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American NationalismWhile I wouldn’t quite agree with his political characterisations, the War Nerd provides us with a few more clues about the decaying, wilting superpower that cannot summon the courage to shoot a motley gang of criminals in New Orleans…........
By Gary Brecher I got a lot of flak for my last column, some of it justified. I made a lame, amateur mistake about the size of a Roman legion, adding a zero, and got called on it by a lot of alert readers. A Roman legion of Julius Caesar’s time had 5,000 men, not 50,000. That’s the kind of little mistake McClellan used to make when estimating the size of Lee’s forces. And since McClellan is my least-favorite American commander of all time, associating myself with him is about as low as I can grovel. The only issue now is what my punishment ought to be. Now that Bush’s spinners have decided Islamic Law is just peachy for free, democratic Iraq, I guess I’ll find some “Sharia 4 Dummies” site online and ask the web-mullahs what the Prophet decreed for War Nerds who mess up this bad. Probably the turban-mafia will decide I have to have my Dorito-grabbing hand hacked off. Fair enough. With arithmetic skills as lousy as mine, going from a decimal to base-five finger counting system probably won’t make much difference. I also got flamed for daring to criticize Dr. Victor D. Hanson, the ivory tower darling of the neocons. I expected that, but what really blew me away is that Hanson’s defenders weren’t so much angry as confused by my angle of attack. They’re used to bashing liberals, and didn’t know what to make of a simple old American nationalist like me. We’re getting so rare nobody even recognizes one of us when they come across it. We’re like those damn woodpeckers flapping around the swamps, except nobody’s looking for us. Hell, they’d send the exterminator out if they saw one. I can see it now: some van with a big plastic War Nerd head glued on top, a recycled fat-guy mannequin from the old Bob’s Big Boy painted up to look like me, and a slogan: “Kills War Nerds Dead!” They’d call the campaign “The War To End All War Nerds.” The whole political landscape these days-the whole swamp-is divided between peacenik leftists who think war is wrong because it hurts children and other living things, and neocons who back the Iraq disaster even though they know it means pouring American lives (though not their lives) and money into the sewer. There’s nobody speaking for simple pro-Americans like me, except maybe Pat Buchanan (and he weirds me out too with his thing about Mexicans. What’s wrong with Mexicans? They’re the best soldiers we’ve got. Just check the casualty lists from Iraq: they read like the employee timesheet at your local burrito shack.) We American nationalists used to be the majority, what they called the “silent majority.” We went extinct faster than passenger pigeons, wiped out in only 25 years. That’s because 25 years ago, something happened that was as disastrous for America as that asteroid for the dinosaurs: Jimmy Carter’s big wimpout in the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-80. That’s what drove America crazy. Let me set the stage, but telling the truth this time, not the crap the official sources give you. In 1978 Iran was the most powerful country in the Middle East, rapidly modernizing under the Shah, Reza Pahlevi. You hear a lot of nonsense about his “repressive” policies, but the truth is way simpler: the Shah’s problem is that he actually WAS trying to make Iran a modern, powerful country. In 1963 the Shah started his “White Revolution,” a typical Kennedy-style reform plan, kind of out-commie-ing the commies. He was trying to do for Iran exactly what Ataturk did for Turkey in the 1920s. But he had two problems: his “dynasty” was new and unpopular-set up by his cavalry-officer dad’s coup in 1921-and he was dealing with Shia Islam, which is way crazier and more self-destructive than Sunni. The Shia have a bigger martyr complex than Cindy Sheehan, and they’re always willing to do whatever it takes to mess themselves up. So Iran basically looked at the Shah’s reforms and said nope, it’s too good, we’d rather go back to the Middle Ages. Of course, that’s not the official story. The Leftist academics will tell you the Iranians overthrew the Shah in revenge for persecution from his “feared and hated SAVAK secret police.” The truth is, SAVAK was a small (15,000 men), defensive CI service. Unless you were actively involved in Islamist or Communist conspiracies, it would pretty much leave you alone, which was a lot more than you can say for the cops/spies of any other regime in the 4,000 years of Persian/Iranian history, including the creeps running the country now. The other lie you hear about the Shah is that he was “corrupt.” He skimmed from the petrodollars coming in, sure-but compared to any other Middle Eastern ruler, the Shah was squeaky-clean. He actually put Iran’s oil revenues to work changing the country, building roads, irrigation projects, and setting up an educational system (the first in the country’s history).
