom of their nation. Millions of brave German soldiers fight for them on every front, and millions of industrious men and woman work untiringly for them at home, in the factories, workshops, offices, laboratories, and in agriculture.
These war articles are a reminder to our people of those who have fallen. They are a testimony to the willingness of those who fight and work to sacrifice, and a harsh rebuke to the lazy and undecided.
Article 1
Everything is possible in this war, save that we capitulate and bow to the power of the enemy. Anyone who speaks or even thinks in such a way is a cowardly traitor, and must be expelled in disgrace and shame from the fighting and working German community.
Article 2
We are fighting for our lives. If we win, we will be able to repair the damage and the pain this war has caused in a relatively short time by applying our full strength. If we lose, it will mean the end of our nation and our history.
Article 3
This war is a defensive war. It was forced upon us by our enemies, who wish to destroy the possibility of life and growth for our nation. If they succeed, our present generation will have lost everything that countless German generations have won over millennia of struggle by hard work and sacrifice. Our nation’s history will end in shame and disgrace.
Etc.
It was a load of crap back then and it’s a load of crap now.
Believe it or not, Mithrandir, that’s an L, not an I, as in Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus, now remembered chiefly as the executor of Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge of the 1930s. His ghost comes here to troll, but history has shown that it is not worth the time it takes to interlocute with it, as it is not interested in improving our lot: neither as individuals, nor as a species.
beria was instrumental in channeling reams and reams of documents on the trinity device into the hands of kerchotoff (sp). and keeping the underlings sufficiently in the dark to not know the big picture but in the light enough to pop off a copy on august 29 1949. involved a lot of translation and stuff. an impressive accomplishment.
I have a great deal of admiration for the russian scientists and engineers. too bad they were hobbled from the get go by ideology.
when stalin croaked l beria (note the LOWER CASE ‘ell’ and ‘bee’) was one of the first to stop a bullet courtesy nikita.
any more questions class? (pun intended)
good. your assignment for tomorrow is to find ways in which the great US of A has drifted towards big brother totalitarianism (patriot act excesses, arrest and imprisonment without charges or access to counsel) and ye olde remnants of the USSR has drifted towards the friedman utopia (lots of russian billionaires as per the latest forbes magazine or whoever it was tally).
A compelling essay? More a tiresome piece of feculent revisionism.
And on The Simpsons: The theme of Reverend Lovejoy’s sermon, is ‘ THE MIRACLE OF SHAME’.
Haw! (God must love the stupid- He makes so many of them.)
An excellent essay. Kate, thanks for the link. And I enjoyed the predictable, dull witted comments about nazis and the United States allegedly drifting toward totalitarianism. They really highlighted the message, and underlined the depth of the problem.
There is still justice in this world:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/03/19/iraq-hanging.html
An excellent article. One whose central thesis ought to be obvious to any thinking person. To those foolish ostriches with their heads in the sugar bowl, may you fade away peacefully, and not as you deserve.
Don’t worry – the insurgency is in its last throes. I know, because Dick Cheney told me that three years ago.
Absolutely brilliant commentary on the soft and flabby left: “You strike me as the kind of people who like to prance, rant, and chant, and then go home for a nice chilled Chardonnay and a slab of grilled tofu.”
Touche.
Every liberal I know lives extremely comfortably, usually with more air travel, wine cellars, extravagant vacations, and fully paid-off mortgages than the average Canadian/American, and they spend an inordinate amount of time and hot air bitching about Bush and singing the praises of Al Gore and co. Nevermind that their “carbon footprints” (OMG) are four or five times bigger than those of the rest of us.
‘Spent a few hours in Woodstock, in ustate New York, last week, a village that’s a microcosm of “the people of the Perfect World…stamping their feet and…having their tantrums, and telling all…that ‘War is bad for children and other living things.’ They have flowers painted on their cheeks…” I never saw so many anti-Bush buttons, as though it is a self-evident fact that he’s Satan incarnate. No buttons, of course, condemning the blood-thirsty fanatics who flew planes into the Twin Towers.
‘No point arguing with these aging hippies: They’re like a bunch of glazed-eyed zombies dancing into oblivion to the Pied Piper’s tune. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was only them who were going over the precipice. But the fact that they want to take the rest of us with them, especially our children, I find obscene in the extreme.
