A Different Take

Props to the Sandmonkey (of all people) for this Jewish newsletter link.

I still hold that the war was a tactical failure for the IDF, but there are obviously people who feel that it is only a bump in the road. The Israelis are indeed a proud force with a lot of talented people and a LOT of motivation to finish the job, so I hope they take the lesson and are ready for next time.

Of course I lack the Int contacts to verify anything these (or pretty much any other) guys are saying here, but it sounds plausible. The stuff about the bunkers in South Lebanon is particularly interesting to me, as I wonder what the Israelis have done to root them out if they are in fact as prevalent as this article indicates. If I lacked the time/opportunity to destroy them, I’d just have the co-ordinates punched into the bunker busters that are hopefully waiting around for round 2…

I’ve seen some realpolitik stuff suggesting we use some more carrot than stick with the Syrians to unhinge Hizbollah’s logistics, and I concur. The Syrians have nothing to gain by advancing Iran’s agenda, and a lot to lose by giving either the Americans or Israelis a reason to take out or undermine the regime. I was also in favour of mending fences with Quadaffi in Libya years ago when he first started making an effort, but I’m a pragmatic guy. Libya does however show that it can be done, and something different is definitely needed. There remains the Golan thing, but I’ll just bury that fly deeper in the ointment for now.

More Political Genius

Once again, leave it to the puddin’ heads to make Canada look good, and the CBC to promote their message.

Taking Hezbollah off the terror list would simply give Iran and everyone else with an axe to grind against the West carte blanche to do whatever they want AND get political recognition for it too.

Canadian MPs Boris Wrzesnewskyj and Peggy Nash come across as the sort of soft-headed appeasers who could yet spell the death of progressive western society. As apologists for those who think us infidel pigs to be conquered or killed, I think they should both be packed off to Iran (patron of Hezbollah, after all) to live for a while, and let them gob off about what the government does there. They should last about 2 days.

I was trying to come up with something clever here, but I’m just beating the same dog; just couldn’t entirely leave it lie though…

Death by 1001 Cuts

I’ll be blunt: Israel has lost this one.

Not news to anyone paying any attention to the latest war in Lebanon, but I had to go on the record with it. The only way to eliminate Hezbollah is to “ideologically cleanse” out every last supporter of them from within range of Israel and keep them out. Killing most of them would have been a step in the right direction too.

The reasons Israel couldn’t do that (their particular history and generally being an enlightened democracy) are the same reasons that the West’s whole “War on Terror” is going in the wrong direction. As has been said before (including by me of course) a lot more people have to die before there’s a meaningful change in the status quo.

What the hell do I mean by that, you ask? A good question, and let’s see if I can answer it.

Well, wholesale slaughter and/or effective containment will do a lot of our work for us. Less people who want the decadent Crusader-Zionist countries assimilated into some Universal Caliphate means less potential terrorists, or at least a nice contained area that we could pit our volunteer armed forces against them. I’ve read some stuff that suggested that was the Americans’ plan for Iraq, but I don’t credit them with that kind of foresight. While on that topic however, any kind of “divide and conquer” the Yanks may have been attempting there seems about ready to fall into the lap of Iran, but I won’t go there right now. Wouldn’t be the first time the US backed the wrong “enemy of my enemy”…

This of course is anathema to us enlightened democracies, and it would take a LOT to get us back into a Dresden/nuke-‘em-til-they-glow mindset. It rather surprised me, but even 9/11 didn’t do it. If the Americans had really taken the gloves off Riyadh would be a crater, the Arabian oilfields would be occupied by and run by the US for the US, and every bit of Saudi money the Yanks could get near would be as frozen as the inner circle of hell. Oh yeah, and they would have knocked over the theocracy in Iran instead of taking out (secular) Saddam Hussein.

The Americans talk about the money that finances/inspires terrorists, but a lot of it comes from their buddies in Saudi, so they go after the small fish instead. If you pluck the leaves the roots are still there, and the two main sources of money to trouble western interests come from Saudi Arabia and Tehran. Short of the Iranians getting the bomb and actually being suicidal enough to use it (or give to someone who would), I don’t see the “enemy” being able to kill enough of us at once to really put the Fear of God into us and then show the radical parts of the Muslim world what we’re capable of..

However, I think at this point they’ve seen as much as they need to of what we’re REALLY made of these days. We’re too soft to do what is required to ensure the continuance of Western civilization and we will eventually reap the results of that. Israel is already being destroyed on the instalment plan, and any hare-brained scheme to take over or destroy an airliner or two can paralyse us for days on end. It won’t end with our toothpaste and bottled water, but it could if we wanted it to.

Lucky it wasn't a retinal scanner...