Khomeini-if you’re old enough to remember 1979, you won’t forget his face. He looked like a 200-year-old Dracula in black robes. The faces said it all: the Shah, with his expensive suits :or the man in black. They went with Khomeini. The Shah and his US backers couldn’t believe it. Suddenly their expensive armed forces were useless, because the troops wouldn’t fire on the crowds, a lethal mix of commie romantics and Shi’ite fanatics, that were screaming for the Shah’s blood. Like the Lefties say, “This is what democracy looks like,” and it wasn’t pretty: half a million people in the streets screaming for a return to the Dark Ages. Not much you can do about that, unless you find a way to slip thorazine into the water supply. On January 16, 1979, the Shah flew out of Iran for a “vacation.” By that time the Iranians were so crazy that nobody much wanted to take the vacationer: every Club Med from Tahiti to Timbuktu was suddenly overbooked. He was even denied entry to the US and ended up in Egypt. The Islamist “students” of Tehran blamed the US anyway and grabbed 70 US Embassy employees for a few hours. You’d think that would have been warning enough to evacuate the Tehran embassy. Nope. Back then, remember, nobody took Islam very seriously. We were still scared of the poor ol’ pitiful Commies, and fatally underestimated the power of the Mullahs, just like the Shah did. Our diplomats thought they were safe because everybody knows foreign embassies are off limits, sovereign territory. Except Iranians don’t have that tradition. You Russians should know that better than anybody, because one of your writers, Griboedev, was torn to pieces by a mob in Tehran back in 1829. Maybe they were mad from trying to pronounce his name, I don’t know, but they sure weren’t too worried about entering the embassy to get at him. They turned him into a Russian pinata, ripping him apart like the zombies in Land of the Dead. Our last chance to evacuate the embassy was October 22, 1979, when the US finally admitted the dying Shah for urgent gall-bladder surgery. Two weeks later-and for those two weeks there were daily, giant protests with a million people screaming “Marg bar Amrika,” “Death to America”-a crowd of radicals swarmed the embassy. The Marine guards were ordered not to fire on the crowds, so we gave up without a fight, setting the pattern for this whole humiliating episode. The “students” were amateurs, so some staff escaped and took refuge in the Canadian embassy. The occupiers released some hostages, mostly women, non-Americans and blacks. The rest were blindfolded, handcuffed and toyed around with-there were mock executions with unloaded rifles, that kind of sadistic crap. Everybody was holding their breath waiting to see what America, the strongest power in the world, would do. Nobody, and I remember this real well, could believe it as the weeks went by and we did nothing. Nothing. We had the bad luck to have as president this freak, Jimmy Carter. What a piece of work he was. We knew he was a Christian, but we didn’t know he was the kind of soft-headed Christian that actually believed in turning the other cheek when you’re hit. All our presidents were churchgoers, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a president who actually bought that nonsense, and I pray (or I would if I still believed in God) that we never do again. Nixon, for example, was a Quaker-but he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a “pacifist.”
