Of course Iraq will drop off the radar when we invade Syria, we’re a nation of ADD.
That claim keeps getting bandied about, but I’ve yet to see a cite that supports the claim of nontrivial ongoing German/Japanese terrorism in response to our postwar occupation.
I’m sure someone, somewhere in those two nations must’ve taken a potshot at a US soldier sometime after V-E or V-J Day, whichever is applicable. And of course there were the Japanese soldiers on Pacific islands who never got the word that the war was over, and kept turning up at intervals all the way into the early 1970s, IIRC, but that was a whole 'nother thing. At any rate, I was born in 1954, and the standard story when I was growing up in the 1960s was that when WWII was over, it was over.
So if you’re claiming there was anything in postwar Germany or Japan that was remotely comparable to the resistance in Iraq as it existed even a year ago, let alone now, please put up or shut up.
Were these last two beheadings as viciously conducted as the first?
Dunno, but I’ll say they were more so, Berg wasn’t expecting it.
Johnson appeared to be a much larger man than either Berg or Kim. I saw the knife used to muder Johnson – and the “knife” used to murder Johnson appeared smaller than the knife used during Berg’s murder. From that you can draw your own conclusions since I really can’t add more -
From the linked article ---- As the gunman’s pistol was pointing at him the hostage “tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘now I’ll show you how an Italian dies,’” he said. —
Who wouldn’t ----- but there is no way I could pull it off. Not that I’m normally an emotional guy but the days of sleepless stress and the knowledge of the method of my pending death would probably send me over the edge - my life has been way, way too soft –
Rather die on your feet than (think they’ll let you) live on your knees, eh? I agree that given the situation there is definitely a better way to carry yourself. But what behavior you exhibit depends an awful lot on what you believe your options to be. Kim Sun-il maybe thought they’d let him live if he begged like they demanded, just like the airliner passengers on Sept 11 2001 thought they’d survive *their * ordeal.
Now we all know that if our airplane is hijacked, we’ll need to kill the hijackers at any cost, and we also know that if we’re told to beg for our lives in this kind of situation that we’d best spit some invective for all the good it’ll do.
Let me try again:
World Eater:
My response:
The Spaniards were overwhelmingly opposed to the war in Iraq. Americans never were. Even after the clusterfuck of the last year, only about half of the citizens of the United States currently oppose the war in Iraq.
So, taking a lesson from the Spaniards on listening to the cries of their people, to whom should “the United States” listen? The half that thinks we should stay or the half who thinks we should pull out? (Yes, yes, I know what YOU think; I’m just pointing out the flaw in your reasoning.)
Even though I thought going into Iraq was ill advised from the get-go, I think the Spaniards were dead wrong to pull out of Iraq so closely after the bombings in Madrid. It sets a precedence that they will capitulate to bullies. Bad, bad idea.
The Koreans rock for not kowtowing to Al Quaeda. They sent a clear message. They will not be intimidated by thugs. While I feel terribly for that poor Cowardly Lion Korean man who lost his life in such a horrific manner, the Korean leaders did the right thing. It was a gut-wrenching decision but it had to be made. We must never give in to bullies.
“I regret I have but one life to give for my country.” -Nathan Hale, U.S. Patriot
“Please, I don’t want to die!” - unknown man, Korean Patriot
Golly! I’m putting that in my Memory Book, even if I am being whooshed.
As for the poor screaming Korean guy . . . We’d all like to think we’d be strong and tough and thumb our nose to the video camera and go “nerts!” But who knows how we’d act with a terrorist knife at our throat? This schmoe puts me in mind of poor Madame du Barry, who was dragged fighting and screaming to the guillotine, crying, “Please don’t hurt me–you are going to hurt me,” making her so much more human than brave, noble Marie Antoinette. The tape of this Korean guy screaming, “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” is unbearable, more so than any photo of his disembodied head could be.
I’m somewhat disgusted by the people ragging on the Korean victim for not being some sort of stoic hero. They were going to cut his head off with a pen-knife! I’m gonna be screaming and crying, too.
Of course, I’ve never bought into the whole macho “never let them see you sweat when death is on the line for a Sicilian” bullshit, either, so…
The problem is the population of terrorists is not a constant number. They are being created as we speak. I can’t remember a large-scale terrorist-government conflict that was solved by eliminating the terrorists. Israel-Palestine, LTTE in Sri Lanka, the IRA, Kashmiri militants, the list goes onandon. Of course, the named conflicts are rooted in some legitimate issue - land, civil rights etc, which is why there could be a diplomatic solution. There is no way some of these conflicts will be solved by killing/imprisoning all of the terrorists.
This is the biggest problem in fighting Al-Qaeda. Their demands and ideology is extreme enough that one cannot negotiate with them or with any political wing that might emerge. Of course, we have to be active in disrupting the network etc, but I don’t see a solution unless some countries in the ME & Asia (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Pakistan etc) change significantly. Until then, the threat will be active.
Have you seen the visa applications made by the Saudi 9/11 hijackers? In any normal consulate, it would have thrown RED FLAGS all over, but it was approved by the consulate in Saudi Arabia. My feeling is we are also fighting a terrible corrupt system (which involves BOTH the US govt and Saudi royal family).
What’s up with the BS about Spain? Spain redeployed their troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. They are after Osama, the leader of the group who most likely masterminded 3/11.
What was once called focused and dedicated use of military, now is called ‘capitulation’ by those who ought to know better. And you wonder why many Europeans hate the US.
