The answer is, who cares?Haters will always find a pretext. Do you really think anything can be gained by placating people who break into murderous burning and bombing tantrums over cartoons? Trying to understand their motivations would be a descent into madness. They want us dead and off the global scene. It's as simple as that. Convert or die.
Michael Young has written an important piece in Beirut’s Daily Star, America Just Cannot be the Loved One:
The White House and the State Department would do best to save their public diplomacy funds and focus more on a redefining a lasting, bipartisan strategy toward the Middle East that can span antagonistic administrations. This has not been done in a serious way since 9/11, and it needs to be at this essential moment when Arab countries are facing momentous change. In politics, love is overrated.A Failure of Intelligence
We dump hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into intelligence and security. Why was there no warning of these embassy attacks? Is the CIA asleep? Is the US intelligence monster too busy spying on Americans?
Rogers (House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich) also said that the attacks would demand a thorough review of the American intelligence apparatus, which did not flag any warning signs before the attacks despite the fact that they came on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. (The Hill)I hope President Obama does not follow in Bush’s footsteps, when the former president gave the CIA director a Medal of Freedom in the wake of the worst intelligence debacle in our nation’s history.
Bush couldn’t fire anyone. Can Obama?
87 comments:
"Who cares"
What a brain.
This is almost funny.
Yesterday, I got slammed for telling the world that the US Ambassador to Libya, the late Chris Stevens, was tragically naive. I see the murdered ambassador as a starry-eyed liberal in the tradition of Danny Pearl and Nick Berg, who vainly imagined that learning Arabic, "immersing himself in Arab culture," and making every effort to subordinate himself (and the ideas and ideals of the USA!) to the attitudes and interest of the native population would have the effect of causing Arabs to love him -- and our cntry by extension.
"Oh no!" I was told. "Chris Stevens is EXACTLY the kind of person we most desperately need in our diplomatic corps."
Yes. We certainly need more hopelessly naive, self-deluded, well-meaning diplomats with a Death Wish as big as all outdoors.
Sorry! Those barbarians don't need to be "UNDERSTOOD." They don't need our EMPATHY. They don't deserve our COMPASSION.
More importantly they don't need or deserve our ATTENTION.
What they need -- in descending order is to be
1. IGNORED
2. CONQUERED and REMODELED in "OUR" IMAGE
3. ANNIHILATED
The last of those alternatives is the least desirable, the first the most.
Get the United States OUT of the Middle East
Get Middle Easterners OUT of the United States.
Hurt me once, shame on you.
Hurt me twice, shame on me.
Kill me after that, and I richly DESERVE to DIE.
Only an utter FOOL could fail to recognize an enemy once he makes his presence known.
The people of the Middle East are little better than wild animals -- BARBARIANS -- SAVAGES, if you will.
The only thing human about them is their cunning and infinite capacity to DECEIVE and BETRAY.
In short you can't believe thing they say.
There ARE no "moderate" Muslims -- only many who remain "inactive" in order to lull " foreign devils" into complacency -- and extreme vulnerability.
~ FreeThinke
Who really cares why these dumbass Muslims hate us. We are not and we should not worry about being loved by these a-holes.. We didn't attack them by slamming our airplanes into their buildings and killed 3, 00 of their people.
95 percent of the attacks on America were done by them, And please don't tell me about Timothy Mcvay, that story is getting worn thin.
They come to America for freedom and we go there to help them and you see what we get for it. So when are we going to realize that it's not going to work and get the hell out of that shit hole and stop sending our Troops to their deaths. Why do they live in America if they hate it so much? What is so hard to understand:? They hate us and they want to kill us! So why do we have to worry about why?
The Libyan president says this was a planned attack. Rice, another great Obama choice and lemming, says it was spontaneous. Gee who should we believe.
The Obama appointees apologize for a stupid movie, they hold and interrogate someone involved with the movie and they say Mitt acted to soon.
This was not a Muslim act, it was just an act of terror but the administration doesn't want to offend by taking action. After all he did say we wouldn't tolerate this kind of action against an American Citizen, that should scare em.
We needn't care from an empathetic point of view, but some of us at least, need to care from a strategic point of view. In order to protect our nation and exploit weaknesses in our enemies...we need to care at some levels.
From what I've read, the so-called Arab Spring started out as a true push for something akin to democracy; after all, so many of these young people have accessed the Internet and have seen "the other side."
