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Message from a Time Traveler
Dan Simmons - Official Web Site ^ | April 1, 2006 | Dan Simmons

Posted on 04/06/2006 4:33:24 AM PDT by Mr170IQ

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To: MikefromOhio

Ooops, I didn't mean to wound you!

We disagree. It's as simple as that.


201 posted on 04/06/2006 9:50:51 AM PDT by null and void (We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle)
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To: NELSON111
They only understand convert or die. Period.

It was a British general I believe who said the arab is either at your feet or at your throat. It applies to islamics also.

In this conflict we either win or we die.

202 posted on 04/06/2006 9:51:38 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: null and void

just so I know, what does YMMV mean?

No it isn't a simple disagreement.

A disagreement wouldn't advocate the annhilation of over a Billion people.

That genocidal stupidity. It's the SAME THING that some of the Hardcore Wahabbists preach. Hope you like your company.


203 posted on 04/06/2006 9:52:07 AM PDT by MikefromOhio (FREE PAUL_DENTON!!!!!)
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To: NELSON111
Nobody is suggesting we wipe out Islam,

I am. In the long run it is inevitable. Islam cannot reform and still be islam. Their scriptures clearly state that they are to fight us until we either submit or die or they die. This is a fight to the death. Better them than us.

204 posted on 04/06/2006 9:53:58 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Erasmus
"Klaatu barada nikto."

I knew someone would say that.

205 posted on 04/06/2006 9:54:56 AM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken.)
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To: Cold Heat
If we use the final option, which so many here seem to advocate, it must be understood that the destruction needs to be total. We cannot eliminate this problem by bouncing the rubble or killing just the adults. In order for 100% military answer to work, we must eradicate over a billion people, it's religion, writings and history to be effective and say it is over.

Exactly correct. And unfortunately inevitable. Every last copy of the koran and hadith, and every last person who knows it must be destroyed before this war ends. (It will be a long war). Otherwise the plague merely starts over again at some point in the future

The scriptures of islam command them to fight against us until death or victory.

Islam is the enemy

206 posted on 04/06/2006 9:57:01 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: MikefromOhio
YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary.

We are looking through opposite ends of the telescope, or maybe feeling different parts of the elephant.

A disagreement wouldn't advocate the annhilation of over a Billion people.

I see it as either we annihilate enough of them to remove the threat, or they annihilate a billion of us. (Us being western and other non-islamist civilizations).

I know which side I want to see victorious.

207 posted on 04/06/2006 9:57:43 AM PDT by null and void (We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle)
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To: SlowBoat407; E Rocc
I think we may finally be closing in on it.....

The Time Traveler laughed and sipped his Scotch. “Would you want to kill your grandfather?” he said. “Or anyone else?”

“Well . . .Hitler maybe,” I said weakly.

The Traveler smiled, but more ironically this time. “Good luck,” he said. “But don’t count on succeeding.”

E Rocc and SlowBoat407 are on the right track, I think. I dismissed "Grandfather" at first, thinking of it simply as a literary device for a character to generically address an old man. BUT, it would seem that the author would be younger than the grizzled, in-his-60s, time traveller. And the traveller does make repeated references to the author's grandchildren -- rather than, let's say, his children. The references suggest a close familiarity with them....

The ironic smile and accompanying words ("don't count on succeeding" on killing your grandfather) now reads as especially chilling to me.

I don't know what the three words are, but it seems they could have something to do with the relationship between the author and the traveller... and also words that would resonate with any other time traveller on an emotional level, according to the author. "I love you"? I don't know.

208 posted on 04/06/2006 9:58:48 AM PDT by NewJerseyJoe (Rat mantra: "Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!")
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To: null and void

LOL

well expect to be disappointed. Neither will EVER happen.


209 posted on 04/06/2006 10:01:16 AM PDT by MikefromOhio (FREE PAUL_DENTON!!!!!)
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To: coydog
Good morning.

Knowledge is power, and awareness of the threat we face is growing daily.

Mexican flags being raised above our flag at our schools and the fact that Christians can be put under penalty of death for being Christians is making more and more people awake and angry.

Burning cars are illuminating the threat from Islam and even the arrogant socialist Europeans are seeing it.

Something will light the fuse, pretty soon.

Michael Frazier
210 posted on 04/06/2006 10:01:41 AM PDT by brazzaville (no surrender no retreat, well, maybe retreat's ok)
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To: tonycavanagh
Your error is that you are treating this like a war between states. It is not. It is a war between ideologies. Freedom on one hand and islam on the other.

An arab islamic doesn't care if an indonesian islamic makes new converst in america. As long as those converts are islamic.

Will there be islamic civil wars? Count on it. Will those wars matter at all in the greater scheme of things? Not at all.

We are not fighting the arabs. We are not fighting any nationality or race. We are fighting a cultural mindset that stands against everything that makes us free.

Islam is the enemy

211 posted on 04/06/2006 10:02:33 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Mr170IQ
Excellent story - thanks for posting.

My only complaint is the insistence on mistaking Bush's oversimplified term "war on terror" as declaring war on an abstraction such as aviation. (Islam is an abstraction as well, incidentally.) It isn't that. It's something much more specific.

