Another failure: They hate us in the middle east

[Triton]

Yes. Given the release of the video alleged to have inflamed the Muslims. Absolutely yes......

About that...

The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was in fact "a terrorist attack" and the U.S. government has indications that members of al Qaeda were directly involved, a top Obama administration official said Wednesday morning.

"I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in response to questioning from Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) about the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/po...rrorist_attack

As it turns out the regime is finally admitting what the rest of us already knew, namely that this was a terrorist attack that would have been carried out if some silly video had never existed.

[annr]

Not necessarily. And knowing what I know now, I would say not.

If you could please elaborate, I'm not sure what you mean.

I know that after 9/11/2001, Bush devoted the remainder of his time in office to tracking and killing terrorists and keeping Americans safe here and abroad. In fact, he dropped his domestic agenda that formed the basis of his campaign to focus on the problem of terrorism and terrorists.

"You can run, but you can't hide."

[ttoney83]

How so? Who was controlling Bush? He stated quite unequivocally that after Putin lied to him once, he never trusted the man again. After Arafat lied to him once, he never spoke to him again, etc. So who are the "Factions" that controlled/control both Bush and Obama?

Same as they've always been annr. Financial powers. Only now, there is a definite split.

On the one hand you have Financiers like Peter Hambro (Head of the Hambro Banking family), a number of persons associated with Rothschild banking concerns (No Rothschild I know has spoken out against what is going on now), Andrew Haldane, Executive director of Financial stability for the Bank of England et. al.
These represent an "Anti War faction" in the Finance world.

On the other hand, you have a "War faction" and this faction is represented by "Old" money, older than that of the Rothchilds and the Hambros, and this would be mostly Royal families like the Windsors, Hapsburgs et. al.

Money rules the world annr. Of that you can be certain. Money also controls our presidents. And whoever controls the money, controls things. More or less. Nothing is ever 100% controllable, as I am seeing now with this split amongst the financier ruling elites.

[ttoney83]

If you could please elaborate, I'm not sure what you mean.

I know that after 9/11/2001, Bush devoted the remainder of his time in office to tracking and killing terrorists and keeping Americans safe here and abroad. In fact, he dropped his domestic agenda that formed the basis of his campaign to focus on the problem of terrorism and terrorists.

"You can run, but you can't hide."

And the current president has expanded the drone program by at least an order of magnitude over Bush. So what?? What do these efforts REALLY mean? What do they REALLY amount to?

[annr]

Same as they've always been annr. Financial powers. Only now, there is a definite split.

On the one hand you have Financiers like Peter Hambro (Head of the Hambro Banking family), a number of persons associated with Rothschild banking concerns (No Rothschild I know has spoken out against what is going on now), Andrew Haldane, Executive director of Financial stability for the Bank of England et. al.
These represent an "Anti War faction" in the Finance world.

On the other hand, you have a "War faction" and this faction is represented by "Old" money, older than that of the Rothchilds and the Hambros, and this would be mostly Royal families like the Windsors, Hapsburgs et. al.

Money rules the world annr. Of that you can be certain. Money also controls our presidents. And whoever controls the money, controls things. More or less. Nothing is ever 100% controllable, as I am seeing now with this split amongst the financier ruling elites.

Under this view, would it be fair to say that Obama is part of the former and Bush part of the latter group? In your opinion, what are the reasons the sides favor war or not?

[annr]

And the current president has expanded the drone program by at least an order of magnitude over Bush. So what?? What do these efforts REALLY mean? What do they REALLY amount to?

I don't agree that the posture of the 2 men is fungible, that being said, what do you think should be done about the problem of Islamic-based terrorism?

[bulgron]

I don't agree that the posture of the 2 men is fungible, that being said, what do you think should be done about the problem of Islamic-based terrorism?

There's a couple of things we can do. Personally, I think we should arm all the Islamic states over there as heavily as possible, then do whatever we can to get them shooting at each other. I mean, seriously engage in massive subversive activities that causes the whole region to start shooting at each other. What with the way the various Islamic sects dislike each other, and their tribal point of view, and their generally unbalanced emotional state, I'll bet this is easier to do than most people think.

Once they've bled enough, we can go in later and pick up the pieces.