However, the Muslim Brothehood, never a group to miss an opportunity for grabbing power, quickly co-oped the movement for freedom.
Now look at the mess! This same kind of revolution is sweeping the Islamic world!
Silverfiddle,
That article by Michael Young is excellent. I'll be sharing it with my current events class tomorrow.
FT,
I saw that you got slammed yesterday for what you said.
I ask this: How successful have diplomatic measures been with the Islamic world? Not for just a few years but for, let's say, a term of longer than 10 years.
I didn't "slam" FT. I pointed out that his criticism was aimed at the wrong target. The ambassador was doing his job. He follows policy, not make it, and we do need good diplomats to represent us around the world.
FT's Attila the Hun foreign policy fantasy will never happen.
The Left is always making excuses for these people. The left is a bunch of Idiotic,bone-headed, crap spewing group of Bull..
As for you question, Let me ask you why do the libs only site the Constitution when they try and distort the Constitution . It seems that they only use the Constitution when fighting against Christians and Jews and then they quote the separation of Church and State and then In the same breath they defend the Muslims, in every case, saying it because of religion. And if that isn't the definition hypocrisy I don't know what is!
They defend the Constitution only when it suits their purpose or agenda. They seem to think that their taking a contrary, and outrageous position on everything makes them intellectuals.
Lets take a look at the Religion of Peace, and their activities. Lets take a look at some of the terrorist attacks in the last few decades
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of Pan Am Flight 103!
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon!
It was the MUSLIM’S who thre a Jewish old man overboard when the hijacked the Achille Lauro.
It was the Muslims who killed the Israeli Athletes at the Olympics!
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of the Military Barracks in Saudi Arabia!
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of the American Embassies in Africa!
It was the MUSLIM’S bombing of the USS COLE!
It was the MUSLIM’S who have been killing our Troops under the disguise as our friends in Afghanistan.
It was the MUSLIM’S who attacked our Embassies, all over the Mid-East.
It was the MUSLIM’S attacks on the World Trade Center, on9/11/2001, and the Pentagon !
Did I mention that it was President Barack Obama who has been apologizing to them.
So all you Bleeding heart Liberal’s
Welcome to the civilized world.
CI is right, "who cares" only works as long as they can't hit you, and unfortunately we know that they can hit us. Personally I think that 9/11 was a "lucky" strike, but they only need to be persistent in order to eventually get "lucky" again.
I think there are a lot of different types of anti-westernism, and most of it (by a long way) is undeserved. All of the undeserved hatred is contingent on uninformed Arabs. For example, many Arabs assumed that the film was aired on some sort of National American Television network and reflects the views of the Government. This is wrong at so basic a level that it wouldn't naturally occur to a Westerner that this kind of clarification was needed.
Anyone who digs around in Susan Rice's history will find out she is an anti-semite,who would like nothing better than to have the Middle East go up in flames. Obama's new long war and he owns it.
jez makes a good point, I think.
Uninformed Arabs do react to what they hear and I'd prefer we had a better PR effort over there than sending Americans who could get killed. PR can be done via the internet.
"intelligence" over there? What a joke. It wasn't too many years ago when we learned our CIA undercovers were learning "high Arabic", a language not spoken on the streets. Our guys only had to open their mouths for others to know "THESE people aren't one of us.."
Then we've got Valerie Jarrett with better protection around her on vacation than we give our ambassadors? WHat's with THAT?
It IS "convert or die"...so now what do we do?
Silver doesn't seem to understand that my comments were not about US POLICY in LIBYA, they are about the fallaciousness of STARRY-EYED, SOFT-HEADED, ROMANTIC IDEALISM.
Many liberals I know personally are VERY decent, kind people -- some are perfect sons-of-bitches -- the same is true for the conservatives I know.
"Goodness" is NOT the issue. WISDOM most certainly IS.
The late Mr. Stevens may have been GOOD at HEART, but he was anything but WISE.
He "fell in love" with ARABY for GOD's sake.
How NAIVE and STUPID could one get?
FT, when one lives in another culture, one does get an insight and does appreciate things about it we cannot really understand here.
Stevens apparently loved the people, and nobody can say all Libyans are bad. If it wasn't for crazed extremists, this probably wouldn't have happened.
Stevens probably trusted in the scene there as he did have Libyans working for him, grateful for what he has done for the region over the years, protecting him, etc...