Carter was a whole different animal from those guys. He didn’t threaten the hostage-takers, he “negotiated.” Meaning, he begged. “Please, Mister Khomeini, can we have our hostages back?” It was the lowest point in American history. Every night on the news there were scenes to make you sick, blindfolded hostages being shown off to giant rallies in Tehran. And Carter settled for embargoing oil from Iran. Meaning my parents had to pay double for gas. Oh, and he froze some of their assets. Which must’ve really hurt, because now that oil prices shot up, the mullahs were rolling in rials. We didn’t know it then, but Carter was some sort of sick Gandhi mutant version of a Southern Baptist. The most expensive armed forces in history were just dying to make those bearded bastards pay, and Carter sat back and tried talking to them nicely. We could have done things that would make our name feared throughout history. We could have made them forget Genghis Khan, who was responsible for turning Eastern Iran into the moonscape it still is today. I used to lie in my room after the news, dreaming of what the USAF could do if Carter took the leash off. Like: announce that we were going to nuke Khomeini’s “holy city,” Qum, if the hostages weren’t released. And do it. Then announce we were going to nuke another, bigger city-and do it. And keep doing it, going from smaller to bigger Iranian cities until Tehran was the only one left. Then, if the idiots didn’t let the hostages go, sadly announce that all the hostages were brutally butchered, and seal Tehran underneath hot, radioactive glass. I guarantee you we wouldn’t be having our current problems if we’d done that 25 years ago. If you don’t have the stomach for that level of violence, then do what one high-ranking USAF officer suggested: using our jamming/e-warfare planes to wipe out all telecommunications across Iran. See if they’re so eager for the Dark Ages after all. We did none of the above. Carter’s braintrust started dreaming about rescue raids, like the Israelis had pulled off in Entebbe. That’s how Charlie Beckwith’s pitiful “Operation Eagle Claw” was born. Carter wanted a plan that would snatch the hostages from safe houses scattered in an enemy city of four million people. Stupid. American Special Forces missions have less than a 50% success rate, and the odds on this one were much, much worse than that. The only way to get the hostages out was to hurt Iran enough to make them GIVE the hostages back, screaming “Take them! Take them!” and Carter had ruled that out. His Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, who looked like a Cub Scout leader, knew it wouldn’t work. Even Beckwith, the mission Commander, knew it was hopeless. He calculated the risk of failure at 99.9%, but the poor bastard followed his CINC’s orders and devised a plan. It was maybe the worst plan in history. Eight RH-53D heavy-lift choppers-not the best ones we had either, but so-called “hangar queens” were used because their commanders weren’t warned of the seriousness of the mission-would take off from the USS Nimitz and rendezvous with six C-130 transports at Desert One, a desert point near Iran’s southern coast. After being refueled, the eight choppers would take Delta Force to Desert Two fifty miles outside Tehran, where they were supposed to hide for a full day before being infiltrated into Tehran in trucks. So that’s two big, loud landing strips inside Iran that we were supposed to manage without getting spotted. Plus a full day of trying to hide out. If you’ve read Andy McNab’s book Bravo Two Zero about what happened when his SAS team tried to hide out in rural Iraq during Gulf War I, you know how crazy that was. McNab’s guys, the best soldiers in the world, were spotted by an old man herding goats before they even got unpacked. If the Delta guys had somehow managed to go undiscovered and make it into Tehran in those trucks-another big “if”-and if they somehow found and rescued the hostage-an “if” the size of Shaquille O’Neal-the plan was that they’d take the hostages by truck to a downtown Tehran soccer stadium. Choppers would fly them from there to Manzariyeh air base 40 miles SE of Tehran, where C-141s would land, pick up the Delta operators and hostages and fly them home. With some plans, you can find the flaw and say, “Aha! There’s the problem!” But this plan was so hopeless, so complicated, with so many impossible stages open to so many obvious disasters, that you can’t even isolate a single flaw. It was all flaws, and no logic. On April 24, 1980, Operation Eagle Claw went off. Soon after hitting the Iranian desert, the RH-53D’s flew into a “Haboob”-one of the dust storms that make the desert a Hell for pilots. The first chopper dropped with mechanical problems two hours from the Nimitz. Another had to turn around after trying to fly through the dust storm. That left six choppers, the bare minimum, still working. They landed at the Desert One rendezvous an hour late. The C-130s were already waiting. The choppers were refueled, the Delta Force team was itching to go, when they found out that one of the choppers was inoperable-hydraulic failure. That was it: the plan wouldn’t work with just five choppers. Beckwith had no choice but to scrub the mission right there in the desert. All because Carter only