Posted on 07/29/2007 8:44:30 PM PDT by neverdem
AMEN! Thank you. The media, the Dems, are responsible for the blood on their hands coming from their nonstop antiwar, antiBush propaganada.
I'll agree in part. GOP over spending on earmarks, corruption and goodie two shoes bans on online gambling didn't help. The latter helped Tester win in Montana and Webb win in Virginia because of the gamblers vote. They took revenge.
What will the Republicans do?
Get back to first principles, i.e. limited government, I hope on domestic policies. The Medicare and Social Security programs are huge liabilities for the neoCOMs, if they are properly framed. With respect to foreign affairs, the neoCOMs appear to be ostriches sticking their heads in the ground. IMHO, more of our civilians will be killed by Islamists when we use the criminal approach of the bent one to a clash of civilizations.
What’s the catch?
Indeed!
Do you mean if we have a sit down with them they would stop murdering women and children as a lark..... to send a message... to get on the 6 o’clock news?
What I might ask would there be the topic of conversation and by whom?
I believe that what ever we do short of extermination of that so called group of people wouldn’t be enough. Once you cave into them emboldens them into thinking their methods work and that they can dictate terms to any county no matter how large or powerful, all they would have to do is keep on killing people until they get their way.... until they come up with more demands.
If their methods work, then every ragtag half witted group would duplicate what they have seen work before.
What your propose is not only a danger to us but a danger to society in general.
They have learned a lot by seeing us retreat over the years. We abandoned people at the bay of pigs, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq in 1991.... they really do pay attention to world events.
Osama Bin Laden said in an interview in 1998 with ABC’s John Miller, “We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions. It also proves they can run in less than 24 hours, and this was also repeated in Somalia. We are ready for all occasions. We rely on Allah.”.
Further down on that same interview Bin Laden went on saying, “The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the America soldiers are paper tigers. After a few blows, they ran in defeat and America forgot about all the hoopla and media propaganda after leaving the Gulf War and destroying infrastructure—and destroying baby formula factories, all civilian factories, bridges and dams that help planting food—about being the world leader, and the leader of the new world order. After a few blows, they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat and stopped using such titles. And they learned in America that this name is larger then them. When this took place, I was in Sudan, and this great defeat pleased me very much, the way it pleases all Muslims. Allah willing the next victory will be in Hejaz and Najd, Saudi Arabia, and it will make the Americans forget the horrors of Vietnam and Beirut.”
You might want to rethink that position. Talking is just fine for heads of states but not a terrorist network.
Of course, that is just my view.
Continue to cower in the corner and try very hard to make sure the Democrats don't notice them.
It will be interesting to see which, if any, of the RATS morph their rhetoric to mirror this piece.
It wasn't buried in the Tire Ads?
Bill Bennett began his radio show with this and I’m sure Rush will say something about it. Of course this opinion piece was completely ignored by the Today Show and GMA on ABC.
Wait a minute — am I still asleep? Am I dreaming?
How did this article get by Pinch and Bill Keller?
I may be a bit premature here but......if the worm has indeed turned, and al-Qaida is on its way to a humiliating defeat upon a battlefield that they themselves deemed essential, then the following possibilities emerge:
1-TERROR as a tactic could come to be seen in the essential “Arab street” as counterproductive, no small thing this. Potential martyrs must be assured not only of 72 virgins, but that they are not dying for a losing cause. Without the suicide component, the terror masters know that they become eminently defeatable in the eyes of the enemy.
2-Just as you see the Iraqis win the region’s championship in soccer, Iraq should soon become the economic and cultural powerhouse in the Middle East, putting further pressure on the Mullahs in Iran, the house of Saud, and other countries like Egypt. All will have to modernize and provide more freedoms for their people. Al-Qaida knew this is what would happen if Iraq were lost to democracy.
3-Make no mistake, a win for Iraq is a loss for Iran, who has been supporting the insurgency from the beginning. Ahmadinejad will be blamed by both the Iranian populace and the Mullahs. As things calm down in Iraq, the Great Satan becomes far more dangerous to the Iranians, being perched next door with time on its hands. Our military knows where those sophisticated IED’s came from, there’s no lack of motivation to go break some things in Iran. If Iraq is seen as a victory, there will be more tolerance for dealing with Iran militarily within America too. I see this as a good thing.