This is a terrible breach of the WH to have not better protected all embassies on 9/11 and their blaming it on the film is an attempt to obfuscate that truth and it's working pretty well.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/14/president-obama-stop-blaming-victim-for-mideast-violence/
Even Kristen Powers disagrees with Obama on this one.
Yes, one can view Stevens as naive and a romantic about the region...but he should have been better protected by AMerican POLICY.
Being a diplomat is inherently risky. I'm sure Mr. Stevens was aware of the risks he took, both in reducing his personal security and in just being a diplomat at all. He didn't do his job because he thought it was safe, but because he thought it was worth the risk. Brave people unfortunately often die; bravery is not always an indication of folly.
To paraphrase Battlestar Galactice "all this has happend before, and all this will happen again".
During the previous Administration, violent protests occured at US embassies throughout the region, with US diplomats being killed in Sudan and Pakistan.
We're not really seeing anything new....not that it matters for political rhetoric.
Nothing will change until or if we can get the moonbat ideologs out of Washington for good.
As we see and hear on the TV this morning El Presidente Obama left to campaign in Ohio this morning. It seems as if it didn’t make any difference at all that the Libyan President Mohammed El-Megarif told the liberal National Public Radio network, that the killing of our Ambassador and the 3 members of his staff was a military-style attack. He clearly said. That the attack was due to a poorly guarded group of diplomats, And shredded the claim that it was a spontaneous protest against the anti-Islam video. The claim by some including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that this was a “criminal and cowardly act by a group of spontaneous protesters, that just spun out of control” is completely unfounded and preposterous..
Why isn't our president talking to the nation? And why don't the national media seem to care? Is Obama the President of the United States, or President of the Muslim brotherhood? And his stooge Susan Rice told that lie over and over again and again, about this stupid video being the cause of the violence against our Embassies and that the uprising was a spontaneous act.
More proof why we must dump this lying incompetent idiot in November.
Well Debonair Dud besides being a quarter of the worlds population we still depend on cheap oil from Muslim nations to fuel the world economy.
So it's tough to pretend they aren't there. In fact according to The Ladies Who Lunch™ there may even be some good Libyans. Imagine that.
But let's look at what happened apart from some random street rallies.
Libya - Probably a pro Qadaffi militia (maybe an al-Qaeda splinter) attacked the consulate. This was the serious event and had NOTHING to do with that ridiculous film.
Egypt - A bunch of unemployed thugs decided to rumble. Obama suggest Egypt better pay attention to its relationship with the U.S. and it stops.
Tunisia - Another country suffering from massive unemployment where there are ample numbers looking to blow off steam. They can't start dealing drugs from Mexico like America's chronic unemployed.
Otherwise it was countries we are at war with either directly or covertly. Yemen, Pakistan, etc.
The so called film has very little to do with any of this and focusing on it as if the fringe left is as uninformed as the average unemployed Arab just allows militarists, bigots and the ignorant in America to ignore the overwhelming number of Muslims who have been caught between American sponsored dictators and religious zealots (we have our share of them also).
As a guy from Iran who I was talking to on the subway suggested, it's going to take a generation but a generation that is not interested in either is coming up.
@z - PR can be done via the internet.
---
But our Marxist president prefers drones.
A 10 year old could have figured it out that this was a planned attack and not a spontaneous mob of protesters because the attackers fired rocket launchers and other heavy armor at the Embassy. Since when do “protesters bring these kinds of weapons to a protest? Apparently it is ok for them to destroy our flag, but not ok to destroy the Quran, or to piss in a bottle that contains a Crucifix. or a picture of their beloved prophet Muhammad
How many more Americans will have die unnecessarily because of them?
Hillary's and Obama's response is blowing up in their face's, and so will Obama's foreign policy agenda or lack of it.
@FT:
How NAIVE and STUPID could one get?
There you go again. From his record, the man was neither.
I want our diplomats to fall in love with the culture where they are stationed. It makes for better relations and advances our national interest.
I know you'd like to dispatch an army of prickly John Boltons, and that would be a disaster.
One can appreciate the culture of others without kowtowing to it or surrendering one's love of country.
Egypt - A bunch of unemployed thugs decided to rumble. Obama suggest Egypt better pay attention to its relationship with the U.S. and it stops.
Israel is re-deploying forces towards Egypt. Apparently, are too, but for slightly different reasons.
This ain't about a movie, folks. Sabers are rattling around the ME.
When the bombers take out the Iranian nukes, all hell is going to break out.
Nobody, over there, is going to be in love with Barack.