authorized eight lousy choppers. When Nixon heard about it, he had a great comment: “Eight? Why not a thousand? It’s not like we don’t have them!” Carter should’ve listened to the Quaker Nixon. What’s the world coming to when a Quaker ex-president has the right warlike attitude and a Southern Baptist, which Carter supposedly was, cringes like a pacifist? But the worst was yet to come. Eight men-five USAF crew and three USMC chopper crew—died when one of the RH-53D tried to take off, got blown by the sandstorm into a taxi-ing C-130 and turned both aircraft into a huge fireball. We were very lucky a lot more men didn’t die. There were 44 troops on that plane, and only a heroic effort by the loadmaster got the jammed doors open so they could get off. The survivors flew off, totally gutted. And when the Iranians noticed the columns of black smoke, they hopped on their camels and found the wreckage of Carter’s rescue mission. Every newspaper in the world, every TV station, carried this picture that’s burned into my eyes for life: some greasy, stupid mullah grinning at the camera as he holds up the charred arm of an American serviceman. I can’t describe the sick, terrible feeling I had watching that on TV, then seeing it again on the front page of the paper. Like watching your family get raped while you’re strapped in a chair. From that moment Reagan was in. His handlers made sure the hostages weren’t released before the election. They timed it nicely: the hostages finally got out on Inauguration Day, 444 days after they were captured. Carter was still trying to micro-manage the negotiations; he brought a phone to Reagan’s inauguration. We took revenge, in a way, by arming Saddam in his war against Iran. His tanks crossed the border on September 22, 1980. I’ve told the story of that war in another column (eXile #178, “The War Nobody Watched”). The Iranians paid big-time, losing 500,000 dead and more than a million wounded. We fed Saddam intelligence and materiel to bleed the Iranians, and they bled all right. But it wasn’t a very satisfying kind of vengeance, doing it by proxy. It was sneaky and weak, the kind of thing the Venetians or Austrians would have done, not worthy of America. And it was America that really suffered, thanks to Carter’s insane pacifism. The old tradition of American nationalism, what they’re now calling “paleoconservatism,” was destroyed forever by that humiliation in the desert. Ever since then, America has been so scared of sounding weak that we keep falling for the chickenhawks who woof the loudest, even when it’s obvious they don’t have a clue about war or national power. Just compare the two Bushes: Bush Senior engineered our greatest victory since 1945 in Gulf War One-and he was voted out. He was a real vet, a pilot who’d been shot down in WW II-but he didn’t know how to strut, how to woof. People didn’t take to him, and didn’t care that he brought us a glorious victory. He couldn’t woof, so we got rid of him. Whereas people still love his worthless son, even though that fool has led us into our most disastrous military failure in history. They’d rather have a noisy chickenhawk than a quiet hero-they’d rather have Dubya than his dad. The trouble is that guys who are good at woofing generally believe their own noise. So Dubya actually believes all that “bring it on!” crap. His dad, the real hero, warned him not to occupy Iraq. Dad was an old-style paleocon; he was thinking about keeping America strong and safe during and after the war. Dubya and his handlers don’t give a damn about America, never did. They’re in love with their own noise. And we’re in love with it too, following it right down the toilet. It didn’t have to be this way. If any other president we ever had had been in the Oval Office when the Iran Hostage Crisis went down, we’d have had the Mullahs begging us to take back our diplomats-and Khomeini’s “holy city” of Qum would be a lake of molten glass. But we had Jimmy Carter, a man who once got mugged by a rabbit. And that’s what drove us into the arms of sleazy neo-conmen like Cheney and Dubya, who know too much about how to fool the suckers back home and not a damn thing about the big, bad world. And who suckered them into invading Iraq? You guessed it: Iran, by sending double agents like Chalabi to tell the Neocons it was going to be a “cakewalk.” Meanwhile, our forces are so bogged down by an Iranian-influenced insurgency that we can’t threaten Iran anymore. They’re still fucking with America, and fucking us hard. Now all Iran has to do is wait a couple years and stroll into the oil fields of Basra. Without firing a shot, Iran gets all of Shi’ite Iraq, 60% of the Iraqi population and two-thirds of the oil reserves. And America will be stuck with even more shrill chickenhawks pissing the nation’s power and might away. The result: Game, set and match to the Mullahs. Posted by Phil Peterson on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 at 10:56 PM in History Comments:2
Posted by seelow heights on September 06, 2005, 04:13 PM | # “There’s nobody speaking for simple pro-Americans like me, except maybe Pat Buchanan (and he weirds me out too with his thing about Mexicans. What’s wrong with Mexicans? They’re the best soldiers we’ve got. Just check the casualty lists from Iraq: they read like the employee timesheet at your local burrito shack.)” 3