An excellent article – and yes, the usual empty-headed hippies come here, to vent their whatever against, not terrorism, but our defenses against terrorism.
Terrorism? They reject its existence, transforming it to an individual psychological aberration, a ‘disturbance of a few’, all totally due to ‘bad parenting’, ie, with the West as Parents – who did not love the ME enough, did not support them, did…whatever.
This infantile view of terrorism as a psychological neurosis rather than a socioeconomic result of the rigid Islamic tribalism of the ME, naturally moves on to reject our having to defend ourselves against its actions. Another 9/11? Why not? After all, it just shows that we haven’t raised them properly and loved them enough.
Equally astonishing is the view that human beings are machines. The left hippies consider that all that’s necessary to transform the mindset of a population is ‘flip a switch’. Remove the dictator, and overnight, they’ll be non-tribal, civic-minded citizens all engrossed in modern technology and modern perspectives. What deep ignorance.
It takes years, years and years to change the mindset of a population. People are not machines; you don’t change your mind akin to flipping a switch. Generations of tribal hatreds, nurtured by dictators to prevent rebellion, don’t disappear in an instant. Iran is now nurturing that continuity of tribalism, for its own imperialist ambitions in the ME.
But, these leftist hippies, who live safely in the West, secured by freedom, have no experience of such repression. They too, are not machines; they too ignore facts and reality. They too cannot change their opinions that freedom, capitalism and security are Western Evils – even though their basic actions exist within such.
So, the leftists who are against the Iraqi transformation from slavery to freedom, should consider that they too, have a hard time changing their views of the world to conform to reality.
The reference to John Lennon’s sappy BBC granny song is apt: one of his biographers (can’t remember which one, sorry) reports that one of Yoko Ono’s maxims was that if you wished for something hard enough and often enough, it would come true. Yep, that’s always worked.
Wow, so many trolls here today. Highway department must be working under the Left side of the bridge.
“Everything is possible in this war, save that we capitulate and bow to the power of the enemy. Anyone who speaks or even thinks in such a way is a cowardly traitor, and must be expelled in disgrace and shame from the fighting and working Environmental community.”
So, what’s wrong with Goebbels “call to arms”? Just because he was a political extremist, doesn’t mean everything he said was rubbish. Every nation, or cause, will use rhetoric of this type, when battle looms.
btw, note that I changed ONE word in that quoted sentence from Mr. Beria. Now tell me that “cause” doesn’t use the same tactics.
Just as Islamists claim their religion a peaceful one, when based on any objective observation, it is the most toxically violent from its very foundations.
Just as Islamists claim victim status, while leaving a trail of hundreds of millions murdered since Mohammad.
Just as Islamists claim that they liberated women, while women in burkas are stoned for being raped and little girls are mutilated.
Iberia says: “Goebbels would be proud.”
Just as an Islamist of the most vile kind.
“Conservatives are Nazis”
My what an original proposition from the left.
Well, I blame the left for the subsequent suffering of people in South East Asia after the US was forced out by them.
When you chant “It’s another Vietnam” remember the consequances of your last indulgance.
If I may offer one bit of thanks to the Muslim world. It is that when they can’t find anyone else to slaughter, they simply get busy killing each other. Idle hands are mohammed’s tools eh folks!
May I also offer, in thanks … a map to San Fransisco … for starters.
Apparently the piece pushed a few troll buttons, and I thank them for that.
It’s always useful to back up an article with real, live examples.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
– Marcus Aurelius
…and the lefties scream. They actually think they wont be the first to be given the convert or die option.
The major cause of death in Iraq is foreign fighters/terrorists killing Iraqi civillians. No other war in history has been like this.
Don’t know if this would be more appropriate here or in the Michael Totten piece “This is What Nation Building Looks Like”.
My previous tenant (and next door neighbour)is a renowned Iranian architect who left Tehran in 1978 and has been uable to return since. (see his incredible ‘Lotus of Bahapur’ – the world’s most visited building, at: http://www.sahbaarchitect.com)
He is a gentle, cultured and immensely likeable man who has traveled the world, teaching and spreading his vast knowledge. He is like thousands of Iranians who despise what his country and culture has become. He understands the sickness of Islam, having seen and suffered it’s effects.
Yet the moonbats would dismiss him and others like him, because he supports freedom, democracy, knowledge, trade and international relations instead of sectarian violence, opression of women and a cult of 12th century nihilism.