The only question that remains is, who, besides Iran, is going to strike BACK at the US/Israel. Will Egypt be IN or OUT of the Islamic "holier than thou art" club?
My guess is that they will be IN. And so will the rest of the Arab street.
The Israeli's expect to deploy three more "Iron Dome" anti-missile batteries by the end of December, THIS year. Once in place, all bets are OFF.
Freethinke has a fantastic range: he is capable of the most simpering flattery and does a good line in blistering invective; but there's nothing in between. He probably intends only to admonish gently but has overshot, like a giant anteater attempting to hug a man.
Intelligence is only actionable if one is paying attention. If the president refuses to bother with the PDBs, if he … the decision maker, has no idea what’s going on, then it isn’t the fault of the intelligence community. But you asked this question: Bush couldn’t fire anyone. Can Obama? Should Obama fire people who are doing exactly what he wants them to do? America is not being best served by the Obama cabinet, but there is only one remedy: fire Obama.
Duck said: we still depend on cheap oil from Muslim nations to fuel the world economy
To what percentage(s)?
If oil is holding us hostage to the point that the First Amendment is breached, America is done for. Those anywhere on the political spectrum will ultimately lose.
Thersites,
The only question that remains is, who, besides Iran, is going to strike BACK at the US/Israel. Will Egypt...?
I wouldn't count on any Islamic country to take the side of Israel. IMO, to save themselves, they will side against Israel and take up arms to do so.
I hope that I'm wrong.
SF,
We can dispute the term "slam," but the comments seemed that way to me.
Jez,
FT is quite consistent: Take no prisoners attitude on his part.
And, really, that's not a big deal in the blogosphere.
You can't be a part of the Ummah "holier than thou" and NOT attack Israel. Which is why the Israeli's help jointly fund Skyguard.
Between Iron Dome, Skyguard and Arrow... the Muslims are going to be reduced to throwing rocks at Israel(as usual) and cursing the USA.
I know, Ducky, you'd like us to take out soldiers, take out drones, and just raise our hands to Allah "YOU WIN!" (at least you'd have rid the world of your version of Calvinists who go around killing ambassadors and burning embassies, huh?) but that's a tough pill to swallow for many Americans.
As for Bolton, SF....knowing the Arab mentality like I do, I'd have to say a Bolton might be more effective than a Stevens type from time to time. Pride is everything to an Arab...we're backing off...reports are in Arab papers and others that Stevens was raped (and sodomized, I'm not sure what the difference is when men are attacked like that and I'm not sure I want to know) before he was killed. This is all about control.
SF...do we cut funding entirely?
Why doesn't SOMEONE at least threaten that? Or does our money really mean anything to the average muslim protester on the streets of all those places which are so enraged?
AOW: Ambassador Stevens is not even in the grave and FT calls him fatuous, imbecilic, starry-eyed"
In this thread he has called him "NAIVE and STUPID"
I stand by every word of my comments at his blog thread.
We need more diplomats like Chris Stevens. If FT wants to remain churlish, I understand that, but he should vent his dyspeptic rants towards the policymakers and not the people in the field.
Z: We do a terrible bringing the American point of view to foreign countries, and the governments we give money to don't help the cause.
I would make foreign aid contingent upon how the government talks about us and whether they allow caustic propaganda to flow unrebutted or not.
SF...I agree about the money but I wonder if the people on the street would even notice the lack of it or care....
I'd be talking about it today were I in government and being listened to.
And, by the way, while I understand what you're saying and think you make a good point, I think more people than we think would love to have "the AMerican point of view" more accepted in their countries, even Arab ones.
http://www.etruth.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120917/API/1209170701&template=printart
I just had this sent to me and feel it fits the point that not all LIbyans wanted anybody dead. There are Libyan youth who found Stevens' body and tried to revive him and were shouting "He's alive! God is good"...and we're learning now it IS true that he was brought to the hospital by LIbyans wanting to help.
And this is the type of young person I believe does have a faith and a desire for American points of view...not to be told they SHOULD live by our values but we know islamic fundamentalism and cruelty does not apply to them all. Not by a long shot.
Details are still sketchy, Z, but it is possible that this was an AQ-disgruntled pro-Khadaffy operation.
I too am withholding judgment on the Libyan people for now. Perhaps they are grateful, and it was Libyans who were said to have brought him to the hospital. The early pictures I saw appeared to be people trying to help him, not tear him to pieces (look at their faces).
