Posted on 04/06/2006 4:33:24 AM PDT by Mr170IQ
Prepare for the former not the latter.
"-- Fear, self-interest, honor. Which of these guides the chariot of your nation and your allies in Europe and your surprisingly fragile civilization now, O Man of 2006?"
"Which combination of those three traits -- phobos, kerdos, doxa -- will save or doom your world?" asked the Time Traveler.
"-- you are too timid, too fearful . . . too decent . . . to match the ruthlessness of your enemies. --"
Three words.
America is destroyed!
I was simply stating that the potential was there for a real problem. I don't agree with the nuke them all crowd but there is no doubt that Islam is fundamentally flawed and has not made the transitions, if you will, to modernity that the other religions, Judaism, Christianity, etc. have made. I believe that we are winning in Iraq, as you have stated. The problem with what is a win is that we won't know for some time to come how changing Iraq to a democratic society will affect us or the future of the region. ONe thing that is clear is that the Islamists obviously are going to do their best to try to de-rail the whole thing, so I feel that we must be doing something right. The cases you made about the nature of reprisals such as those of Stalin, the Nazis et al. are well-documented and I do not dispute them. I believe that our INTEL, Military and Spec Ops guys are going about it the right way and I believe that the general populace doesn't even have a friggin' clue as to the tactics we are using. ANd I am damn glad that they don't. Again we are seing a group of political hacks and special-interest types trying to influence warfighting and I fear what the end result could be on the guys and gals who really count and are doing the heavy lifting in this war. But I also do believe that this is a war and that it will turn out to be a very protracted war that encompasses many different aspects that we haven't encountered before. I have no doubt that we can win. Thank you for your service, as I noted that you mentioned it in one of the previous posts.
Agreed, especially not in the next few months or years, as implied in the story. I can see parts of Europe being Arabized, but not in the next couple of years.
Whatever course the near future takes, the Americans still have one hell of a standing army. I don't think a few WMD strikes on American targets is going to change that fact.
I have no argument with this I totally agree with you 100%.
Also I agree they will do there best to thwart our plans in Iraq, Afghanistan and other present and future trouble spots. That is the nature of this war.
President Bush said it was going to be a long hard haul we are only three/four years into the campaign Iraq is staring to sort itself out, the Iraqi Army is taking on more of the fighting and security, Iran has to rely on Non Islamic countries for support.
The Palestinian campaign has slowed down their brightest and best in jail or eliminated by the IDF is what are classic examples of the surgical strike.
In Europe we have woken up to the Islamic threat and are police and intelligence services have started to target and arrest them, this includes those who finance them, logistics as well as the foot soldiers.
There is still more to be done, I am not saying it over bar the shouting, but it is not the doom and gloom that some here feel it is.
There are those who are probably scared stiff, but there are others who I feel are using the Islamic threat to push forward other agendas.
After all a totally scared population is much more easier to manipulate.
I don't buy into the doom and gloom argument either. And, I do feel that Europe may finally be coming around to understanding the nature of their threat. The IDF and the Mossad are examples I believe that we need to emulate in their tactics as well their strategies; I believe that we are in the arenas that most of us will never know. And thank God for that. This is not a war for the squeamish and is arguably a clash of two very different cultures, influenced by many small but not insignificant other differences. Your last statement I agree with 100% and there is plenty of history to back it up. I just enjoyed the piece from my old sci-fi reading days but I won't sit up at night waiting for my "Time Traveler" to show up!
I prefer alternative history.
My favorite is Harry Turtledove the North Versus the South in the First and Second World War.
LMAO!! Best yet!
My reading now mostly consists of dry historical books. Just finished Col. Antony Beevor's account of Stalingrad. Now working my way through Gen. George Sada's book about his time under Saddam.
ping for a later read
Both good reads.
Another good book that is Forgotten soldier Guy Saaj about a Half German Frenchman who fought with the grossDeutschland division from 1943 to 1945.
I started reading Analog back in 1965 when I was 10 because my dad would buy them. Never threw them away, but I lost my collection in a fire.
I now buy a copy once in a blue moon, but it's hard to find any sf mags around here.
Ping!
BTTT
I read alot, primarily Science Fiction. The wife and I have many thousands of books, it's the side benefit of having worked for publishers in our lifetimes.
As I see he answered you with Spider Robinson...I was going to say that if he mentioned "Kim Stanley Robinson", he would immediately discredit himself. Red, Green, Blue Mars have to be, without question, the worst books I've ever read. Took me FOREVER to get through that dreck.
If you're looking for some good "old School" hard science fiction material and you've not read him before, check out Jack Chalker. One of my favorites. He recently passed so his works are complete.
True enough, but ask yourself if the future of the Jew would have unfolded differently has they moderated their religion as did Christianity at about the same time frame.
Would not the Holocaust be missing from the historical record? Would not the exodus (small "e")of Jews from the all of the Arab and Muslim territories not have occurred if Islam had done likewise? Would not the present have no need for the Jewish State of Israel.
This is all just speculation of course, but had these other two major religions done the same thing that Christianity did and modified their founding dogma with the story of Jesus which all three religions currently recognize, the world would be a totally different place today. And this cannot be denied.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.............
But the idea of it emphasizes that what we are experiencing today is a continuation of a religious war started some 1200 years past, and only one of the three religions involved has truly evolved to prevent this sort of thing. This does not mean that the other two have done nothing or made no attempts to do so, but they have generally failed because for them the war never stopped. It has been perpetual.
This brings the question:
Can they ever stop?
I think they can, but it seems to me that many feel otherwise. I think the right thing to do is to try harder and realize that this will take many more generations of failures and successes to stop this ball from rolling. Unfortunately, even talking about this has been like farting in the wind. You get attacked by all three sides and the war continues....
Got a link? I tried, not seeing it.
Timelord link:
http://home.comcast.net/~earthenewfrontier/othernovels.htm
Honestly, I'm still stumped, for two days now. First thought was 'religion of peace', then moved onto 'veni vidi vici'.. has to be something that ~'the rest of the world doesn't know the meaning of'~.
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