Comments Posted By Hankmeister
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BUSH VETOES CONGRESSIONAL INVITATION TO AL QAEDA TO SLAUGHTER IRAQIS
Say, Richard Bottoms, maybe you can answer this question. Why haven't terrorists engaged in more atrocities here in America? I'm curious why they haven't exploded fuel trucks and such. It's certainly within their capabilities Allah knows that we infidels deserve it, right? Even George Tenet recently and publicly mused why it was America hasn't turned into another Israel. I mean has al Qaeda gone soft? Maybe its the Islamofascists' great love for the anti-war progressives in this country, eh?
I have to admit, I don't have a good answer either - why in the last five and half years we haven't had another 9/11 - though there have certainly been individual cases of jihadism committed explicitly in the name of Islam and local law enforcement and the FBI have refused to label them as such. I guess the SOP is unless a budding jihadist is a card carry member of al Qaeda, law enforcement doesn't consider them terrorists. But since you seem to know everything, maybe you can enlighten the rest of us as to why our avowed enemy hasn't struck our homeland again in any meaningful way. Certainly you can't think they mean us no harm except for the fact our infidel armies are soiling their holy lands.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 2.05.2007 @ 17:40
Rick, what "the reality is" is Democrats like Pelosi and Reid will blow a lot of smoke about their "commitment to troop withdrawals" but they really don't want to do that given the political realities that any withdrawal accompanied by any increase in violence will ultimately be laid at their feet. Despite all their rhetorical assurances to their left-wing base, the Democrats will not withhold funding because they know have craven and partisan that would make them look.
Despite all the Dems blather about the-American-people-want-this or the American-people-want-that, what the American people don't want is for us to precipitously withdraw from Iraq on some broadcast timetable and possibly plunge the region into further chaos and render completely meaningless those 3300 American soldiers who gave their all in this noble and necessary fight. And if possible, the majority of American people still want to take some kind of victory from this which may simply be leaving a viable government in place that can keep some measure of peace between warring Islamic factions. But keep this in mind, just as there was friction and violence between the IRA and the English throughout the 20th Century and the Basque separatists continue giving the Spanish government periodic trouble, it would be dishonest for anyone to expect for their to be zero violence in Iraq. Goodness, we can't even control gang violence in our own country yet we consider ourselves at peace and civilized. So we have to have reasonable expectations of what "peace" might look like in something approximating a Muslim democracy - which when you think about it is an indictment of Muslim people is it not?
Which brings me to the elephant in the room. The forces of Islamofascism have concentrated their resources and their manpower in Iraq hoping to turn it into another thugocracy or stateless briarpatch that would serve as a future safe haven for jihadists. Whether we like it or not, we our fighting the war on terror/jihadism in Iraq. Whether one believes al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war or not (and it was) is irrelevant because it is in Iraq now. And we must fight it there just like we fight it in Afghanistan and just like any number of nations have been rounding up al Qaeda elements around the globe.
Now there have already been any number of people on this thread who have pointed out the tribalism of Arabs like the Iraqis as well as the sectarian hatreds of the Shia for the Sunni cannot be quelled and is in effect uncontrollable, all-is-lost! Now reasonable people shouldn't have any trouble condemning ideologies which subvert the natural rights of man - ideologies like Nazism and Communism - so reasonable people shouldn't have any trouble condemning radical Islamism which has been busy brainwashing generations of Arabs, Persians and Indonesians with a palpable hatred not only for infidels but now it appears to extend to "moderate Muslims" and kafirs within their own ranks. This is not a failure of Bush policy or Western Civilization - such self-flagellation is not only unfair but also counter-productive.
The left can go on hating Bush or blaming America, but the unvarnished truth is what we are actually seeing with Sunni vs Shia and Hamas vs Hezbollah IS A FAILURE OF ISLAM to keep the peace among people who embrace some very fundamental tenets that were shaped by the warrior Mohammed fourteen hundred years ago. And remember - these killing aren't happening for national reasons, like an American Christian soldier killing to defend America or an Indian Hindu soldier killing to defend India - rather these murders and atrocities are being committed explicitly in the name of the Allah, the Koran, Islam, and the prophet Mohammed. There is a large difference which our friends on the other side of the aisle, who inexplicably lose all nuance when dealing with this issue, refuse to recognize.