Another point to consider: Why was there no big protest at the US embassy in Tripoli?
I am no fan of the Muslim world, but we've got to keep a cool head here.
What's the American point of view Silver, more drones?
Try to use that oil money differently and we'll get medieval on you the way we tried to do with Chavez.
@z - As for Bolton, SF....knowing the Arab mentality like I do ...
-----
Right, you read Patai along with Sam Huntington.
SF wrote, “I would make foreign aid contingent upon how the government talks about us and whether they allow caustic propaganda to flow unrebutted or not.”
Does this mean you demand foreign countries acknowledge our right to free speech, but seek to limit theirs?
Late Breaking News!
Pakistanis Try to Storm U.S. Outpost; One Is Killed Sunday evening
Jack: No. It means I would not hand money to governments that loudly talk crap about us and encourage outpouring of anger against us.
Nobody's "rights" are broken (governments don't have rights anyway, people do)--we just set higher standards when it comes to handing out money.
The Muslim hates because they can... We certainly have "officialy" supported and encouraged those things that have given them reason to do so.
It is time we allow the Arab world to simmer in thier cauldron of hate having been the beneficiary of our good will and Trillions of dollars.
SF said: "how the government talks about us and whether they allow caustic propaganda to flow unrebutted or not."
Sorry, I am with Jack on this one. What is 'propaganda' typically? Views or information with which whomever using the word disagrees. Free speech as contained in the First Amendment is a basic human right.
You are actually wanting to encourage these governments to be more fascist by not "allowing" expression you happen to dislike. (I dislike it too, but I don't want anything censored).
SF said nothing about foreign governments censoring their citizens, he's only talked about the foreign governments themselves say, and whether they do anything to rebut lies about America. Rebuttal is not censorship (and neither is disagreement slamming).
Jez, I see what you mean about the 'rebutted'. You are right.
As long as the incompetent incumbent stops oil exploration, pipeline construction, war on coal, we will depend on the Middle East. I just don't have the vision of wind powered cars that IC has.
He has a very difficult time with the truth but that is part of his NPD. To say he has increased production of oil is a true joke and another lie.
Now that Romney is going to spell out his plans to end the Obama recession, does that mean Obama will just repeat his 2008 promises, none of which he has kept.
"Now that Romney is going to spell out his plans to end the recession...."
But is he? He's had plenty of opportunity, and I haven't heard the specifics I need to take him seriously. And not just on economics....I want to see a cogent and diverging policy on foreign affairs if I'm going to see him as a serious contender.
It is impossible for a government, even ours, to ignore popular sentiment and maintain power. According to SF Rule 742-1, no country can receive foreign aid who talks smack about the United States. So if the minority party of a country’s parliament is upset about something, if they begin to talk smack, the head of government must limit that expression or lose access to American foreign aid. In this sense, yes … SF is talking about limiting free expression.
I cannot fault SF’s sentiments. But diplomacy is difficult in the real world and I would encourage SF to rethink his smack policy. If a government represses the people in the name of the United States, then the United States becomes the tyrant, violates our own principles, and therefore diplomatically counterproductive.
For what it’s worth, I disagree that we need “touchy feely” Ambassadors. We need Ambassadors who are mature, knowledgeable, possess practical experience, and able to amicably implement American foreign policy within their assigned countries. We don’t need any more nitwits like the idiot April Glaspie. I think we do need touchy feely programs, such as usually assigned to subordinates.
Jack: it depends how you define "government" -- I wouldn't include a democratic opposition, although it wouldn't be nonsense to include it. This distinction is irrelevant for non-democratic regimes.
The entire topic is irrelevant for nondemocratic regimes. Still, even tyrants fear the people and must find ways to placate the masses, other than firing squads. The easiest way of doing that is to allow normally repressed people to talk smack about some other country. The USA is a convenient target.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is playing games. They have done nothing that surprises me. They may have surprised Clinton and Obama, which brings us back to the real problem: Inept foreign policy makers, and incompetent Ambassadors.
Hey Jack, does that mean that when Netanyahu talks smack we cut off the checks to the worlds largest welfare queens?
Gee, I dunno Ducky. Check with SF. He's got the lead in the anti-smack initiative.
the way we tried to do with Chavez.
Stay off the drugs, duckman. You're almost as paranoid as that POS.
'Who Cares?' Well, you've answered your own question.
