another sad chapter....

[phylo_roadking]

that calls Blair a liar

Well, some of us knew that a dozen years ago - it has something to do with every time his lips move...

[lwd]

UN mandate???

How could that be a UN mandate?The US neocons and GB's old gloryhunters started this despicable barbaric aggression with UNs strikt non-partissipation.

What right gives anybody to search any ships but the countries that are bordering the gulf, for selfprotection.The old Empire building hogwash will just not die.

Yes UN mandate. Your vitrolic and unsubstantiated emoting asside.

After the Sdam regime was deposed the UN decided that somebody had to maintain order there and the ones with the troops in place were probably best suited to it.

Then as has been mentioned there were preexisting mandates and of course the Iraqi government authorised it. Which conforms to the first sentance of your second paragraph..

It has also been noted elsewhere in this thread that searching vessels on the high seas is withing the rights of naval and law enforcement officials in some cases.

[Landser]

To lwd:

Well would'nt the mandate then also require every nation to obstain of bringing in weapons???

Did the Coalition Forces EVER get bothered by it???
And as far as I know NO Iraqui govt
invited them -EVER!!

The hypocricie is having a field day in your post


To continue in this vain; for example how Fox News was blasting the Iranian "uncivilist"treatment, by parading them on TV.I wonder how Fox would have reacted if they were all in orange jumpsuits,headbags and chained to fences.....


Interesting article:

Novelist Ronan Bennett:

A peculiar outrage


It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners.
Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs

[pzrmeyer2]

To lwd:

Well would'nt the mandate then also require every nation to obstain of bringing in weapons???

Did the Coalition Forces EVER get bothered by it???
And as far as I know NO Iraqui govt
invited them -EVER!!

The hypocricie is having a field day in your post


To continue in this vain; for example how Fox News was blasting the Iranian "uncivilist"treatment, by parading them on TV.I wonder how Fox would have reacted if they were all in orange jumpsuits,headbags and chained to fences.....


Interesting article:

Novelist Ronan Bennett:

A peculiar outrage


It's right that the government and media should be concerned about the treatment the 15 captured marines and sailors are receiving in Iran. Faye Turney's letters bear the marks of coercion, while parading the prisoners in front of TV cameras was demeaning. But the outrage expressed by ministers and leader writers is curious given the recent record of the "coalition of the willing" on the way it deals with prisoners.
Turney may have been "forced to wear the hijab", as the Daily Mail noted with fury, but so far as we know she has not been forced into an orange jumpsuit. Her comrades have not been shackled, blindfolded, forced into excruciating physical contortions for long periods, or denied liquids and food. As far as we know they have not had the Bible spat on, torn up or urinated on in front of their faces. They have not had electrodes attached to their genitals or been set on by attack dogs

No, the UN mandate (and the 11 previous resolutions on the subject) authorized the US/UK to use force, aka "bring in weapons". The Saddam government didnt need to invite the US to come in. The UN did, regardless of what its corrupt former Gen Sec'y says.

You aren't actually insinuating a moral equivilence between the the US and Iran are you?

[pzrmeyer2]

Poor old Hanson is better at opinion than history.

By the time of the Battle of the Nile, Britain had been at war with France for nearly a decade. The analogy to the current situation is a non-starter.

Oh, i dunno, Sid, I'd be happy to stack up his credentials against yours...

Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University , a professor emeritus at California University , Fresno , and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.
He was a full-time farmer before joining CSU Fresno , in 1984 to initiate a classics program. In 1991, he was awarded an American Philological Association Excellence in Teaching Award, which is given yearly to the country's top undergraduate teachers of Greek and Latin.