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 04:26 PM | # Seelow, One doesn’t have to agree with him 100 percent to appreciate the odd insight he comes up with. The Nerd is also a fool in his own goofy sort of way. But his chronicling of that disaster in Iran tells us that the US establishment has had a soft underbelly for a long time. Or as Geoff would say (and I agree), the US is a Paper Tiger. Martin, Bush I was right not to go into Iraq. Saddam had been effectively castrated and posed no serious threat to anyone. Mrs Thatcher was sound in many respects and foolhardy in others. The simple fact is that in an age of political correctness and “diversity” worship and multiculturalism etc., it is impossible for western armies to effectively occupy non-western nations for a long period of time especially if the populace is well armed (as the Iraqis obviously are). The only way to rule Iraq is by being brutal (the way Saddam was). Saddam was the perfect ruler for Iraq and he certainly understood the “mentality” of the Arab far better than any of our “statesmen” ever will. As for Kuwait, it is a facade of modernity built on Oil wealth. The average Kuwaiti is every bit as unemployable as the average Saudi and when the Oil revenues start to shrink, the prosperity will also disappear. Here is another example of a “westernised” Kuwaiti writing in a Kuwaiti newspaper about Hurricane Katrina. Now thats gratitude! 4
Posted by Martin Hutchinson on September 06, 2005, 04:30 PM | # The Kuwaiti piece looks like a typical blog on the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post to me, just better written. If we’d invaded Iraq in ‘91 we would NOT have had to stay there longer than a few months (and with 500,000 troops, Iraqi resistance would have been futile.) You can blame Clinton/Blair’s emasculation of the armed forces, too, if you want to. 5
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 04:51 PM | # Martin, You forget that all US “allies” refused to go into Iraq and said that they would stick with the UN mandate (which was to kick Saddam out of Kuwait). So I am not sure where you get the figure for 500,000 troops. Also, the number of troops you have doesn’t alter the fact that you have to be brutal in an old fashioned sort of way to control a country. Here is Arthur Harris on using poison gas on the Iraqis: “the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand.” Its not about numbers and budgets, plans and technology and all that. It is fundamentally about will and about spirit. When those things are dead, you see the kind of situation that exists in Iraq today. If Americans of today’s generation were told that they would have to actually do the things Harris and Churchill were (more than) willing to do to control Iraq, they would want out. I am not justifying the war, by the way. Merely saying that if one is unwilling to fight a war with the measures necessary to win, one should not fight. Rather than bog an army in a quagmire for a generation, it is better to stay ay home instead. 6
Posted by Geoff Beck on September 06, 2005, 04:53 PM | # My opinion of Carter, while still low, is improving. Did you know he was the last president under which arrests of employers hiring illegal aliens were regularly performed? Border enforcement was a serious matter under Carter. > [Bush I, that] snivelling useless wimp at the time of the Gulf War we’d have zapped Saddam in 1991, This is the craziest thing I’ve read. If you read pappa Bush’s book, published in the early ‘90s he explained his decision not to go into Iraq - saying we would never get out, it would be a quagmire. Too bad little Bush didn’t have Scowcroft ( The old WASP ) instead of the Jewish neo-Con wormtongue Wolfowitz whispering in his ear. 7
Posted by Svigor on September 06, 2005, 05:49 PM | # The simple fact is that in an age of political correctness and “diversity” worship and multiculturalism etc., it is impossible for western armies to effectively occupy non-western nations for a long period of time especially if the populace is well armed (as the Iraqis obviously are). Yes, the inability you refer to is an illusory one that once again stems from the same hydra that is killing the west. No one, NO ONE ever challenges this illusion, the illusion that we cannot wage total war against those who do not merit the application of limited war. Of course no one, NO ONE even acknowledges this illusion, because acknowledging it would require that we give up on foreign adventurism, or at least discuss doing so. Too bad little Bush didn’t have Scowcroft ( The old WASP ) instead of the Jewish neo-Con wormtongue Wolfowitz whispering in his ear. Bush II is a nutcase. It took me a long time, until recently, to really give this fact the attention it deserves. He simply does not have the mental capacity for the job. I used to scoff at the leftist assertion that Bush was substantially motivated by the idea to “finish his father’s war” and the like, but no longer. Bush has publicly stated that he is indeed driven by the urge to succeed where his father failed. He views his father’s failures with contempt. He really is the sort of man motivated far more by his personal demons than by any desire to do a good job for the American people. So, I’m far more agnostic than I once was on the issue of whether his mestizo family connections have much to do with his insane immigration policies. 8