Simpletons say it their religion. But, we've spent the past sixty years toppling their democratically-elected regimes while propping up brutal ones, the fact that we've invaded and occupied their countries, bombed and droned them practically non-stop for three decades, tortured them, unconditionally backed their nuclear-armed rival, and built military installations all over their lands -- none of that has done anything whatsoever to cultivate Muslim anger and resentment against us.
Silver, you're jousting with strawmen where I'm concerned.
If I had MY way, we would never have gotten involved with the region in the first place, and would quickly WITHDRAW completely ad forever TURN OUR BACK on the stinking mess.
Enormous Anglophile that I am, I am fully aware that we have Mother England to thank primarily for the mess in the Middle East.
By what right did Britain decide SHE had the "duty" -- and the power -- to REPARTITION the Middle East and impost HER will on the Arab world?
Thanks to The Balfour Declaration we have the immense thorn-in-the-side the forceful Imposition of modern day Israel by WESTERN powers has produced in the ARAB world.
Who the hell are WE to decide that HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of ARABS have NO RIGHT to their feelings? Wh the hell are WE to imagine that WE should take it upon ourselves to REFORM and REFASHION so immense a region?
Yes Israel has done a SPLENDID job of developing her meager little sliver of soil, but she exists SOLELY because of the meddlesome, overbearing policies of Great Britain and later the United States.
Something's dreadfully out of whack about that, and it's time we owned up to our part of the responsibility in fomenting the DEMENTED, DISEASED attitudes that define the region today.
You have misread me completely.
~ FT
I disagree, FT. Silverfiddle hasn’t misread you at all. You really are three bubbles off plumb.
@Ducky and AOW
"We still depend on cheap oil from muslim nations..."
US OIL CONSUMPTION
Domestic 38.8%
Latin America 19.6%
Canada 15.1%
Africa 10.3% (Half from Nigeria)
Persian Gulf only 12.9%
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/11/150444802/where-does-america-get-oil-you-may-be-surprised
http://www.etruth.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120917/API/1209170701&template=printart
SF, there is good information in this link I posted above.
Ducky, I have many relatives from Beirut and Istanbul.. My mother was born and raised in Cairo...not that it's any of your business...but you should know the facts before commenting, of course.
I don't know who Patai is but Sam usually gets it right.
Jack: Afghanistan is a case in point.
We hand Ali Baba Karzai and his gang of 40,000 thieves billions every year. Every time some nutjob here in the states tears a koran page the country goes up in flames, and Karzai is there egging them on and excoriating the United States. Under President Silverfiddle, he gets a big fat package of doodly squat.
Under President Silverfiddle, he gets a big fat package of doodly squat.
We don't have to buy their oil.
We don't have to sell them food.
But we lack the cajones to do either.
Any of your relatives Muslim? I doubt it.
Hey Finntann. I said the world economy.
We're not in this alone.
Pitch till you win.
@ FreeThinke: Silver, you're jousting with strawmen where I'm concerned.
It must be incredibly foggy from where you're concerned.
I explicitly stated that I took issue with you calling ambassador, may he rest in peace, "fatuous, imbecilic, starry-eyed."
You may want to look in the mirror when you ignorantly hurl those words at a man who was killed serving his country.
Admiring other cultures, learning their languages and cultivating relations with people are not uniquely-liberal traits.
Of course, in your cardboard cutout world, we would send in only angry chauvinists who loudly announced, "I execrate your shabby culture and I refuse to speak your yapping, clacking language."
Yeah, that'd work out real well...
Enormous Anglophile that I am, I am fully aware that we have Mother England to thank primarily for the mess in the Middle East.
-----
Freethinker, don't forget the French.
Ducky, don't be quite so naive. They lived in Muslim cities. They get it.
Is your relative Joseph Stalin?
Stalin? I'm Ukrainian.
@I said the world economy
What? Are they going to stop selling if we stop buying?
I don't think so.
So, what's your point?
From a logistics/supply chain perspective it makes more sense for us to buy oil here, even from old Hugo, and the Chinese to buy oil there.
Let them deal with them. We don't have a critical national security interest in the middle east... Europe may, China may, but we certainly don't.
Our problem is we attempt to deal with a medieval value system from a 21st century western perspective. Doesn't work, never will. They don't respect us, they think us weak willed. Collateral damage? That's a western concept, not a middle eastern one, unless of course they can use it to their political advantage.
No aid, no trade, no diplomatic relations until you get your shit together. Attack us? There isn't a country in the middle east where we couldn't destroy all of their infrastructure in 3 days. With actions, government sanctioned or not, come consequences.