Go figure.
Terrorism? They reject its existence, transforming it to blah, blah, blah….
Tell me again, ET, et al, what Bush’s monumentally disastrous invasion of Iraq had to do with 911.
Liberia,
By your logic every single German living in Natzi Germany who bought into the whole dominant race, crusading heroes, smiters of Jewish evil, were Goebbels. All of them. That kind of analysis makes Goebbels ordinary. Commonplace. We wouldn’t even know his name.
It’s not just what they say. It’s why. It’s how. It’s to what effect. It’s to what end. You read an article of a true believer and the only thing your little mind turns to is Goebbels. Not only is it a stupid analogy, it’s insulting to history, to humanity, to the winners and the victims of that war.
You want to try to make a case? Try Rove. Try Cheney. It won’t be easy. It won’t be good. But at least it won’t be absurdly ignorant.
Good luck with that.
bill olielly- I’ll try to explain but I have a strong feeling that it’s useless. The fact that you already conclude that the Iraq War is ‘monumentally disastrous’ means that you lack both information, knowledge and insight.
I’ll make it brief because I’ve gone over this umpteen times.
9/11 was caused by Islamic fascism (IF). IF is caused by dysfunctional tribalism (DF). DF occurs when the population base becomes too large for tribalism. Tribalism is a mode of governance suitable only for medium size populations below the millions using a peasant agriculture not industrialism. It politically operates via kin networks, it rejects individual enterprise and free thought; its capital is hereditary; it is a no growth economy; it has no capacity to adapt.
WWI and II changed the economic infrastructure of the Middle East (ME), moving it from this peasant rural agriculture to an urban industrialism, using foreign expertise. The population grew exponentially but, not only did a tribal political structure continue but it moved into a dictatorial tribalism, with the lead tribe ruling by force and preventing change. What is required in a massive population in the millions, using industrialism – is democracy, within a middle class.
Tribalism rejects a middle class. This repression of the population ought to have ‘imploded’ within a civil war – as it did in the West back in the years when the West moved from tribalism to a civic mode of governance about 1100 to 1500 AD.
But the military dictatorships prevented internal change – and the result was fascism. Fascism is a utopian ideology, believing that IF ONLY we returned to an Original State of purity, THEN we would be OK. Islamic fascism emerged in the WWI and II era, defining that Original Purity as radical Islam. Islam, by the way, is a tribal sociopolitical mode – developed in and functional in only a tribal peasant economy. It rejects individual thought, reason, innovation, etc. Makes change almost impossible.
So- this ‘tension’ between an exponential population growth, a rural to urban movement but a complete denial of partipation in the economic, political power of their nation – exploded into Islamic fascism, a fervent rejection of this new world, a wish to return to Purity. This ideology was fostered by the military dictators, as it enabled complete authoritarian theocratic control of the population – and the Evil Agent preventing this Return to Purity was defined as The West. Rather than the internal military dictator!
The only way to deal with Islamic fascism, is to free the people. That’s what Iraq is about. Freeing one nation, allowing its people to choose democracy – which they did..and enabling that mode to spread to the rest of the ME. Of course, Iran, Syria, etc are fighting this; they don’t want democracy; the tribal dictators want to retain control. But – it is the only way.
I doubt if you will understand or accept this. You have to understand the societal structure of tribalism, the relation between population size and economic and political modes; the history of the drastic change in the West when it moved out of tribalism to a civic mode; the difference between group think and individual thought; the nature of Islam and its emergence and so on.
ET: You do realise that you’re trying to explain the ME to someone who’s moniker is “Bill O’lielly”.
Trust me ET, with an intelligence level of this magnitude, you’re absolutely wasting your time.
You’re better off saving your response to your hard drive and pasting it here for goofs who do drive by smears.
“The fact that you already conclude that the Iraq War is ‘monumentally disastrous’ means that you lack both information, knowledge and insight.”
Yes, I forgot that things in Iraq are going “swimmingly” as Ann Coulter says.
“Freeing one nation, allowing its people to choose democracy…”
So you will admit that crushing democracy in Iran in ’53 was monumentally disastrous?
olielly – what you don’t understand is that social dynamics aren’t akin to mechanical dynamics. You do not switch a population steeped in tribalism from that mode to a civic mode as if they were mechanisms – and you just flip the switch.