Hanson was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992-93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991-92), a recipient of the Eric Breindel Award for opinion journalism (2002), and an Alexander Onassis Fellow (2001) and was named alumnus of the year of the University of California, Santa Cruz (2002). He was also the visiting Shifrin Chair of Military History at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis , Maryland (2002-3). He received the Manhattan Institute's Wriston Lectureship in 2004, and the 2006 Nimitz Lectureship in Military History at UC Berkeley in 2006.
Hanson is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, scholarly papers, and newspaper editorials on matters ranging from Greek, agrarian and military history to foreign affairs, domestic politics, and contemporary culture. He has written or edited 16 books, including Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (1983; paperback ed. University of California Press, 1998); The Western Way of War (Alfred Knopf, 1989; 2d paperback ed. University of California Press, 2000); Hoplites: The Ancient Greek Battle Experience (Routledge, 1991; paperback., 1992); The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (Free Press, 1995; 2nd paperback ed., University of California Press, 2000); Fields without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea (Free Press, 1996; paperback, Touchstone, 1997); The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer (Free Press, 2000); The Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Cassell, 1999; paperback, 2001); The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999, paperback, Anchor/Vintage, 2000); Carnage and Culture (Doubleday, 2001; Anchor/Vintage, 2002); An Autumn of War (Anchor/Vintage, 2002); Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (Encounter, 2003), Ripples of Battle (Doubleday, 2003), and Between War and Peace (Random House, 2004).
His newest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, was published by Random House in October 2005. Click here to read more about the book. It was named one of the New York Times Notable 100 Books of 2006.
Hanson coauthored, with John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (Free Press, 1998; paperback, Encounter Press, 2000) and, with Bruce Thornton and John Heath, Bonfire of the Humanities (ISI Books, 2001).
Hanson has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, New York Post, National Review, Washington Times, Commentary, The New Republic, Claremont Review of Books, American Heritage, Policy Review, Wilson Quarterly, Weekly Standard, Daily Telegraph, and has been interviewed often on National Public Radio, PBS Newshour, the Hugh Hewitt Show, and C-Span's BookTV. He serves on the editorial board of Arion, the Military History Quarterly, and City Journal.
Since 2001, has written a weekly column for National Review Online, and in 2004, began his syndicated column for Tribune Media Services. In 2006, he began writing a blog for Pajamas Media, Works and Days.
Hanson was educated at the University of California , Santa Cruz (BA, Classics, 1975), the American School of Classical Studies (1978-79) and received his Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University in 1980. He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953.

And besides, he didn't say that the Nile campaign started the war. Just that the British, at that time in thier history, didnt show such restraint in war. Unless you don't consider the seizure of sailors an act of war?

As far as the part of your post about the impotence of the USA, you need to understand, it is not a US vs Europe thing. It is an attitude across both continents, spread mostly by the left, that nothing is worth fighting for, that we are the bad guys, etc etc. Thus far the US has shown (or at least some in the US) that it has just a bit more backbone in recognizing and dealing with the threat that fundamentalist Islam poses to all of Western Civilization, and the european approach of appeasing or ignoring the threat will not make it go away.

Finally, I figure you as a "mainstream" conservative and rightist would enjoy someone like Hanson. If not him, then perhaps you could supply me 2 or 3 names of who you consider to be mainstream conservatives and liberals, just so I understand?

[Gary T]

Thus far the US has shown (or at least some in the US) that it has just a bit more backbone in recognizing and dealing with the threat that fundamentalist Islam poses to all of Western Civilization, and the european approach of appeasing or ignoring the threat will not make it go away.

Where was this backbone and recognition in the early and mid 1990's when the French were warning of dangers of Islamic fundamentalism and dealing with Paris Metro bombings?

Most of bomber's infrastructure was in London and 99% of Americans didn't know what Islam was.

[Rajin Cajun]

Really Gary can you show me a poll that shows 99% of Americans didn't know about Islam? I mean you couldn't be lying could you?

Not knowing about Radical Islam? I would daresay we did ever read Tom Clancy's Cardinal in the Kremlin? One of his few books where I cheered for the Soviets killing anything.

[phylo_roadking]

Most of bomber's infrastructure was in London and 99% of Americans didn't know what Islam was

Ok....

So the Americans weren't busy cleaning up after the original bomb in the World Trade Centre...

A Libyan (islamic nation) bomb hadn't destroyed a PanAm airliner....

For thirty plus years African-Americans hadn't been converting to Islam...hmm, THAT must be were Cassius Clay went! I did wonder...