Problem is, after 9/11 we should have bombed the shit out of Riyadh. It was an attack orchestrated and for the most part executed by Saudis. Clear message: Control your people or suffer the consequences, we will not tolerate this.
Why did/do we deal with autocratic regimes in the middle east? Honestly, they're the only ones that qualified as nation states. Afghanistan isn't a nation-state, its a conglomeration of tribal interests. Who sits on the proverbial throne in Kabul is irrelevant.
If you want an honest opinion... a Caliphate is the best thing that could happen to us politically and diplomatically on the condition that it is actually in charge and capable of policing itself.
Cheers!
SF... I'm honestly beginning to believe that FT is the last surviving member of the Native American Party. I fear your words fall on deaf ears.
Cheers!
Finntann: "... a Caliphate is the best thing that could happen to us politically and diplomatically on the condition that it is actually in charge and capable of policing itself."
Hmmm.... Give them all back to the Turks?
Duck asked:
Any of your relatives Muslim
I have one cousin who converted to Islam while in the federal penitentiary. She got slammed into the pen for money laundering to support a terrorist organization. Something about New Jersey and supporting her heroin habit.
We -- the entire family except for her brother -- washed our hands of her when she got caught by the feds. Well, that's not exactly accurate. Actually, we washed our hands of her when nothing would tear her away from that needle in her arm. She robbed us blind during that time.
I've heard that she has left Islam, but who knows?
Finntann,
Thanks for those stats. I thought that our dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf was quite low. But I don't have a head for figures.
So, here we are, firing salvos over Ambassador Stevens. What an election season this is! What a CENTURY this is!
Let me ask this? Was Neville Chamberlain a good man with good intentions? Do we refrain from firing salvos at him as he has become the symbol of the terrible fruits of appeasement?
I believe that, one of these days, history will look back at the tragedy of Ambassador Stevens and find that he, too, is a symbol of failed diplomacy in the Middle East. I won't vilify him, neither will I canonize him.
The West's MEDDLING in the Middle East is, so far, pretty much a disaster for all concerned. Most recently, 11 long years in Afghanistan, and those Afghans that we're training are killing NATO people from within. I have to wonder how many of those young Afghans were gleefully accepting candies from NATO troops just a few years ago?
I guess that it might all come down to this -- on both a personal and international level: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." **sigh**
Apparently, our friend SilverFiddle is far more concerned about my breaking the traditional taboo against "speaking ill of the dead," than he is about the grim REALITIES of the situation in the Middle East and the utter foolishness of bringing Wishful Thinking based on the neo-orthodox tenets of Political Correctness, learned in our universities at the knees of Cultural Marxist professors, into the deadly serious, life and death arena of REALPOLITIK.
Very few bother to read the comments of others with any degree of thoroughness or comprehension.
So eager have we become to find some excuse -- any pretext at all -- to vent our spleen we have ceased to examine whatever we scan with full comprehension or even the pretense of genuine curiosity to learn what has ACTUALLY been said and WHY.
I've featured another article today at FreeThinke's Blog on the sorry subject of "Krees" Stevens' tragic, unnecessary death.
The man was undoubtedly a lovely person, but that was not enough to stop him from functioning as a USEFUL IDIOT -- an educated imbecile -- an "intellectual moron."
Berkeley? The Peace Corps? An "ARABIST?"
Yes, of course! JUST what we need in dealing with maniacal barbarians!
Poor Stevens was a DUPE. His self-deluded idea of "Araby" was the thing that got him killed.
If anyone had bothered to READ the article I reprinted (in truncated form with link to the original) from the New York Times at FreeThinke's blog), he would understand the context that stimulated my initial observation.
Mr. Stevens eschewed "security" -- didn't believe in it. Ergo, much as I detest Obama, it was not Obama's fault that Stevens was, apparently sodomized, tortured and then murdered by the very people he thought he knew, and professed to love so well.
Whenever the NYT fawns all over anyone, you KNOW the object of their shameless, slobbering, wet-nosed, drippy-assed veneration just HAS to be one of those doctrinaire liberal-progressive types we absolutely do NOT need in Public Service.
This does NOT mean I favor a more hostile, aggressive stance toward the Middle East. It means I think we ought to WITHDRAW from the region and TURN OUR BACK on it.
The commitment The United States has made, since the end of WWII, to pull everyone else's chestnuts out of the fire has been as asinine as it has been hubristic and ultimately self-defeating.