Now my critics can spare me the tired cliches about Islam being a "religion of peace" because the violence that Muslims are committing upon Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, pagans, atheists and kafirs (so-called apostate Muslims) demonstrates quite the opposite. Where in the modern world are Hindus committing atrocities on Christians or vice versa? Where are Jews murdering Buddhists? Buddhists murdering Atheists? You don't see it. Here's a recent listing of acts of Muslim terrorism. No other religion, no other ideology in the 21st Century has that kind of track record. That has to tell a person something.
If nothing else, what Iraq has demonstrated is the willingness of not only global terrorist organizations like al Qaeda to engage in mind-numbing murder and mayhem but also individual Muslim sects seem more than willing to murder one another or any "infidel army" that dares try to change the dynamic of violence that Israel suffers through every day at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Those who lament how all is lost in Iraq because of the cycle of violence are unwittingly providing further proof that you are completely aware of this violence and yet are unwilling to assign complete blame on the perps who are actually committing 98% of the violence against innocent civilians. The left has lost the ability to be able to distinguish between conquerors and liberators and that's what makes them so dangerous, not willing to recognize that there is a difference between killing criminals and terrorists and murdering innocent civilians because, after all, in their world it's ALL BUSH'S FAULT or AMERICA'S FAULT! You rarely see the radical anti-war left spewing their bile and venom about the daily atrocities committed by Muslim fundamentalists around the world and particularly in Iraq except for some obligatory condemnation of a particularly heinous beheading like what happened to Danny Pearl or David Berg.
And this is what troubles me greatly in trying to "compromise" with the anti-war crowd. I believe at some point there has to be CONSENSUS, not compromise, but I really don't see how those of us who see the wolf at the door and have supported the War on Terror can "compromise" with a people who steadfastly refuse to see the difference between murdering innocent people and killing evildoers ... or the killing committed by conquerors and the killing engaged in by liberators trying to protect the innocent who are often used as human shields by terrorists. C'mon, Bush equals Hitler? 9/11 was an inside job? No War For Oil? All killing is the same? How do you "compromise" with people like that?
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 2.05.2007 @ 17:19
Ooops. That's 10 to 20 THOUSAND dead American soldiers. My bad.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 2.05.2007 @ 12:55
Given the ten thousand scenarios posited by the blame-America/hate-Bush crowd, somebody will be right and all we'll hear is "I told you so" from the left. It's like a bunch of psychics getting together and making up enough predictions that a least a couple will come true and all you'll hear is "how right psychics are."
Let's not forget, other than some vague predictions about the war in Iraq being a harder plow to pull than American might think, the anti-war crowd had originally predicted that in the major combat attempt to depose Saddam's regime would result in 10 to 20 DEAD American soldiers. All we heard for weeks leading up to the Iraq War was the tens of thousands of body bags coming back to America. It didn't happen. We were also told all the Iraqi oilwell fires would create an environmental disaster for decades to come. It didn't happen. Also we were told the Coalition's attack on Saddam's regime would ignite World War III (or IV depending on if the Cold War was WWIII) vis a vis an increasingly angered Arab street. It didn't happen. We were also warned that destroying Saddam's regime could take at least six months (it took only 21 days) and in the meantime this could result in several million Iraq refugees on the Syrian, Kuwaiti, and Iranian borders. It didn't happen. And we were also told hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could die from starvation or dehydration, it didn't happen.
I guess it's fun to guess, I do it too, but I never take myself seriously like those on the other side of the aisle.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 2.05.2007 @ 12:54
Here's the political reality. The Democrats are trying everything they can to wash their hands of their support for the October 2002 Joint Congressional Resolution for the Use of American Force in Iraq which cited no less than four other major reasons for going into Iraq other than WMD. That's why the war in March 2003 was called Operation Iraqi Freedom and not Operation WMD.
