Category Archives: Middle East

This Is Who We Are

Barack Obama, Education, Homeland Security, Jihad, Middle East, Military, Nationhood, Political Philosophy, Terrorism, War

The following is from this week’s WND.COM column, “This Is Who We Are”:

“… By the estimate of “Yahoo! Search Trends,” teens ages 13-17 … made up 66 percent of searches for ‘who is osama bin laden?’” “The figures give a revealing insight into the lack of current affairs and general knowledge among teenagers,” quipped the Daily Mail’s correspondent.

The twits were indeed atwitter:

Tara: I’m probably retarded for asking this, but who is Osama and why is it good that he died?
Cory: Who is Osama and why is it important we killed him?
Shawn: who is Osama Bin Laden? Is he in the band as well?

Reptilian brains like these took their spring-break behavior to the streets when the news about bin Laden’s demise broke. They too are who we are.

Why not own our atavism? There will always be a marginalized, underbelly of genius and ingenuity in America. But for the rest, we have morphed into a militant, mindless people.

In its clodhopper’s traipse around the world, our military has caused the deaths and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, squandered trillions of our debased dollars, destroyed at least two countries, and crippled the American economy. Had the ‘Pac Men Of The Universe’ undertaken and achieved a precision operation after 9/11—it would be worth celebrating. But not now.

Conga lines of jubilant Americans must, by sad necessity, give way to welfare lines. If recent news reports are to be believed, one in seven Americans stands in-line for food stamps from the government.

That is now the alpha and omega of American life. …”

Read the complete column, “This Is Who We Are is,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE V: Atavism On the Streets of America (THE UNIT)

Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, John McCain, Justice, Middle East, Military, Terrorism, The State, War

Today Barack Obama just about guaranteed his reelection by offering up the blood, guts and gore Americans seem to crave. Like Bush before him, the president and his advisers know that to keep the American people tuned-out, they have to keep them turned-on. Killing and carnage turns too many Americans on; makes them like animals in perpetual estrous (on heat). It’s just the way it is.

I wager it’s quite possible that the body of the slain Osama bin Laden will be put on display, much as the Bush administration proudly exhibited the horribly mutilated bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons.

Some Americans streamed into the streets of the Capital and gathered at Ground Zero, New York, in jubilation over the bin Laden kill, much as the Arab Street erupts after their Americans or Israeli enemies are murdered. (To their credit, I have not seen Israelis throng to Rabin Square to celebrate similar occurrences, although I’ve seen them form human chains from Tel-Aviv to Haifa to stop a war.)

How different are we from our Arab adversaries? Not much, or so it would seem. That vulgarist Geraldo Rivera surrounded himself with hysterical reptilian brains—students who were behaving as on a spring break. Or in a fashion that would do any primitive tribe proud.

Except that a primitive tribe generally wages war only on imminent enemies, and confines the battle to the home front. Had such a precision operation been undertaken and achieved after 9/11, without wasting trillions of dollars, destroying at least two countries along the way, and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, to say nothing of the American economy, the travel industry, on and on—it would be worth celebrating. But not now.

And not in this manner. A civilized people doesn’t dance in the streets in celebration of the enemy’s death; barbarians do.

First to die today at the hands of NATO (purportedly “Danish airmen possibly in an F16 bomber”) were members of the Gaddafi family, when their compound was hit on the weekend. The Libyan government reported that Gaddafi’s “second youngest son, 29-year old Saif al-Arab, and three grandchildren under 12” were murdered. What had they done to anybody?

Nevertheless, barbarism booster John McCain rattled his old bones in a jolly jig, with nary a thought for the kids killed:

“We should be taking out his command and control. If he is killed or injured because of that, that’s fine.”

UPDATE I: TOO LATE FOR PAC MEN OF THE UNIVERSE. Nobody disputes that OBL needed killing. It ought to have been done by precision pac men: highly select, special-ops soldiers, and not by lumbering standing armies that scooped up in their dragnet entire countries and economies (ours). The state can’t do anything right. I said as much in 2002. I made recommendations against the “military’s clodhopper’s traipse around the world” in “Facing the Onslaught of Jihad”:

Professional killers get high on blood and can be put to good use as the Pac-Men of the universe. Paid by contract, the mercenary is far more motivated than a poorly paid soldier.
GI Joe, moreover, has little incentive to avoid killing civilians. Punishment for carelessness is infrequent and responsibility for mishaps is collectivized. Litigating against the employees of an all-powerful superpower can be Kafkaesque. Ultimately, the people who pay for the soldier’s excesses are the taxpayers.
The mercenary contractor, on the other hand, will incur liability for “collateral damage,” the euphemism for killing innocents. For the mercenary, stray bullets mean strained budgets. Above all, like any private contractor, mercenaries are paid in full only on delivering the Bin properly Laden with goods.

UPDATE II: HE WENT DOWN FIRING: “U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.” OBL refused to surrender.

UPDATE III: STORY CHANGES. Now the custodians of the allowable information claim that OBL “Hid Behind One of His Wives During Firefight.” This is just a wild guess: The stories will vary depending on the circumstances and the politician weaving the yarn. I also hazard that the general direction will to demean the enemy.