As we all should know by now, George Washington advised us from the beginning to "avoid foreign entanglements" and also to avoid the formation of political parties.
Too bad we didn't take his sage advice!
~ FreeThinke
FT, I for one understood completely your acute and correct, even if a bit abrasive observations and analysis. I am quite sure others did as well.
As you so pointedly illustrate the sage words of the wise are far to often forgotten or just ignored.
"As we all should know by now, George Washington advised us from the beginning to "avoid foreign entanglements" and also to avoid the formation of political parties."
What piffle, FT.
Washington said that as he staffed the State Department and dispatched ambassadors around the world, to include "The shores of Tripoli" where Jefferson used those diplomats to teach the Muslim pirates a lesson.
You speak to me of GRIM REALITIES, in ALL CAPS?
I've f'ing seen those grim realities, sir, so save your sanctimonious preachings for people naive and stupid enough to believe you know what the hell you're talking about on this issue, because you don't.
@RN to FT: As you so pointedly illustrate the sage words of the wise are far to often forgotten or just ignored.
I neither forgot nor ignored FT's dyspeptic trashing of a dead ambassador. I read them and addressed them head-on.
I fail to see what's so "sage" about them.
It's my words that some have stubbornly ignored: The government sets policy; diplomats and soldiers carry them out. You don't throw rocks at the people in the field for carrying out policy you disagree with; you criticize the government policymakers.
I'll make my other point again, since no one addressed that one either:
We need people willing to learn other languages and appreciate other cultures if we are to carry out effective diplomacy. Calling such people "stupid" and "naive" is not "sage," it is childish and ignorant.
AOW: "Do we refrain from firing salvos at him [Chamberlain] as he has become the symbol of the terrible fruits of appeasement?"
This is a pity, IMO there are a lot more interesting things to say about him.
Do enlighten us about the "real" Neville Chamberlain. Of course we know little or nothing about him other than than the established image given in the popular press of his role as either an out-and-out fool or a pusillanimous appeaser -- possibly both.
I'm sure there was a great deal more to the man than that.
How I wish you had a blog, so you could write an article about the "more interesting" aspects of his life and work!
Do you buy the theory that Chamberlain's apparent cowardice or lack of perspicacity was in truth a ploy he used to "buy time" so Britain could better prepare herself for the conflict sure to arise?
I have a natural inclination towards charitable interpretations of that sort, and always hope to see them supported by direct evidence, which Alas! seems always in short supply.
~ FreeThinke
There are interesting things to say about Chamberlain which are quite unconnected with his late 30s foreign policy. He had a career which conclusively demonstrates that he was neither pusillanimous nor a fool -- I can tell this despite my resistance to much of his Conservative ideology. With regard to the late 30s, I am keen to remember that hindsight was unavailable. What was available were the unbearably harsh lessons of WWI, which made any right-minded person supremely reluctant to engage in another war. That same right-minded person might furthermore have had some sympathy with the downtrodden Germany who was, most agree, unreasonably punished by Versailles. Hitler was already mad, but we didn't know that yet and in the beginning it must seemed like he had a point.
History as a discipline is unfortunately sensitive to fashion, and revisions occur often for little reason other than the pleasure of a fresh argument. To say the same thing in a kinder voice: History should never be considered settled, but should be understood as tentative inferences from incomplete and imperfect sources. There are occasions, eg. when fresh sources become available, where revision is really demanded. This happened in the early 70s when government papers released under the 30 years rule helped to explain some of Chamberlain's decisions in terms which didn't rely on his being a dork, which was Churchill's preferred version.
Despite the revisions, Chamberlain is still popularly known pretty much as described by Churchill. Churchill is a distinguished war hero, but don't confuse him with a disinterested commentator. "History will be kind for me for I intend to write it."
Jez,
There are interesting things to say about Chamberlain which are quite unconnected with his late 30s foreign policy. He had a career which conclusively demonstrates that he was neither pusillanimous nor a fool...
That could be.
However, his terrible record of appeasement and, more importantly, the legacy of that appeasement for thousands of innocent people have trumped any good that Chamberlain did or any wisdom that he may have had.
That's the way the world works -- and has worked for millennia.
Another way to look at it: "To the victor go the spoils." Thus, Churchill's place is history is secured.
AOW: I agree, I only remarked that it is a pity.
I read an excellent defense of Chamberlain's actions awhile back. I wish the hell I could find it.
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