Alternatively (and I'm probably dreaming here):

Step 1: America becomes energy independent (we now have enough natural gas to do that, although it means doing something about our existing fleet of gasoline-based automobiles).
Step 2: "Someone" sets off EMPs over Iran, Eqypt, Iraq, Syria, Saudia Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey, knocking them back to the stone age.
Step 3: Rebuild Israel (since they'd be affected by an EMP that would screw up all those other countries too), making sure they're the biggest dog on the block.
Step 4: Let the Russians and Chinese fight over the middle east oil. Even better if we can get them lobbing artillery barrages into major middle eastern cities, thereby destroying even more infrastructure.

The last scenario is a lot harder to accomplish than the former. Even if EMPs can work as well as some suggest, the problem of millions of gasoline engines in our nation is pretty insurmountable in a short-timeframe scenario. I think we can wean the nation off of gasoline (to be replaced with natural gas engines, or light (bio)diesel) in a timeframe measured in decades, but that's probably too long to avoid a whole bunch of bloodshed.

The nice thing about scenario #2 is that it knocks the middle east back to a civilization level that can't threaten us for at least a generation or two.

The bad thing about all these scenarios is that they involved death & destruction on a massive scale not seen since WWII. But I believe this is where militant Islam is taking us, so better to fight that fight over there than to fight it over here.

[Maprik]

Actually you are quite wrong. Despite some anti-American factions largely being supported by terrorist groups like Al-Qaida and radical fundamentalists the attitude towards America in the Middle East has hugely improved. The Arab spring is being heavily attributed to American support and the decay of the dictatorial governments has accelerated greatly under Obama compared to any time in History. I don't think O should get all the credit, it's just timing. Like Reagan didn't cause the fall of the Soviet Union. But the OP is totally wrong about the Middle East hating us and it being an Obama fail. Terrorists will always hate us and they will whip up anti-American sentiment wherever they can. But they are not tolerated by many middle easterners themselves. As evidenced by the outpouring of apologies by the people after the recent attacks. The O admin is wrong to pretend that they were spontaneous protests that got out of control. Most believe that these were carefully planned terrorist attacks and the controversial
Video was just a tool.

[Triton]

Actually you are quite wrong. Despite some anti-American factions largely being supported by terrorist groups like Al-Qaida and radical fundamentalists the attitude towards America in the Middle East has hugely improved. The Arab spring is being heavily attributed to American support and the decay of the dictatorial governments has accelerated greatly under Obama compared to any time in History. I don't think O should get all the credit, it's just timing. Like Reagan didn't cause the fall of the Soviet Union. But the OP is totally wrong about the Middle East hating us and it being an Obama fail. Terrorists will always hate us and they will whip up anti-American sentiment wherever they can. But they are not tolerated by many middle easterners themselves. As evidenced by the outpouring of apologies by the people after the recent attacks. The O admin is wrong to pretend that they were spontaneous protests that got out of control. Most believe that these were carefully planned terrorist attacks and the controversial
Video was just a tool.

So your evidence of this is "the outpouring of apologies after the recent attacks?" My evidence is the attacks all over the benighted region, not just in Egypt and Libya:

Protests, mostly aimed at US embassies and galvanised by the emergence of a crude anti-Islam video made in California, were reported in Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Jerusalem and the West Bank, Kashmir, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Nigerian city of Jos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...embassies-burn

In Cairo, where the current wave of unrest began on Tuesday, clashes between demonstrators and police erupted in the city for a fourth straight day, with one person left dead.

Defying an appeal from president Mohamed Morsi to protect embassies, the crowds had gathered in Tahrir Square after Friday prayers where they tore up a US flag. When they tried to move towards the embassy, they were blocked by police, who fired tear gas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...embassies-burn

So, it would appear that what started as cover for a planned terrorist assault has indeed become an excuse for all the folks that apparently hate the U.S. in that part of the world to show up. In short it would appear that they do indeed hate us. In the meantime, it's my understanding that the government of Egypt has issued arrest warrants not for those that attacked the embassy... but for pastor terry jones and whoever the other idiots are that made the film.

I wish you were right, but the evidence doesn't really seem to support you.

[annr]

get them shooting at each other.

Yes, I've often thought about letting them fight it out in peace...

so better to fight that fight over there than to fight it over here.

Bush predicated his approach on this same principle, which seems the preferred way to prosecute a war.

[timcsaw]

So your evidence of this is "the outpouring of apologies after the recent attacks?" My evidence is the attacks all over the benighted region, not just in Egypt and Libya:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...embassies-burn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...embassies-burn

So, it would appear that what started as cover for a planned terrorist assault has indeed become an excuse for all the folks that apparently hate the U.S. in that part of the world to show up. In short it would appear that they do indeed hate us. In the meantime, it's my understanding that the government of Egypt has issued arrest warrants not for those that attacked the embassy... but for pastor terry jones and whoever the other idiots are that made the film.