Posted by Fred Scrooby on September 06, 2005, 05:50 PM | # How’s this for American nationalism: to be a miserable day for them,” [U.S. soccer-team kicker Landon] Donovan said of the Mexican players. “The best way to make them miserable is to beat their national team. […] They are jealous of us, the Mexican players, because we’ve got a life and they have nothing,” Donovan said. “Because of that they despise us.” (Donovan apparently doesn’t care much for Mexicans. Maybe he thought the death threat trash talk by a Mexican player against his mother was over the line. [Here’s what he said after the U.S. team’s victory:] “They suck,” he said. “I’m so happy. After we got that first goal they were never in the game. Hopefully that will shut them up for the next three or four years.” Donovan sounds like my kinda guy. 9
Posted by dissidentman on September 06, 2005, 05:51 PM | #
I had heard that before the war the Iraqi’s were complaining about Kuwait slant drilling accross the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border which would be a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty if true, hence a justification for war. In any event I don’t think that Hussein was ever given a fair hearing. I’m not sure if his views on the subject were ever aired on the MSM, similar to how Osasma’s complaints about US support of Israel are were almost always omitted from public discussion. In any event supposing we agree that Iraq simply overtaking Kuwait constituted an internationally recogniseable form of wrongdoing, then even so why should western countries be expected to lead the effort to right things? It happened in the Arab corner of the world and Arab countries should have been expected to lead any efforts to resolve the situation with other countries lending assistance. So much is my opinion. My beef boils down to “why did the US (and the U.K) decide to play global messiah?” There is a certain arrogance involved in assuming that role, which America may come to regret. Lest we forget, if i recall correctly, evidence was manufactured to drum up support for Gulf war I. For instance the story of Kuwaiti babies in incubators being bayonetted and even the purported massing of Iraqi tanks on the Saudi border (*before* the war effort got under way) were fully concocoted stories, the later created in order to induce the Saudis to sign up for the American desert shoot ‘em up. My opinion is if any government participates in the dissemination of manufactured propaganda in order to generate pro-war sentiment, that in itself should be sufficient reason for the people under it to rise up in rebellion. Governments (be they monarchies democracies, or whatever) should serve the people, not some shadowy set of elites and the people should not permit goverments to lie to them in the name of any cause. 10
Posted by Svigor on September 06, 2005, 05:54 PM | # The Kuwaiti piece looks like a typical blog on the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post to me, just better written. If we’d invaded Iraq in ‘91 we would NOT have had to stay there longer than a few months (and with 500,000 troops, Iraqi resistance would have been futile.) You can blame Clinton/Blair’s emasculation of the armed forces, too, if you want to. I don’t really see how that would’ve helped much. In fact, I don’t really see how GW I helped much. Who cares which camel jockey controls Kuwaiti oil? 11
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 05:58 PM | # My beef boils down to “why did the US (and the U.K) decide to play global messiah?” OIL 12
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 05:59 PM | # In fact, I don’t really see how GW I helped much. Who cares which camel jockey controls Kuwaiti oil? It makes a big difference. The key to understanding the importance of Oil is to understand the importance of consistent and assured supply. Without consistent and assured supply you have economic havoc. This is why it matters which jockey controls the Oil. 13
Posted by dissidenmant on September 06, 2005, 06:09 PM | #
Since the Arab nations have little else in the way of exports they can’t afford not to sell their oil. Whoever happens to be Sheik/mullah/dictator of Iraq/n is of no concern to the west, but the west can always give Arabs a reason to be angry. For instance the west could conceivable meddle in their affairs or give Israel economic and military assistance. 14
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 06:13 PM | # Since the Arab nations have little else in the way of exports they can’t afford not to sell their oil. Whoever happens to be Sheik/mullah/dictator of Iraq/n is of no concern to the west, but the west can always give Arabs a reason to be angry How long did each of the Oil “crisis” in the 1970s last? Not very long. But it was enough to wreak economic havoc. Yes the Arabs must sell the Oil. But being able to withold it for a short time is enough to create the conditions for economic catastrophe (and they have always known that). The market requires “confidence” in the supply. And Oil is fundamental to our way of life. Industrial society cannot exist minus Oil. So having a dangerous (and unpredictable) despot in charge of 50 percent of the world’s oil reserves is a recipe for disaster. 15