What has happened is a confluence of two 20th-century trends, the first being state-level support for terrorist organizations as proxy armies. The second is an internationalist trend under whose rules sovereign nations may not be attacked unless one or both parties formally declare war. Either of these alone are harmless enough but together they provide a means whereby a weaker nation may attack a stronger with impunity.

Bush's attack on Iraq invalidated the second of these principles and the internationalists want his head for it. (They do so because they actually desire a weaker nation to have this option, nominally against the United States.) The first principle is still quite active with the additional complication that not only does formal state-level funding in Iran go toward the proliferation of these proxy armies, but worldwide Moslem charity structures have been subverted to the purpose as well through Arab oil, largely but not exclusively through Saudi Arabia.

I do not believe we'll see a Caliphate in our lifetime or ever - the schism between the big money in Sunni radicalism and the big military in Shi'ite radicalism is fated to struggle for control. Were either of these to somehow achieve supremacy, though, look out. The real issue as I see it and as the author of this piece implies, is the possession of a large nuclear arsenal by one side that will allow it to achieve that supremacy.

A combination of immigration and birth demographics will change Europe. The issue there is on what terms, and for how long the current governments will be able to dictate those terms. The choice for Western Europe is ever more clearly between Shar'ia and social democracy. The proponents of the former will certainly fight for it - if the proponents of the latter will not then the deal as done and we're pissing into the wind here. It really isn't up to the U.S. nor should it be.

212 posted on 04/06/2006 10:04:16 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: E Rocc
Indeed, in 1631 the Sack of Magdeburg was an atrocity committed by an army ostensibly fighting on behalf of Roman Catholicism.

From your linked article:

Subsequently the Imperial soldiers rapidly went out of control and started to massacre the inhabitants and set fire to the city

Note that the actions of the imperial soldiers at Magdeburg was contrary to Christian scriptures. If they had been moslem however their actions would have lined up perfectly with their scriptures

This is an important point to remember.

213 posted on 04/06/2006 10:05:59 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Mr170IQ
“General Seyed Reza Pardis,” intoned the Time Traveler. “Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three. Tel Aviv. Baghdad International Airport, Al Salem U.S. airbase in Kuwait, Camp Dawhah U.S. Army base in Kuwait, al Seeb U.S. airbase in Oman, al Udeid U.S. Army and Air Force base in Qatar. Haifa. Beir-Shiva. Dimona.”

“Oh, ****,” I said. “Oh, Jesus.” I had no clue as to who or what Shehab One, Two, or Three might be, but the context and litany alone made me want to throw up.

Pardis is the head of the Iranian air force, the Shehabs are Iranian missiles, and the others are obvious targets.

I would say that even those of us who don't think Islam-in-general is our enemy would agree that the fanatics running Iran are.

-Eric

214 posted on 04/06/2006 10:06:01 AM PDT by E Rocc
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To: NewJerseyJoe

It's "Write this story."


215 posted on 04/06/2006 10:07:57 AM PDT by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: MikefromOhio
So in your ideal future, islam will always be a threat?

Ultimately either they win, we win, or some third overwhelming force eliminates both of us.

216 posted on 04/06/2006 10:08:49 AM PDT by null and void (We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle)
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To: thoughtomator
He describes the future I think we must nuke Mecca to avoid.

Er..you know Pakistan has nukes right? And have they used them on India yet?

217 posted on 04/06/2006 10:08:52 AM PDT by Windsong (Jesus Saves, but Buddha makes incremental backups)
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To: tonycavanagh

The Islamic movement is fragmented.

That is true.

It is also its greatest strength. The strength of the system is the supposed lack of a system.

That is the way that terror cells can act towards the same goals, autonomously. Even if you catch half the extremists, they won't, no, CAN'T, tell you who the others are. It's the design of their operation.

Even the money flow... using Hawala... doesn't seem to be systematic, but it is. Very difficult and time consuming to trace.

It is virtually impossible to unweave the confusing web that terrorism is based upon. By the time you've unraveled it, they've already blown themselves up.


218 posted on 04/06/2006 10:09:24 AM PDT by Diggler
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To: tonycavanagh
Under Ronald Reagon we recognized the Communist threat and took simple measures supporting those who opposed it, increased defense spending and supporting any pro democracy movements.

Again, apples vs oranges. The Soviet communists were soviet first and communist second. They would have gladly gone to war against the chinese communists and destroyed them if they could. When the chinese won the soviets took it as a loss and vice versa.

That's not how islam works. an advance for any part of islam is an advance for all islam. Islam is far more evil than communism could ever aspire to.

This is not a war against a state. It is a war against a ideology that forms the bedrock (and most of the structure) of it's adherents lives.

Islam is the enemy

219 posted on 04/06/2006 10:10:17 AM PDT by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: King Prout
I can propose five syllables in Arabic which would strike any "Replayer" to the core, cause in them the same visceral wrath they do in me, which translate into three words in English:

"Allahu akbar!"

Very interesting take on this mystery.

220 posted on 04/06/2006 10:11:19 AM PDT by houeto (http://www.ice.gov/graphics/about/index.htm)
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