I wish you were right, but the evidence doesn't really seem to support you.

Yea, but it's just a very, very few who are turning to violence... well, just a few anyway... But it's not like there are hundreds... um... it's not like there are thousands... err... not like there are ten's of thousands of... um... err.... WELL it's NOT like ALL of them are turning to violence!!!!

[bulgron]

Yea, but it's just a very, very few who are turning to violence... well, just a few anyway... But it's not like there are hundreds... um... it's not like there are thousands... err... not like there are ten's of thousands of... um... err.... WELL it's NOT like ALL of them are turning to violence!!!!

Wrong tense on the "turning". A casual perusal of the actions of the Religion of Peace (RoP) shows that they've been engaged in a violent, bloody campaign of conquest against the west for 1400 years now. Yes, their efforts have waxed and waned over time, but in general they've been all about killing or enslaving anyone who doesn't agree with them. One estimate I've seen says that the RoP has killed around 250 million people over the last 1400 years in the name of Allah.

It appears that in times when the west is strong and self-assured, then the RoP restricts itself to killing people that the west doesn't care very much about. That means they go after Christians, Hindus and other religions within their own nations, or within north Africa when the west is likely to react strongly to their violence.

But when the west is weak, or full of self doubt, or otherwise distracted (as we are now), then the RoP aggressively attacks the west in a series of efforts meant to disrupt our economy and thereby allow the RoP to expand its borders.

The answer for all of this is for the west to grow a backbone, and then give the RoP the smack-down that they need in order to learn (however temporarily) to leave us alone. Unfortunately, I think Europe might be a lost cause. But certainly the United States still has a chance. First step is to get the current idiot out of the White House, because his ideas on appeasement are exactly the kind of thing that encourages the RoP.

[jdm61]

Eradicate all "evil doers?"

That worked pretty well for Gaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, didn't it?

[jdm61]

I just thought of something. Apparently all Americans and particularly all white Americans bear some degree of collective guilt/responsibility for chattel slavery even though most of our ancestors had nothing to do with the slave trade and many of them weren't even in the US until after the Civil War. So why aren't ALL Muslims responsible to some degree for the actions of those who engage in the kind of behavior that we are seeing now? I mean, the duly elected governments of some of these countries want to execute people for insulting Islam, so you can't tell me that it is just some tiny group of radicals who do not represent the views of their fellow Muslims.

[bulgron]

I just thought of something. Apparently all Americans and particularly all white Americans bear some degree of collective guilt/responsibility for chattel slavery even though most of our ancestors had nothing to do with the slave trade and many of them weren't even in the US until after the Civil War. So why aren't ALL Muslims responsible to some degree for the actions of those who engage in the kind of behavior that we are seeing now? I mean, the duly elected governments of some of these countries want to execute people for insulting Islam, so you can't tell me that it is just some tiny group of radicals who do not represent the views of their fellow Muslims.

It isn't some tiny group of radicals. The violent actions, rhetoric, and views of what we call 'the extremists' are actually mainstream for their societies. It's the people that we call 'moderates' who are actually the radicals, when viewed through the lens of these societies.

What I can't figure out is why western civilization isn't willing to face up to that. We used to understand, at least as late as WWII, that Islam was no one's friend in the west. Is it because they have oil, and so we feel the need to kiss up to them? Or have we become so corrupted by liberal ideology that we are simply no longer capable of recognizing an enemy civilization, even when it flies jumbo jets into our skyscrapers, threatens violence against our own citizens for merely exercising their right to self-expression, and then rapes and murders one of our ambassadors?

There is only one solution to Islam: darken their skies with cruise missiles until they beg for mercy. Don't even put boots on the ground. The game isn't to hold territory, or to build their nations into a friendly society. That isn't possible, not after 1400 years of 'Death to the Infidel.' No, the game is to beat them into submission so that they fear us so much that they stop screwing with us.

It's the only way.

Anyone who thinks that we can make friends with Islam in any way, shape or form, but especially by just talking to them, really isn't paying attention to what they want and how they've historically advanced their goals.

[Codger_64]

Actually, there... is... another way.

Protester dies after inhaling fumes from burning American flag

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09...#ixzz26yYYBgvD

Do Muslims believe in karma?