I'm sick to death of all the mid-east stuff, so I'll hare off in another direction, and find as many others as I can so as not to get bogged down.

I like security for my stuff as much as the next guy, but you have to weigh the consequences of "fool proof" biometrics, as this article points out. Things are just things, and with the insurance you (should) have on big stuff, you can get another one. The article covers it quite well, but I thought it could use more circulation, as I've been saying something similar for a long time. Something to think about if you're looking to upgrade security.

If you had something that was worth your life to defend, something scanning your mental state or whatever might do the job, but the technology hasn't caught up with human ruthlessness adequately to achieve a balance. Protect those PINs people, it's the safest thing we've got...

In for a Penny, In for a Pounding

In the continuing war against dark-ages revanchism (aka the “War on Terror”) we continue to lose troops in ongoing combat operations. Yesterday was a bad day for Canadian troops in Afghanistan, with 4 dead and 10 wounded.

Again, this is the cost of defending our way of life, since we must be defended against things that menace us as far from our shores as possible. So far Canada has lost 20 soldiers to enemy activity (and 4 more to a trigger-happy American pilot) in the ‘stan, and there will be more. I won’t get into the casualties the US has suffered, but I will add a bit of historical perspective for Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in Canada, since they seem to need it.

All-Canadian forces took the “impregnable” Vimy Ridge position from the Germans between 9th and 14th April 1917, and suffered 3598 DEAD in that one battle. Five days (most of the casualties on the first day) versus 4 years with an average to date of 5 dead per YEAR. Yes I know that average is a meaningless statistic, but I think I’ve made my point.

All of our troops are volunteers, and a lot of them are quite eager to pay these Taliban, etc. idiots back with interest for every one of our people who gets hurt or killed. Our side’s taking some stick, but we’re more than happy to give it back, and despite the cursory news coverage, we’ve been doing so.

Pansy-ass politicians (who aren’t even in power) should keep in mind the fact that people out on the sharp end signed up knowing what the risk was, and had every opportunity to get out of the Forces if they felt they didn’t want to deal with it. Comments suggesting that things are “too dangerous” are an insult to the troops, since (a) they’re professional soldiers, and (b) the guys making these comments were in power when Canada was committed to Afghanistan. That’s right Liberal Party; YOU put the troops there, so shut up and let us do the job that YOU saddled us with.

I could get in some trouble for making statements like this, but that’s why my name isn’t all over this. I’ll take a few chances, or I shouldn’t be in the military. To dig things a bit deeper for myself, I’m impressed with how our present government is handling things, and I know the troops appreciate the fact that the people who took over have our backs.

Don’t get the idea that I think troops are disposable; I don’t. One thing you can say though; I want a lot of payback for our losses, and I don’t care that a lot of pudding heads would say “that won’t solve anything”. If you haven’t yet read the poem that my space is named after, I’ll give you the relevant passage:

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troopships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.

Again, change the names and technology, but the concept hasn’t even budged since Kipling’s time.

Let Allah sort them out

The way things are shaking out, I think it’s time to revisit Samuel Huntington.

I can’t say I agree completely with his conclusions, but he’s been in the ballpark for a lot of it, so the whole “clash of civilizations” idea is still in the running. This snippet from “Clash of Civilizations” says most of it for me:

“Fifth, cultural characteristics and differences are less mutable and hence less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones. In the former Soviet Union, communists can become democrats, the rich can become poor and the poor rich, but Russians cannot become Estonians and Azeris cannot become Armenians. In class and ideological conflicts, the key question was "Which side are you on?" and people could and did choose sides and change sides. In conflicts between civilizations, the question is "What are you?" That is a given that cannot be changed. And as we know, from Bosnia to the Caucasus to the Sudan, the wrong answer to that question can mean a bullet in the head. Even more than ethnicity, religion discriminates sharply and exclusively among people. A person can be half-French and half-Arab and simultaneously even a citizen of two countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim.”

That said, I’d say that the REAL divide right now is between progress and regress, and that really gums up the works. Yes, it’s “us vs. them”, but who are we and who exactly are they?

Well, I’m a white Anglo-Scot male, and I haven’t fallen too far from that tree. I’m a believer in (sustainable) progress, and I’m not interested in any kind of organized religion, but I’m not hostile to any that leave me alone. The first sentence may explain the second, but my worldview/beliefs are my identifiers, not my background.

So who do I see as allies? Anyone anywhere who looks forward, not backward; if you’re interested in the tangible progress of humanity (meaning science and new frontiers of discovery in any discipline) we have something in common.