It takes generations, and I mean that. It took the west over 400 very bloody years to move from feudalism (tribalism) to a civic mode. OK? People are not machines; they don’t change with a flip of the switch.
You are also ignoring the actions of Iran etc in fomenting the tribal infighting in Iraq – these nations don’t want democracy emerging in their midst – it will incite the people to rise up and demand their own democracy.
As for Iran in 1953 – you are changing the topic. You asked me only about Iraq and 9/11.
Certainly, I think that the UK/USA should have tried to deal differently with Mossadegh; however, it might have been impossible. They were, after all, protecting their interests. It was the UK/USA that developed the oil industry in the ME. The Islamic world hasn’t had a scientific thought since its inception; its rejection of reason, individualism, questioning, debate etc, stopped science and technological dev’t dead. The ME was locked in a peasant agriculture and would have remained so if the West hadn’t industrialized it – because Islam had and has no capacity for scientific and technological thought.
So, the wealth generated in the ME via oil, was generated by UK/USA engineers and scientists. Mossadegh’s agenda of nationalization of this oil industry was an economic threat. That’s right; allow some other nation to spend millions to develop an industry, to use their research and development, their engineers – and then, say ‘thanks but get lost’. I don’t think that’s how economic contracts work.
Now – back to the current situation and the very real threat of Islamic fascism – again, the causes are INTERNAL to the ME states. It is their tribal dictators – which include states beyond Iran – which are the ‘root cause’ of this fascism. I won’t repeat the situation of exponential population growth, urbanization and the rejection of a middle class – but, the ME gov’ts themselves are to blame. THEY made the choice to reject democracy in favour of tribalism. And, THEY made the choice to move into a fundamentalist Islam to enable them to hold onto their political powers.
I suggest that you focus your anger on the ME tribal powers who made the choices to reject empowering their own people and above all, to move into a civic rather than tribal mode – and to reject fundamentalist Islam. Instead, they have chosen the wrong path – with a rather predictable outcome.
God bless all you who suggest we should vacate Iraq and Afghanistan, for you do hate war.
Do you suppose then that I must love war because I would prefer an Iraqi governance that would limit Shia, Suni, Kurd, and inter-Christian killing?
So often I read about the Liberal and democrat urgent cries to *Pull-out*.
Never do you mention how you are going to sleep at night when thousands of women, elderly, and children end up dead in the streets when we suddenly abandon them.
Awaiting your clever plan to ensure the lives of all those, who with purple fingers, voted for a decent government system when we suddenly abandon them and pull out.
Waiting. . . = TG
when thousands of women, elderly, and children end up dead in the streets when we suddenly abandon them.”
uh, shooyyph!!! hey there tony, ummm, not much of a choice for the iraqis there eh?
civvies getting blown to bits with so-called precision bombs courtesy the belly of an F-117 ooooor….. what youse said.
today’s homework assignment: think of a 3rd alternative to all the godam killing !!!
robert, you’re beginning to become tiresome. Actually, you became tiresome a long time ago. Please refrain from posting content-free comments. If you have nothing to add beyond blather, then don’t add it. This is not a chat board.
“Freeing one nation, allowing its people to choose democracy…”
“So you will admit that crushing democracy in Iran in ’53 was monumentally disastrous?”
– Moonbat
Allowing the people to choose is one thing. Whether they will be able to is another. What the newest example of pond life doesn’t comprehend is that the war going on within Iraq right now is Islamofascists attempting to force the country into becoming an Islamic state, controlled by either the Sunnis or the Shiites, which would mean a big step towards regional and theocratic control. The tactics involve wholesale slaughter of Muslims by Muslims – as is typical since the split.
As far as “Iran in ’53” is concerned – I can only think the answer is the formation of the Muslim brotherhood in ’22. Of course, I could be entirely mistaken. Perhaps it’s Krakatoa in 1879? Oh, how silly of me, it’s the incorporation of the Uneeda Biscuit Company in 1867. Everybody knows that.
The sqwuak of the moonbat.
Great essay , thanks Kate.
Sad question but,
What percentage of Canada would “feel” offended if they received this essay in their inbox?
US troops, still in Germany, still in Japan, still in Korea, still in Kosovo. They have to be there. Just read some of the info from around the world. This blog alone covers many of the dangers the free world faces. But if lib socialist have their way we will lose our freedom.