Posted by Martin Hutchinson on September 06, 2005, 06:28 PM | # Do I detect among some bloggers an American reluctance to admit what a good and beneficial thing old fashioned Imperialism was? Gulf I was a punitive expedition, similar to Sir Garnet Wolseley’s against Abyssinia in 1868. You don’t stop before the full punishment has been delivered. God knows what the Iraq War was; it was probably unnecessary (no point chastising 12 years late) but the subsequent do-gooding has undoubtely turned a successgful military operation into a quagmire. 16
Posted by Phil on September 06, 2005, 06:40 PM | # Gulf I was a punitive expedition I disagree. It was a defensive operation - an operation to restore the balance of power to the pre-Kuwait invasion scenario (but with a weaker Saddam). You don’t rain down hell on another country in a punitive expedition unless you are sure of your superiority. In an age where the US establishment bends backwards to please Hispanics, Blacks, Homosexuals or any other minority of choice for the day, what gives you the confidence that they would have been able to act in a way that was “punitive”? A good example of a “punitive” war would be the Roman desruction of Carthage. It doesn’t get more punitive than that. And the Romans could do it because they believed that their Gods ordained them to be the masters of the Earth. That implies a belief in superiority. And Roman sense of superiority would put the spirit of every democratic army in the shade. 17
Posted by Svigor on September 06, 2005, 07:08 PM | # I think we can come up with policies to ensure the flow of oil that don’t require land invasion. I also think it’s impossible to guarantee that any replacement for the likes of Saddam is an improvement, in the absence of such policies. 18
Posted by Geoff Beck on September 06, 2005, 07:11 PM | # > Oil Phil says Oil is the main reason, I agree: O.I.L. = Oil, Israel, Logistics. —Ray McGovern, Former CIA analyst His interview is here. 60 Minutes, MP3 19
Posted by Geoff Beck on September 06, 2005, 07:22 PM | # BTW, even the toadies at NR noticed this one: —President Won’t use Racist Words! WHITE HOUSE (AP)- In the debate about how to describe those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush is joining those who don’t like the word “refugees.” The president tells reporters, “The people we’re talking about are not refugees, they are Americans.” And he adds, “They need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens.” Bush spoke during a meeting with leaders of charity and volunteer groups who are helping Katrina’s victims. His words appear to put him on the same side as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who has declared it’s “racist” to call U.S. citizens refugees. Jackson and other black leaders say the word has a criminal connotation—and prefer the more neutral term “evacuees.” 20
Posted by Stuka on September 07, 2005, 09:50 AM | # And the Romans could do it because they believed that their Gods ordained them to be the masters of the Earth. That implies a belief in superiority. In this, then, Americans are similar to the Romans. Americans believe their open, democratic(!), multiracial, consumer, hedonistic society is superior. It helps justify in their own eyes their God-appointed mission to re-make, to ‘Americanise,’ the world. Of course, the main difference is that the Romans really were civilised, whereas modern Americans largely are barbarians. 21
Posted by DissedentMan on September 07, 2005, 03:12 PM | # Another thing that bears mentioning is that before gulf war I the american amabassador to Iraq told Sadam that AMerica was ambmivalent about any iraqi invasion of Kuwait. THis, I contend, is reason in itself for America not get involved because, the prounouncements of an Ambassador should be regardedable by everyone in the world as the official policy of the the country from which the amabassor came. If not then the whole institution of international diplomacy becomes irredeemably cheapened, which would be far more likely to lead to worldwide strife then anything Sadam ever did. ALso if the amabasador did misrepresent American policy then why wasn’t she given some kind of ultra-severe punishment? An amabassador is like a military officer with enourmous responsibilities and screw-ups should be punishable in ways that would be considered extremely severe in other contexts. Perhaps her failure on the job is evidence that women are not cut out to be ambassors but one way or another, i find it disturbing that the administration of Bush I didn’t feel bound by the words of its highest ranking diplomants. I guess its proof that the american government is controlled by dishonorable creeps. 22