Speaking as someone living here, I’m with you on killing every last one of these cocksuckers and also on the arming of people. I’ve just spent the last three hours sitting in my back yard with helicoptors flying overhead with enormous lights, presumably searching for terrorists about to attack the place. It is now 0300 and they are still at it outside. The local contingent of national guardsmen are acting jumpy, dragging heavy weapons around and generally looking as prepared as possible. If/when the AQ boys get into a Western compound, the residents will be like rats in a trap, nowhere to run and no way to fight back, just waiting for someone to ask them if they’re a Moslem or not.
As far as the arming of contractors goes, anyone with a grain of common sense is taking care of that themselves on an unofficial basis. Waiting for some fucking government to get around to it is just not good enough. One of the nice things about living here is that weapons of various sorts are easy to come by, including full auto AKs and a huge variety of pistols.
(Sorry if this seems a bit irate, my daughter and I have been waiting to be attacked since midnight.)
Regards
Testy
If y’all are ragging on me making fun of the Korean, you misinterpreted my post for sarcasm. I was dead serious when I wrote that I think he’s a patriot. You don’t have to be eloquent, or even brave, to give your life for your country. His pleading and begging made me like him, and regret his tragic and senseless death, even more.
I’m all for killing Zarqawi, if we can manage it. Three times in the year before the invasion, our military thought they could take him out. The Bush White House vetoed it every time. Apparently his presence in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq allowed Bush to not technically be lying about an al-Qaeda - Iraq connection. (But just entirely misleading.)
Bush’s real war is a psy-ops war on the American people.
Well, yeah, but it isn’t like they’re all painted day-glo orange or something. Whatever number of local insurgents, al-Qaeda terrorists, or whatever there might have been in Fallujah, we killed a much greater number of noncombatants, apparently including hundreds of women and children. When we do that, what happens? It makes the typical Arab madder at us than he is at al-Qaeda.
There’s a sliding scale of radicalization, from totally apolitical to ready to turn oneself into a walking bomb if it means you can take a few of the enemy with you. It’s not an either/or. But when we fight the way we fought in Iraq in April, what happens is that Muslims in the Middle East move another step down that sliding scale. When the pix from Abu Ghraib come out, portraying humiliations that they apparently regard as worse than death (although some of the pix showed people tortured to death too), it does the same.
The strategy Bush laid out back in September 2001 was totally and completely sensible: do what we can to take advantage of the sudden sympathy towards us that permeated even the Arab world, do everything we can to cause Muslims to slide back along that scale to feel more in common with us than with bin Laden’s boys, thereby isolating the relative handful of remaining terrorists, who can then be tracked down via intelligence (ours and that of Middle Eastern nations) and captured or killed.
Unfortunately, that strategy’s long since been abandoned, and no new strategy has replaced it.
If there was some magic strategy for killing terrorists without harming anyone else, I’d say go for it. But as long as everything we do seems to create more terrorists faster than we can kill them off, killing them off is a losing strategy.
Will there ever be a time to exit, then? This is the problem.
We tried that with the Iraqi insurgents in April. How well did it work then? Playing the macho card sounds great, until you realize our guys tried that already, and a couple hundred Americans are in the ground as a result, and our situation is worse than ever.
What chance does it have of working any better with al-Qaeda?
Testy - Is it economically infeasible for you to leave SA right now? Arming yourself certainly seems reasonable enough given the circumstances, but removing yourself a couple of thousand miles away seems like an even better idea right about now. My apologies if you have already answered this question a thousand times and are starting to find it irksome.
Best of luck and stay as safe as you can :).
- Tamerlane
Thank you for the kind wishes and the question isn’t irksome. It isn’t so much general economics as insurance. My wife is battling cancer, a stage IV-B thymoma that is probably terminal. She is getting very good treatment here and I would hate to further reduce her chances by changing doctors/hospitals right now. Besides, she is in no shape to travel. If this thing goes into remission we may be able to run but that will be sometime around year-end.
I am evacuating my daughter to Atlanta in a couple of days and my wife and I will stick it out.
I agree with you about distance being a better defense and would be on the next flight if I could. I had known Paul Johnson and his wife for the last year or so and the thought of someone sawing his head off is appalling. Last night did bring it home to me though, sitting in the dark and arming my daughter, teaching a 16 year old girl combat handgun techniques while those choppers flew around. It struck me that this was an insane situation.
Thanks again and all the best.
Testy
No whoosh, I assure you. I hate threads like this, with Leftista hand-wringers turning it into an excuse to bash Bush and explain how we all deserve what the terrorists are doing because they had unhappy childhoods, and that if we would just give them all our worldly belongings and kiss their asses, they would leave us alone. You have seen the deed for what it is, and the victim for what he was. And you seem always to do so. I never have to worry about being misunderstood by you. Even when others were mindlessly piling onto me about the rhinestone cross, you knew what I meant, and you comforted me with kind words. It is no wonder that you are admired by so many different kinds of people. You may not believe in God, but it is partly because of people like you that I do.
People are also seeming to forget that the Spanish people voted the government out because the government tried to lie to them about who really bombed them in order to be reelected.
Spain have gone after the root cause of their attackers. America is simply making more heads of the hydra.
Oh, Testy, what an awful situation! An ailing wife, a teenaged daughter who is losing her mother, and living smack in the middle of that chaos.
You are in my thoughts.