First, it's a total misrepresentation of the November 2006 Election to say it represented the American people's will to cut-and-run/redeploy/surrender in Iraq. The Democrats did win some razor-thin elections for both the House and the Senate which ultimately came down to the local constituents desiring a CONSERVATIVE Democrat over a Republican. It was local politics being expressed, not some national will. In fact the election race where the Iraq War was the central issue was the Lieberman/Lamont race and we know the outcome of that race - pro-war Lieberman beat radical left cut-and-run Lamont.
Polls are generally worthless because the questions are often ambiguous or misleading and the internals show that far more Democrats than Independents and Republicans are represented how well often misinformed Americans are reflective of the media narrative of the day. So I don't listen to polls, they rarely translate to lasting political policy on either the left or right.
So here's my two cents. There is no way President Bush is going to prematurely withdraw American troops from Iraq, so they will still be there come 2008. The Bush-haters are in for at least another two years of wailing and gnashing their teeth. Under the U.S. Constitution, he is the only Commander in Chief, not Congress and not media polls. Troops still in Iraq by 2009 will be a wash, despite some Democrats licking their chops, and here's why. Senators John Kerry and Carl Levin are already on record as saying some kind of American military presence (10K, 20K, 50K?) will be needed in and around Iraq to "continue fighting an al Qaeda presence" and to quell any flare up in sectarian violence. Well, in that case Senators, we may as well leave the troops in place BECAUSE THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOW! Duh! Despite some shameless panderers like Kookcinich and other hard-left Democrats, there is no political will in Congress to cut funding to the troops. Witness the Democrats jumping through hoops to prove their "I support the troop" statements and their willingness to approve short-term funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, there won't be any real funding cuts to stop the war, despite the Democrats and RINO Hagel talking out both sides of their mouths.
It may entirely be possible that a Democrat might become President in 2008 though I think it not very likely if a conservative Republican like Fred Thompson wins the nomination. As an independent voter myself (and I'll put my voting record up against anyone's here) Thompson or even Romney is far more preferable to me than the inexperienced empty suit like Barack Obama or the political opportunist Hillary Clinton and the baggage she carries. Right now these four seem to have the inside track on their respective party's nomination. Forget the Green Party candidate, Reform Party, Socialist Party, Communist Party, Constitution Party - they haven't even a snowball's chance.
Unless there is a spectacular threshold which is reached in Iraq whereby both the Sunni and Shia factions sue for peace and then assist the new Iraqi government and American troops in eliminating the rest of al Qaeda in Iraq and a relative peace settles over the region, we will continue having the present levels of troops in Iraq (or possibly more) when the new POTUS is sworn in on January of 2009. If it's a Republican president, he will not pull another Nixon and sell the lie that there can be "peace with honor" and then betray the Iraqi people. But here's the nutcracker. I predict, especially if Hillary wins, that there is no way she will substantially draw down American troops in Iraq because if all hell breaks loose and a real civil war breaks out throughout Iraq which also embroils the Kurds and further emboldens the al Qaeda network who smell a we-quit-defeatism, this will indeed be hung around the neck of a Democratic Presidency and the Democrats in Congress (whether they control Congress or not) and then we will see Vietnam unfolding before our very eyes again. And don't think for a minute Republicans and conservatives won't be reminding the American people what happened after a Democratically-controlled Congress betrayed the South Vietnamese and the subsequent bloodshed and flight which occurred shortly after the Communist North Vietnamese rolled into Saigon.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 2.05.2007 @ 12:40
It's no Glock, that's fer sure. Of course with all the low-maintenance, low-reflective, squared off slides on most of the hi-cap pistols today, they start looking pretty similar. Form follows function, I guess.