Posted by Phil on September 07, 2005, 04:20 PM | # Stuka, It is true that Americans believe their civilization is superior - i.e., tolerance, multiracialism, decadence, feminism, the celebration of homosexuality, all those things make America (and the West) superior to the rest of mankind. But unlike the Romans, who were capable of harsh measures that would make our hair stand up, Americans are soft and have no real desire to put up a real fight to impose their way of life on others - if the others resist. I mean what is the Iraqi resistance anyway? The US could flatten it in 2 days. Instead its been bled to death in two years. This is why it is a fallacy to think of material things as a sign of great strength. In material terms a mightier nation has never existed in the history of man. In spirit, America (and the West) is essentially dead. And it is for that reason that those pesky Arab sunnis can fight ferociously and make the Americans look hopelessly weak. 23
Posted by Phil on September 07, 2005, 05:15 PM | # I should clarify one other thing: Roman sense of superiority was for a very long time embedded among Romans as a people. The American sense of superiority is soft (by comparison) and is not embedded in Americans believing they are superior beings (now that would be “racist”) but believing that their tolerance, feminism, celebration of homosexuality, Hijabs etc. makes their society superior to the rest of mankind. But this is a superiority which is not Noble but based on condescension. Nietzsche would have called it the vanity of the Last Man (which is basically what it is). 24
Posted by Svigor on September 07, 2005, 06:03 PM | # Donovan sounds like my kinda guy. Yeah I enjoyed reading that too. It’s sad that natural behavior is inspiring these days. 25
Posted by Svigor on September 07, 2005, 06:08 PM | # Another thing that bears mentioning is that before gulf war I the american amabassador to Iraq told Sadam that AMerica was ambmivalent about any iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Your contention was seconded by the U.S. government, which gave her another job (a promotion?) instead of firing her. She did precisely what she was told to do. 26
Posted by Fred Scrooby on September 07, 2005, 07:01 PM | # “Yeah I enjoyed reading that too. It’s sad that natural behavior is inspiring these days.” (—Svigor) By the way, I hope Donovan doesn’t get the John Rocker treatment for the things he said about the Mex’s. 27
Posted by James Bowery on September 07, 2005, 10:08 PM | # The cities are the Jews primary habitat. Real war will use nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are perfectly designed to attack cities. Jews have taken over the US therefore the US cannot fight a real war. Any society run by Jews in the nuclear age is militarily impotent. 28
Posted by James Bowery on September 07, 2005, 10:16 PM | # War nerd needs better statistics about Hispanic war casualties in Iraq. They’re being killed at a lower rate than even blacks and both are being killed below their numbers in the draft-age population. 29
Posted by Geoff Beck on September 07, 2005, 10:19 PM | # James, I see many anti-globalist counter-trends developing, many folks are tired of being ruled by ethic minorities, impersonal and bureaucratic institutions. Nuclear weapons seem the ultimate tool of liberation for those opposed to globalization. Hypothetically, say you are a frustrated ethnic group tired of belonging being sucked dry by the bankers in the capital city - get a nuke(s) and threaten to blow up their city unless you get independence. My guess is once the majority population hears of such a threat they’ll be more than happy to let them go. 30
Posted by Geoff Beck on September 07, 2005, 10:21 PM | # > Numbers James, my number crunching reveals the exact same findings. Whites are expendible. 31
Posted by Phil on September 08, 2005, 03:17 AM | # War nerd needs better statistics about Hispanic war casualties in Iraq James, You can e-mail him about his flawed observation about Mexican casualties. The best way to deal with factual inacuracies (and conclusions) is by pointing them out. His e-mail is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). 33
Posted by Svigor on September 08, 2005, 01:41 PM | # James, my number crunching reveals the exact same findings. Has anyone thrown in the adjacent age group (25-34 or whatever) and seen how that impacts the results? That’s the first thing any leftist is going to want. 34
Posted by Svigor on September 08, 2005, 02:36 PM | # Population % Next entry: America’s Only True Nation Previous entry: Turning the financial screw on the Afrikaner |
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Posted by Martin Hutchinson on September 06, 2005, 04:10 PM | #
I have to say that looks pretty spot-on to me. It was clear even at the time that failing to support the Shah was a HUGE disaster, and would lead to bad stuff for a generation, which it has.
The only point at which I’d disagree is the positive view of Daddy Bush—if he hadn’t been such a snivelling useless wimp at the time of the Gulf War we’d have zapped Saddam in 1991, at which point there was still a fucntioning opposition grouop who could simply have taken over—we’d have been out of there within 3 months, and been backed by the UN and all the other creeps. Saddam invaded his neighbor, Kuwait, a fairly civilized Westernized country, and therefore needed to be taken out. Mrs T. understood this, wimpo Bush I didn’t.
Even this time around, the mistake was not going in, but faffing around trying to instal a democracy once we’d zapped the bad guys. All we needed was one toughie and a few billion for his secret police (Chalabi would have done fine) and Iraq would have been run by OUR SOBs, which was the object of the exercise.