4-Iraq possesses 5% of the world’s oil reserves, this without any searching for new deposits in over 30 years. Their extraction capability is now being modernized, it is my understanding that this alone will improve their output by some 40% or more, from pre-war levels. This would be a tremendous amount of petroleum going into the market, no way it won’t have a significant impact on world prices for some time to come. While liberals wail about the financial cost of this war, it could be the “cheapest” war we ever fought, what with the potential impact cheaper oil could have on the world economies.
The NYT finally gets it...
Please bear in mind this is an Op-Ed piece.
The Surge is Working and Victory is Near
Pray for W and Our Troops
1-TERROR as a tactic could come to be seen in the essential “Arab street” as counterproductive, no small thing this.
Defectors from the Jihad
The Corner ^ | 7/28/07 | Michael Ledeen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1873217/posts
(snip)
Then there’s Sayid Imam al-Sharif, 57, the first commander of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation. For those keeping track, Sharif is a surgeon, and he’s been in jail for about three years, during which time he has changed his thinking about jihad. He recently denounced killing women and children and targeting minorities, and he quotes the Koran: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors.” Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.
As the Guardian put it in a long story , Zawahiri attacked Sharif in a video message, and no doubt there will much more along these lines, since Sharif has written a book with his new thinking.
Funny, isn’t it, that as the war goes worse for them, they rethink the fundamentals?
Violence won’t work: how author of ‘jihadists’ bible’ stirred up a storm
Revisionist message from prison cell shakes al-Qaida colleagues
Ian Black Cairo
Friday July 27, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/egypt/story/0,,2135869,00.html
In a prison cell south of Cairo a repentant Egyptian terrorist leader is putting the finishing touches to a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with al-Qaida.
Sayid Imam al-Sharif, 57, was the founder and first emir (commander) of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, whose supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later teamed up with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet occupation.
Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of “Dr Fadl”, is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists’ “bible” - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden’s deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.
Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Qur’anic injunction: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors.” Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.
Zawahiri, evidently rattled, rounded sarcastically on him in a video message broadcast after Sharif’s statement - faxed from Torah prison to an Arabic newspaper - announced not only his change of heart but a book-length repudiation endorsed by hundreds of other former militants, and which is due to be published soon.
(snip)
I agree with you 100%. Also, as an interesting concept, what about the Republican nominee, whomever it is, asking Joseph Lieberman (I) to join the ticket as the VP? I see two benefits: 1) Lieberman has been a voice of reason on Iraq from the beginning, and knows how to defeat democrats in his district; and 2) triangulation, placing the ticket squarely in the center, perhaps slightly right, but definitely moderate, to draw in the independents. The ticket could pull in the pro-Israel Jewish vote that for some strange reason votes democrat, in other words, against their better interests. Romney-Lieberman would be formidable, so would Giuliani-Lieberman or Thompson-Lieberman. Win-win for the Republicans and the USA, IMHO.
Is it just me or is the NYTimes getting almost half way decent lately?
It is just “YOU” and, I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way.
I wouldn’t trust TNYT in a sh*t house with a muzzle on their mouth!!!
and try to somehow turn that bit of bad news to the Dem’s favor (and keep credit away from Bush).
If you will notice it’s all about General Petraeus, Bush has nothing to do with the war. Go think/??????
I am nearly finished with Churchill’s “The Second World War.” It is a great read. The one thing that comes back to me was just how close the NAZIs came to winning that war. Had the Germans not decided to punish the Yugoslavia for an anti-German Coop and invaded Yugoslavia and Greece in early 1941, delaying Operation Barbarossa by 6-7 weeks, the Germans may have taken Moscow before the Russian Winter set in.
Also, had the Japanese not attacked the USA, and attacked Russia, it might have caused a collapse of the SU and again, only Britian would be fighting the Axis powers. Without US help the U-Boats would likely have strangled the Brits.
The Brits fought on from Sept 1939 until El Alamain and Stalingrad (Fall-Winter 1941) until there was some good news for the allies.
Thanks for the ping!
Thanks for the ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.