I still have an Astraâ„¢ Ultra-Star 9mm in the PC 9+1 magazine configuration. Polymer frame with steel slide, very futuristically styled. Very, very nice and compact and was originally intended to be a 12-shot pistol until the ridiculous mid-90s hi-cap pistol/"assault rifle" ban went into effect. It would make a nice back-up. However, it appears there is a trend even within the military establishment to go back to the venerable .45 Auto round which the SpecsOp community has already embraced. There was a reason for the U.S. Army to adopt the .45 Auto after the failure of .38/9mm to effectively incapacitate the bad guys with the first shot. I'm sure there are a lot of male agents who would prefer the .45 to even the .40 S&W which is really only a short version of the original full-bore 10mm round.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 1.05.2007 @ 13:04
How do you keep all that stuff straight? You nailed it, though, good show despite lack of carnage. BTW, what are American agents packing now, is it the .40 cal? I wonder if you can opt for the .45? I have the Springfield Armory XD .45 and having owned a Glock 21, Ruger P-90, Colt 1911A1, and shot a friend's H&K USP, the SA is tops for ergonomics, reliability and accuracy ... but I doubt its been around long enough to get a government contract.
I can't get a good enough look to figure out what Jack's carrying. I suppose I could freeze-frame my DVR but I'm too lazy. It looked like Jack was using a Sig Sauer P226 the first couple of seasons and is now packing an H&K USP the last few seasons. Just a guess. I really enjoy the shooting sports so I can appreciate the hardware these guys pack.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 1.05.2007 @ 11:57
You know Richard, at the risk of repeating myself, your canard is rather self-serving in that YOU HAVE NO INTENTION OF VOLUNTEERING FOR ANYTHING since you're probably too busy availing yourself of every right and opportunity that this "evil military industrial complex" affords people like you.
Now at the risk of me calling people like you do-nothing-but-complain peaceniks again, I do seem to remember your side of the aisle long regaling the rest of us about your undenying love and "concern" for the global citizens around the world and how your version of democracy (liberal socialism?) should be spread among the masses. When I hear things like that I assume the Bush-haters have more than just some pie-in-the-sky political process to achieve that aim ... or maybe you're waiting for the oppressed masses to be enlightened by some heretofore unknown impersonal cosmic force. Absent that I have to assume that at some point people on your side of the aisle will have to make good on your endless blather about "human shields."
Now I'm not asking you to throw yourself under evil ammunition trains that are supplying the pawn armies of that great dictator Bu$Hitler, but given the past rhetoric of those on your side of the aisle about the wonders of democratic liberty that you enjoy, your aversion to military force to achieve that end against tyrants and now terrorists when necessary, and the brotherhood of all mankind, when will you volunteer to be a human shield and interpose yourself between those who wish to destroy our American way of life? (crickets chirping)
After all, unlike military service, there is no age limit or physical to pass to transition from sidewalk commandos railing against an American evil or impotence you claim to see to an actual organized force of human beings willing to put to test your rhetoric about "defending to death other people's right to speak their mind." Or was that merely rhetorical flourish for show, too? In view of the absence of that army of human shields, I for one will place my trust in the military option in keeping the enemy on foreign battlefields. But a day may come when even that is no longer possible given an ever emboldened enemy.
You have no idea the true nature of the Islamist wolf which crouches at the door, do you? Oh, that's right, we call that kind of analysis "Islamophobia" now. Kind of like Naziphobia, right?
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 1.05.2007 @ 11:14
The baseball analogy is flawed. As someone who spent nearly fourteen years in the game since Little League, what if the score was really five to five going into the ninth inning? Wouldn't the pitcher who comes into the ninth and then gives up the solitary run be responsible for the defeat? It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest the score is 9 to 0 in favor of Muslim radicals.
Despite the violence which is happening in Iraq there is no way anyone can say we're winning or we're losing. Wars like this always hang in the balance until one side quits the battlefield ... like we did in Vietnam. Here are the facts: Operation Iraqi Freedom was an inarguable success. It did exactly what it was intended to do, depose Saddam's regime and it did it in only 21 days. But what has been a failure was the Administration's failure and the Pentagon's to anticipate global jihadists would begin filtering into the country to destabilize it because they saw how devastating this would be to their desire for an Islamic caliphate if the Iraqi people were able to settle on some peaceful version of Arabic democracy, a fact anti-war liberals still refuse to see for themselves to this day. Clearly the "small footprint" approach by Generals Casey and Abizaid (with Bush deferring to Rumsfeld and the generals in the field as he is on record doing) didn't work and conservatives had become increasinly angry about this minimalist approach since June 2003. And like President Lincoln - though taking considerably longer than Lincoln did - President Bush changed his commanding General and is looking for a more pro-active way in quelling the sectarian violence in Iraq resulting from al Qaeda blowing up the Shia mosque in 2005.
