Posted on 10/14/2007 6:36:05 AM PDT by tips up
Peter Robinson, a Reagan speechwriter in the last years of the Cold War, posed an interesting question the other day. He noted that on Feb. 22, 1946, a mere six months after the end of World War II, George Kennan, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow, sent his famous 5,000-word telegram that laid out the stakes of the Cold War and the nature of the enemy, and that that "Long Telegram" in essence shaped the way America thought about the conflict all the way up to the fall of the Berlin Wall four decades later. And what Mr. Robinson wondered was this: "Here we are today, more than six years after 9/11. Does anyone believe a new 'Long Telegram' has yet been written? And accepted throughout the senior levels of the government?" Answer: No. Because, if it had, you'd hear it echoed in public – just as the Long Telegram provided the underpinning of the Truman Doctrine a year later. Kennan himself had differences with Truman and successive presidents over what he regarded as their misinterpretation, but, granted all that, most of what turned up over the next 40 years – the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war, Soviet subversion in Africa and Europe, Grenada and Afghanistan – is consistent with the conflict as laid out by one relatively minor State Department functionary decades earlier. Why can't we do that today?
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
It’s like in the Harry Potter series where the bad guy is called “he who must not be named”.
Is it politically incorrect to name our enemy? Or just plain denial? The first step in any 12 step program is to acknowledge the problem/addiction. There is a good reason why this is step 1 because nothing else can follow without this basic step.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018452.php
Romney: “It’s this century’s nightmare, Jihadism”
[What other candidate has ever uttered the word “jihad”? This is not an endorsement — it is just a plea for a rejection of fantasy-based analysis and fantasy-based policymaking. They should all be discussing the jihad, openly and freely, and what can and must be done about it — so frequently that this shouldn’t even be news at all. The fact that six years after 9/11 I am dumbfounded when a presidential candidate uses the word “jihad” is a measure of the fix we’re in. “Romney vows to confront radical jihad,” from the Boston Globe (where you can watch the video of his commercial):
Mitt Romney returns to a call for a robust military and intelligence network in his newest TV ad, in a week that he has been on the defensive for saying he would consult lawyers on presidential authority to launch military attacks.
In the ad, which begins airing in Iowa today, Romney says the US must confront radical Islamists and vows to strengthen US intelligence services, add 100,000 members to the military, and stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“It’s this century’s nightmare, Jihadism –- violent, radical Islamic fundamentalism,” Romney says in the spot. “Their goal is to unite the world under a single Jihadist caliphate. To do that, they must collapse freedom-loving nations like us.”]
Further links at website.
One side says we should have never have went, after voting to go and the other says we are at war with a philosophy of peace, further stating that "we" should just go about our business here at home and leave the fighting and dying up to the Military.
How many times are we going to continue to believe that we can prosecute and WIN wars with the Military only? When will we learn that it takes the whole nation to win a War and that War's, in this Constitutional Republic, begin with a Declaration of such?
I believe both are factors, aggravated our society's short run focus on material consumption and short run focus on pleasure. We are so focused on our short run rewards that we refuse to look at the dangers looming on the horizon. I once read about a group of folks partying at a beach motel and laughing at reports of an approaching hurricane. The hurricane was Camille (212+ winds) and the motel was obliterated to the slab foundation. Many "hurricanes" (political, economic, social, religious....) now confront us. Many folks are still focusing on tonight's party and totally ignoring the storm.
well, Saddam is a head of state and Iraq is a sovereign nation
The case could be made that an illegitimate despot that maintains power via murder & torture is fair game. I'll grant you that the Dems are saying the same thing about Bush (deluded, of course). In addition, after his invasion of Kuwait & the subsequent war he lost any claim he might have had to demand respect for his sovereignty. In this world, when you lose a war, the victor makes the rules.
I do agree with your comments regarding the fancy verbal footwork used to define the so called WOT. As in most cases, if you are afraid to openly define the problem and state clear goals, your results are going to be disappointing. In this case the constant verbal appeasement of Islam by weak leaders in the west indicates a serious lack of will. I include the Bush administration, its repeated mealy mouthed remarks on radical (hmm, that's redundant) Islam prove to me there is not a serious, long term, defined commitment to fighting terrorism. The most obvious example of this is the deliberate refusal to use any sort of profiling and in the process harrassing our own citizens and restricting our freedoms in order to placate disgruntled Islamics.
all but the top line of my post is copy/pasted from Steins article......I guess you didn’t read the whole thing :)
Oops. Egg on my face now. Careless of me. Thanks for pointing that out. A good reminder that I need to be a little more patient.
Welcome to FR, Tips Up. We’ll be watching you. ;)
Bumpin’ Post #7. Read it, live it.
Sad to see Steyn being such a sad-sack this week. He makes good points as usual, but he’s preachin’ to the choir.
I sincerely believe it’s going to take another 9/11, but one of MUCH greater magnitude to get the attention of the masses.
We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers — in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.
Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.
Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world — and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.
The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics — a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists’ directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.
We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions — by abandoning every value except the will to power — they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
Steyn's point is that we are fighting an ideology, i.e, militant Islamic fundamentalism. We have been very reluctant to go specifically after the tenets of their beliefs. We need to identify these radical beliefs directly. They are not just the "mafia" or your garden variety terrorists who pretend to be pious. They are true believers and proselytisers. They are extremists, but the response from the Islamic world has been less than encouraging. Bin Laden is a hero to many Muslims. And Islam must reexamine its basic beliefs and practices in the 21st century, e.g., the treatment of women, tolerance towards the practice of other religions in Islamic countries, etc.
To date, our national response has been to install foot washing basins into public restrooms and light up the Empire State building to celebrate Eid.
No one took Hitler seriously either...
Steyn may not hit a home run with every piece he writes, but he always gets a base hit.
People are awake. If you live in NYC, you’re reminded of the threat of terrorism every single day.
Libs are insane.
Whatever happened to the guy who delivered it??
Dio, who are the folks in the second picture with women wearing scarves?
Because the State Department is on the side of the terrorists.
Yes they are. Interesting that the State Dept always seems to undermine the administration, or at least this current administration.
Probably because there are too many lefties as career State Dept employees.
It is Political Correctness. . .mind-numbing, reason-erasing, inferior, vacuous. . . culture diluting; values-absent, Leftist propagated, political correctness.
I mean, we cannot even agree on the who and what of this enemy that we face. We cannot NAME them, IT. . .without being called down for being racist. . .ignorant and bigoted. . .
The elephant is in the room; the dung is flying. . .but like the 'blind men'; we can describe an ear. . .or a tail; but we cannot NAME the beast.
Can you say, Islamo Fascism. . .Islamo Fascist. . .and Islamic Jihad?
You can; but you will pay a personal price for doing so. . .
Even our most outspoken critics of Islam are avoiding one explosive issue that has religious and scientific condemnation of their culture. Mark Steyn talks about demographics. I confess I haven't read his book. But who is saying anything about 30% of Muslims marring first cousins, leading to inbred sick and stillborn children, whom they abandon to taxpayers? http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/333/7573/831?etoc Who has condemned polygamy, scientifically, not religiously for causing inbreeding? We make fun of Southerners marrying cousins, but everyone is hushed about Muslims. Each generation in polygamous societies has fewer male ancestors and more sons and daughters who are cousins and half-siblings. It is mathematical, not religious. Finally, polygamy causes a cultural necessity for violence and conquest since extra young men must be purged or find foreign women to rape and enslave. Mohammed's lust ruined his civilization, IMHO. Another interesting article about marrying cousins. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm
Like in Harry Potter where Voldemort is called “he who must not be named”...
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