[Triton]

It isn't some tiny group of radicals. The violent actions, rhetoric, and views of what we call 'the extremists' are actually mainstream for their societies. It's the people that we call 'moderates' who are actually the radicals, when viewed through the lens of these societies.

Agreed. I heard Andy Mccarthy on a show the other night making a lot of sense. He noted that islam in the middle east IS a radical supremecist movement. It is implacably hostile to the West because Western civilization by its very existence and non-subscription to the one way is an affront to islam.The reason that it is not elsewhere is because the muslims that go elsewhere typically aren't in love with the radical supremecist movement in their homeland. In short the muslims elsewhere other than in the middle east represent the minority, not the majority.

What I can't figure out is why western civilization isn't willing to face up to that. We used to understand, at least as late as WWII, that Islam was no one's friend in the west.

Or have we become so corrupted by liberal ideology that we are simply no longer capable of recognizing an enemy civilization, even when it flies jumbo jets into our skyscrapers, threatens violence against our own citizens for merely exercising their right to self-expression, and then rapes and murders one of our ambassadors?

It's this. This is the logical result of an ideology that is unwilling to recognize that there is anything but moral relatavism. Liberalism is incapable of accepting that there are world views that are implacably hostile to our own or alternately that our world view may be superior to someone elses.

There is only one solution to Islam: darken their skies with cruise missiles until they beg for mercy. Don't even put boots on the ground. The game isn't to hold territory, or to build their nations into a friendly society. That isn't possible, not after 1400 years of 'Death to the Infidel.' No, the game is to beat them into submission so that they fear us so much that they stop screwing with us.

Historically this is the ONLY thing that has ever worked with islam. Tours and Lepanto worked, nothing else has.

Anyone who thinks that we can make friends with Islam in any way, shape or form, but especially by just talking to them, really isn't paying attention to what they want and how they've historically advanced their goals.

Again this is exactly right. The koran exhorts muslims to negotiate only when they cannot force their own will, otherwise they have a religious duty to force their will. Negotiation is pointless.

Sadly I do not believe that Western civilization has enough strength in its own cultural beliefs to any longer counteract the threat of islam. Will we be galvanized when Iran detonates its first nuclear device in Israel? Maybe, but I wonder.

[timcsaw]

Actually, there... is... another way.

Protester dies after inhaling fumes from burning American flag

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09...#ixzz26yYYBgvD

Do Muslims believe in karma?

Send them MORE flags NOW!!!!

[timcsaw]

Agreed. I heard Andy Mccarthy on a show the other night making a lot of sense. He noted that islam in the middle east IS a radical supremecist movement. It is implacably hostile to the West because Western civilization by its very existence and non-subscription to the one way is an affront to islam.The reason that it is not elsewhere is because the muslims that go elsewhere typically aren't in love with the radical supremecist movement in their homeland. In short the muslims elsewhere in the middle east represent the minority, not the majority.

And that minority of "moderates" wouldn't DARE let the radical majority know that they are truly "moderate"... it would be a death sentence so they just go along to stay alive.

[jdm61]

No, Triton. Western civilization is nor merely an affront to Islam, but the most serious threat that Islam has EVER seen. That is why they call us the Great Satan, and not just because we are evil. In Islam, the Devil really has only the power to mislead mankind and cause them to stray from the true faith. Think of Satan tempting Christ in the desert. THAT is Anglo-American liberal democratic capitalist culture.

Agreed. I heard Andy Mccarthy on a show the other night making a lot of sense. He noted that islam in the middle east IS a radical supremecist movement. It is implacably hostile to the West because Western civilization by its very existence and non-subscription to the one way is an affront to islam.The reason that it is not elsewhere is because the muslims that go elsewhere typically aren't in love with the radical supremecist movement in their homeland. In short the muslims elsewhere other than in the middle east represent the minority, not the majority.





It's this. This is the logical result of an ideology that is unwilling to recognize that there is anything but moral relatavism. Liberalism is incapable of accepting that there are world views that are implacably hostile to our own or alternately that our world view may be superior to someone elses.



Historically this is the ONLY thing that has ever worked with islam. Tours and Lepanto worked, nothing else has.



Again this is exactly right. The koran exhorts muslims to negotiate only when they cannot force their own will, otherwise they have a religious duty to force their will. Negotiation is pointless.

Sadly I do not believe that Western civilization has enough strength in its own cultural beliefs to any longer counteract the threat of islam. Will we be galvanized when Iran detonates its first nuclear device in Israel? Maybe, but I wonder.