I can offer a historic perspective on the enemy’s evolving courage. During the Six-Day War, in 1967, Egyptians were often mocked in Israel for their cowardice. Piles of shoes were left in the desert, as the Egyptian soldiers fled from the Israelis. They removed their shoes and ran. (Google seems to have scrubbed these famous images from their search.) But that has changed. The Jihadis are cowards in as much as their “military” strategy is to go after defenseless civilians. But are they cowards in death? I doubt it.

UPDATE IV: MURDER IN LIBYA. “There were no obvious signs of military command and control facilities, but there were signs that the buildings were being used as a residence,” reports the Star Tribune. “In a kitchen, rice, pasta, fish and stuffed peppers were on a stove, with a wall clock stopped at 8:08 p.m., the time of the attack. In the building, which took a direct hit, women’s dresses were buried in the concrete debris.”

No wonder “U.S., British and Italian embassies were attacked and burned by angry mobs in the Libyan capital Sunday, hours after a NATO airstrike was reported to have killed one of Moammar Gadhafi’s sons and three of his grandchildren.”

UPDATE V: THE UNIT. I can see how the operation executed by “the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru,” will make for a good episode of “The Unit.” Yes, I confess; I watch it. It’s one of the more tolerable action drama series on TV, because it features … action, good acting, and very few women pretending to be as strong or as capable on the battle field as men. I’m allergic to those. (If there is a skinny, annoying fem, weighing 80 pounds, and chasing bad guys in stilettos, I change the channel.) Although “The Unit” has elements of “Jack Bauer: Federal Zombie,” which I simply hated, beggars can’t be choosy.

UPDATED: The Titan Is Tired

EU, Foreign Policy, Israel, Judaism & Jews, libertarianism, Middle East, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, The West, UN

The following is from “The Titan Is Tired,” my new WND.COM column:

“… This column has been consistently polite about—but disinterested in—the putative push for freedom across the Middle East.

Dare I say that such a stance, and not slobbering sentimentality, is the proper, libertarian position? I promised, accordingly, that when liberty deprived peoples the world over supported patriots stateside, I’d return the favor.

The same goes for Israel. Israelis want the support of Americans in standing up for their national sovereignty. Fine. But they should respond in kind.

The titan is tired. We Americans have our own tyrants to tackle. We no longer want to defend to the death borders not our own—be they in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, wherever. And we don’t need our friends looking to us to do so.”

The complete column is “The Titan Is Tired,” now on WND.COM.

UPDATE (April 29): On Facebook, our friend Nebojša Mali writers this: “Ilana, the whole article is well-written, but that last paragraph is simply outstanding.”

Me: “Let me read it. Forgot it. Oh, it’s up there in the excerpt. Thanks, Nebojsa; coming from you, that’s nice. I think it captures how I feel personally: tired. Can’t imagine what some poor marine, or any soldier, must feel as the unarmed armchair warriors here and abroad coax him back to hell for the 1000th deployment. What the hell for? So that Ann Coulter can continue to be the prettiest, most profitable (almost) war profiteer around? Here’s something written about that for your site (antiwar.com), it’s called “LETHAL WEAPONS: NEOCON GROUPIES.”

UPDATE II: McMussolini Has Spoken (Succors Terrorists)

Foreign Policy, Islam, Jihad, John McCain, Middle East, Military, Republicans, Terrorism, War

He landed in Libya, checked into the local Benghazi hotel, looked around, and saw that the war was good, and then he spoketh:

“The [rebels] are my heroes,” exclaimed John McCain, senator for Arizona. And a hero deserves “every appropriate means of assistance,” including “command and control support, battlefield intelligence, training and weapons.”

Only a bit more thoughtful than his notoriously mindless daughter, McCain, joined by “Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.),” has shown no awareness of the intelligence. (Thank you, WikiLeaks) Fighting Qaddafi are “[f]ormer jihadi fighters who underwent ‘religious and ideological training’ in Afghanistan, Lebanon and the West Bank…”

From the pollution he has left along his political path McCain can run but cannot hide. Republicans once wisely rejected war in Kosovo. McCain, back then, jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and “more boots on the ground.” Not so long ago it was “bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran,” and the promise of a 100 year war in Iraq, which was bound to break the bank that McCain once vowed to make solvent.

Under the loving gaze of the media, McCain’s jingoism is ever evolving.

UPDATE I: You want to watch former CIA Counterterrorism analyst Michael Scheuer tell the teletwits of CNN that they are “carrying water for Obama.” Scheuer shone on Freedom Watch too, telling the Judge’s viewers that drones give you nothing but a body count, but no progress on the ground. “Why are we there; why do we care?” he asked, while pointing to “confusion, ignorance and even arrogance in the way the U.S. has handled the unrest in the Middle East so far.” I’ll say!

The sentiments expressed in “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn”

UPDATE II (April 26): McCain Gives Succor To Terrorists. Jack Hunter at the American Conservative:

“Who says there is evidence of a link between the Libyan rebels and Al-Qaeda? US and British intelligence, NATO leaders, and the Libyan rebels themselves. Who says there is not a link? John McCain, who calls the rebels ‘heroes.'” MORE...