Other than the public perception, al Qaeda in Iraq (yes, they were in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion and in increasing numbers afterward as events have played out the last four years) and the homegrown jihadists/insurgents have suffered one defeat after another in military terms. If all the jihadists/insurgent have to do is blow up innocent civilians even just once a month for benefit of anti-war handwringers, then yes, I would say the score is nine to nothing because there is no amount of grandslams that American forces can hit in the ninth inning to make the most jaded spectator believe their team has any possibility of winning. And anyone who doesn't think that the precise reason innocent civilians are being targetted by Muslim jihadist/insurgents is for the benefit of giving the anti-war crowd here in the West its reasons to oppose this war is smoking something. That is precisely the Koranic tenet that is being followed, blowing up ones brother and sister for a greater cause since they believe those they murder are martyrs in THE CAUSE. Now how twisted is that?
The Muslim jihadists have learned very well the lessons of Vietnam as expressed by North Vietnamese General Giapp when he referred to the 1960s anti-war movement as "his friends". Victor Davis Hanson documented in 2003: Gen. Giap, in a series of postbellum interviews, confessed that the North Vietnamese were ready to cease aggression under the weight of the 1972 and 1973 bombing campaigns. He then directly associated the reprieve with the welcome efforts of the radical antiwar movement. Indeed he told French television that his most important guerrilla ally during the war was the American press. The Vietnam News Agency as early as 1966 wrote "We praise the American peace champions. The movement of the American people to protest the war of aggression has really become the second front against the U.S. imperialists." Another communist official, Bui Tinh, claimed that Fonda's Hanoi visits, press releases and much publicized photo-ops in enemy batteries had helped the communists "to hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
We're seeing the same pattern repeat itself where pacifist appeasement and divisiveness is a source of moral strength for our enemies. In their eyes America really is a "paper tiger". This dynamic cannot be denied because that was exactly the conclusion of Usama bin Laden when he saw President Clinton withdraw American troops from Somalia after the BlackHawk Down incident.
Doubt me? Here's the bin Laden interview. Excerpt: After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. ... As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger.
What the anti-war movement and waffling Democratic leadership prove to our enemies with each passing day is America doesn't have the staying power and our friends like the former South Vietnamese and now the civilian Iraqi population cannot depend on us to stay and fight the good fight against communist or jihadist murderers. Might makes right is wrong-headed, you'll get no argument from me on that. But just is wrong is might is never right. Call me old-fashioned in the Arthurian sense of the term, but at some point there must be Might for Right. And despite all the media negativism and the self-righteous rancor of those do-nothing-but-complain pacifists and Bush-haters, I still believe this was a necessary and noble cause in the general War on Muslim Jihadism despite how its being spun by those who live to blame America.
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 1.05.2007 @ 09:19
Rick, I recognize what you're saying about political infighting and recriminations creating an environment whereby terrorists will be embolden and we run the risk of losing that which had been won in June 2003, but I have this observation to make about all the handwringing over American and Iraqi casualities.
Given how the anti-war crowd has essentially determined the war in Iraq is lost on the basis of the deaths of 3300 American soldiers and the 60,000 Iraqi civilians who have subsequently died (95% having been murdered by their own Muslim brethren in acts of terrorism), then by that standard we lost World War II though we've deluded ourselves that last 63 years. What with over 292,000 dead American soldiers and civilian casualties in both the Pacific and European theater of operations pegged at around 35 - 40 MILLION, that too must be a disasterous defeat for America ... or maybe the Greatest Generation was made of more sterner stuff than us. If perception is reality, then those controlling the perception can determine the reality. That's why I'm convinced if the American left and the liberal media had been around in World War II, the world would be a far bigger nightmare than it is today with the Third Reich entering its seventh decade and Tojo's Japan locking us out of any trading relations and the natural resources of the Pacific Rim. Well, at least Vietnam would have never happened, right?
Comment Posted By Hankmeister On 30.04.2007 @ 10:51
