Posted on 08/13/2004 9:17:22 AM PDT by quidnunc
This past spring, when it seemed that everything that could go wrong in Iraq was going wrong, a plague of amnesia began sweeping through the country. Caught up in the particulars with which we were being assaulted 24 hours a day, we seemed to have lost sight of the context in which such details could be measured and understood and related to one another. Small things became large, large things became invisible, and hysteria filled the air.
Since then, of course, and especially after the hand over of authority on June 30 to an interim Iraqi government, matters have become more complicated. But the relentless pressure of events, and the continuing onslaught both of details and of their often tendentious or partisan interpretation, have hardly let up at all. It is for this reason that, in what follows, I have tried to step back from the daily barrage and to piece together the story of what this nation has been fighting to accomplish since September 11, 2001.
In doing this, I have drawn freely from my own past writings on the subject, and especially from three articles that appeared in these pages two or more years ago. [1] In some instances, I have woven sections of these articles into a new setting; other passages I have adapted and updated.
… I have had to broaden the perspective so as to make it possible to see why the great struggle into which the United States was plunged by 9/11 can only be understood if we think of it as World War IV.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
Any way to get this article in plain text rather than PDF? This way I can get my computer to read it to me. I can't copy and paste the complete text.
any chance someone could ccp this article and post or mail to me? my browser cant read pdf files. thanks!
bttfl
Can't you make the print larger on your desktop by clicking the magnifying glass that says 'zoom in'?
If you go to the Adobe home page you can download Adobe Acrobat Reader free of charge for almost any operating system.
First search your hard drive for Adobe Acrobat Reader to be sure you don't already have it.
Yes, but then it's larger than the page and I have to shift left/right and up/down to catch the columns.
What a piece of work Mr.K has here!
His review of the 9-11 commission is damning!
Sorry, was thinking of another thread, Mr P.
thanks for the suggestions. cannot do those things im afraid. that why i asked. thanks!
click here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_adv_form.html
paste this in the "URL" box:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/A11802017_1.pdf
Enjoy.
thanks very much!
Quick math on WW IV:
1,200,000,000 Muslims
X 10% Islamicists (D. Pipes)
= 120,000,000 who want to kill you or die trying
X 20% never deterred or coopted into democracy (my guess, a la Afg. / Iraq)
= 24,000,000 we will have to kill
100:1 Jihadis Killed:Americans Loss Ratio (my guess)
= 240,000 American KIAs
Current KIAs:
~3,000 on 9/11
~1,000 Iraq
~1,000 Other (guess)
= 5,000 American KIAs to date
5,000 / 240,000 = 2% of likely deaths experienced so far
Kerry: Cut and Run when 2% complete
Bush: Stay the Course when 2% complete
Timeline: 3 Years / 2% = 150 year conflict
Unless: Speed up the killing
This is still very early in WW IV. Sadly, there are many millions who have to be killed before we are done. Let's stay busy.....
You're most welcome. I find that link comes in handy, although the formatting of the finished product could be improved. I wish Adobe would have all the footnotes grouped at the end of the output file, and no page breaks. It's probably optimized however for users of Lynx and other older style browsers. I used to browse using an Apple IIe and Apple IIgs, so I'm sympathetic to planned obsolescence induced problems. :')
And a ping for those on Alouette's list, she's away from her computor.
You could try pasting the url in at the link which will display the article in html. IMO, harder to read, but it might be easier for you.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_simple_form.html
"In seizing the American hostages, Khomeini inflicted a great humiliation on the US. But at the same time, he also exposed the foolishness of Jimmy Carter's view of the world......What was foolish was the conclusion Carter drew from it. Rather than proposing policies aimed at halting and then reversing the decline [in American power- military, economic, political, and moral], he took the position that the cause was the play of historical forces we could do nothing to stop or even slow down. As he saw it, ....we needed first to acknowledge, accept, and adjust to this inexorable historical development, and then act upon it with "mature restraint."
This sounds a lot like Johnny boy Kerry's position and the position of the whole stupid, moronic, RAT-party.
This is still very early in WW IV.
You sir are correct.
Perhaps the best that can be said about WW III. is that so few had to die in it. It was a good thing for us that Stalin
preferred to kill his OWN.
I would like to think that firm leadership and action now
will possibly prevent those millions of dead, certainly that type of decisive thinking and leadership is not an option of the liberal/democrat party as history has shown.
We have the means to kill 24M of the Islamists. And they're crazy enough, nasty enough, and above all stupid enough to provide the motive and the opportunity. The Israelis would have already put paid to the nastiest Islamists, if we weren't holding them back. What this filth doesn't grasp is that no one's gonna hold us back when it's trigger time.
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