That’s nice and simple. There is no requirement for any ethnic or religious affiliation, but ones’ implementation of religion is an “us or them” determinant. That brings me to the Enemy…

Those crack-head jihadist sons (and daughters) of multiple fathers are “Number 1 with a bullet”. Bullet is the operative word, because in the short term bullets are the only cure for them. There is any number of Luddite apocalyptic cults of various affiliations, but this Islamic throwback to the bad old days puts all of them in the shade.

I share the opinion that Western Civilization is in mortal danger, but the danger isn’t from idiots with car bombs. The real enemy is those in our civilization who are paving the road to hell with their “good intentions”. Tolerance is great, but there are things that we should NOT be allowing. Top of that list is anyone who wants to destroy our civilization. I know I can speak for a lot of other people, but I’ll speak for myself; if you don’t like progressive (“decadent”) western democracy, stay the hell away from it.

Indeed, feel free to start up your Taliban-style repressive dark-ages shithole countries and live in them. Just be prepared that if you do anything to threaten our interests, we will return and settle your hash again, as many times as necessary, leaving you at that stone-age level that you wish so badly to revisit.

Anyone who opposes that sort of system, THOSE are the people I want immigrating to the western democracies. At all costs we have to screen out all of those who want to turn our countries into that circle of hell, and help the people who want the freedom to live well and dress pretty much how they’d like.

As for countries that we’re trying to sort out, I’ll say right now we can’t do it. In places like Afghanistan and Iraq, a lot more people will have to die than we would be willing to kill before you could affect a cultural shift of sufficient magnitude to have any chance of governments arising there that were compatible with our ideas.

Taking the current situation with Lebanon, if the west and Israel moved in, organized all the non-Shia factions, armed them and helped them kill or drive out every last Hezbollah supporter, maybe then there’d be a chance to stabilize the country and allow it to live peacefully with Israel, and Israel could help (in their own self-interest if naught else) keep the Syrians or Iranians from stirring the pot again.

The cold hard truth is that a lot of people would have to be in some way “ideologically cleansed” from places to separate “us” from “them”. However, one of the ideals of Western thought these days is to not slaughter people who don’t agree with you. This makes our civilization more pleasant than others to live in, but at the same time leaves us vulnerable to those more ruthless than us.

The various Islamist terrorist groups want nothing more than to convert by force the entire world to their repressive and backwards theology, period, full-stop. Anyone who thinks we can negotiate or reach any kind of accommodation with them is a fool. They see all such attempts, (correctly) as a sign of weakness and they will exploit it.

I’d waste my time if I seriously advocated slaughtering our enemies and their support base, but we have potential allies in a lot of these messed-up countries and we should be looking for ways to support them effectively. Israel is dropping the ball in that regard in Lebanon at this moment. There are noises to that effect coming out of the region, so we’ll see if anything useful comes out of the current carnage. My money’s on “no”.

No Reasonable Explanation

No reasonable explanation, from ANYONE involved.

I can see no reason myself that the Israelis would do something as obviously stupid (and wasteful of more innocent life) as try to kill UN observers.

It may come out in this investigation that Olmert has said he'd do how exactly this came about, but the IDF has to answer to the taxpayers and international law, so it doesn't just throw wads of (expensive) ordnance at things that aren't at least perceived to be a threat. This being said, I have two questions:

• Why did the UN not pull them out of there?
• Why did the IDF not co-ordinate with the observers to do so?

I can probably answer the first question. The UN is worse than useless when things go balls-up, so I can easily see them failing to do anything except complain until somebody gets killed, and then express outrage at the fact that (whatever bad thing) happened.

The next question is a bit more difficult. They were obviously in radio contact, and if Hezbollah was sniping at the UN post and/or operating close to it, the reasonable (under the circumstances) course of action would be to launch an aggressive rescue mission, bagging some jihadist sheisskopfs in the bargain.

Is the IDF really that lazy/cowardly that they won't do such a thing these days? I hope not, or the only progressive democracy in the area is doomed. Avoiding the huge Hezbollah public-relations windfall resulting from this idiocy alone would have made it worth it. To show themselves co-operating with the UN to rescue some unarmed observers would have had some much-needed good publicity for the Israelis, and saved the lives of those observers who should have been protected by SOMEBODY.

The UN has no business anymore with troops, because it's proved over and over again that it has no clue how to use and if need be protect them. The IDF needs a kick in the ass to smarten it up, as the "optics" of what it's doing are not great for the results achieved.

The IDF may be hurting Hezbollah (however it's spelled), but it's not making any new friends, and may be alienating people it has some common cause with (read: Lebanese Christians). And the bottom line, it's not hurting the terrorist wankers terminally, so think hard and think fast, because it's not going to get any easier if shit like this keeps happening.