Home-grown Islamic terrorist groupd hadn't carried out atrocities in the US in the '70...Anyone remember the SLA, in the days BEFORE it meant Service Level Agreement? Go ask Patti Hearst if she knew about Islam...

Blanket statements are good; brilliant for pulling out from under someone's feet.

[Rajin Cajun]

Blah leave it to you phylo for picking up on my lazy response. I didn't feel like talking about the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, etc. Bravo to you for answering such a stupid statement with integrity.

[pzrmeyer2]

Dduf, thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure Israel is very relevant in this and am certain the EU is totally irrelevant.

Israel is supremely relevant. It is the number one reason why we are in this mess in the first place. Arab hatred for the “great Satan” would never have come to this had the US not so blindly subordinated its national interests to that of Israel. Ever since the 1960s, America has allowed the AIPAC crowd to completely steer the foreign policy in the mideast to one of “whatever is best for Israel is best for the USA”. Secondly, and more specifically, we never would have gotten involved in this disastrous war if the same crowd had not stolen the ear of Mr Bush and convinced him that Saddam was a threat to the USA and needed to be taken out. It should be remembered that it was not the US homeland that would be threatened by Saddam’s nukes, but Israel. Now the drumbeat is starting again both in Israel and the United States that Iran, a nation that has not attacked us, must be next to go. So Israel is very relevant.

The EU is not off the hook either. It talks of preservation of peace, etc etc, but really what crisis has it solved without US military intervention or implied threat thereof? The Berlin Wall? Bosnia? Kosovo? Or any crisis inbetween or since? It makes business deals with these nations, appeases them, and then wonders why their olive branch is not reciprocated. No transnational institution can elicit the love and loyalty of a country. Nor the fear in an enemy. The EU is a vision of elites no patriot will ever embrace. Men have died in the millions for Poland, France, Italy, England and Germany. Who would walk through fire for the European Union?

The critical question in judging US/UK policy is: what point of departure from the policies actually pursued would have lead to better outcomes today? The most obvious one is the Iraq invasion, naturally. Another was US rejection of the overtures made by Iran in the late 90s. Some minor degree of integration into the world economic system then would mean the Iranians would have something to lose now -- as things stand, they've nothing to lose and act accordingly.

Again, the main points of departure were the completely biased, one-sided support of Israel and its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. It is the main unifying factor among nearly all Muslims worldwide.

There's a tremendous gap between rhetoric and reality in the US today, especially on the right. People seem to find it so much easier to petrol-bomb someone's home for not having the stars and stripes hanging outside than actually to sign up for a stint in the USMC. You point out yourself that the west in general lacks a supply of the kind of adventurers that would give right-wing rhetoric a chance of becoming reality.

You have examples, of course, where this has occurred? This moral equivalance of Christians or other patriotic Americans with Islamists and the "dont question my patriotism" thing is a canard used by the left to excuse any and all forms of action against their own country, including treason and sedition, as "dissent". I can show you many examples of soldiers, their families, recriuting stations, bases, and American flags being attacked than the opposite. And I don’t think adventurers of this sort are in short supply—witness all the skiers, “extreme sports” types, climbers etc. These people are not in short supply, but what they need is clarity of purpose and a belief system that values something higher than self-gratification.

What do you suggest be done against Iran? Bear in mind that the price of a barrel of oil will hit $90+ at the first sign of tension and $125 (at least) once anything resembling a crisis develops, that inflation will surge all across the world, that the current US mortgage market wobbles will translate into a full-blown banking crisis etc etc etc. Moqtada al-Sadr etc would go ballistic in Iraq, ending any hope of success there and Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz until a US expeditionary force arrived. That would be 6-9 months later at the very least and imagine the cost of *that* little adventure. Better make sure that conscription bill passes congress in the mean-time...

The question above is not rhetorical -- I really would like to know what course of action you would propose.

You're right, and that’s just it: we’re screwed whatever course we pursue At the time the 15 marines/sailors were taken, the correct course of action would be for the Cornwall to blow the transgressors out of the water. Now, of course it is too late, and the only recourse is to “apologize” and get the sailors back. The UK cannot and will not risk war with Iran.

Remember as well that the 1930s counterparts of Iran or Nth Korea were not the colonial rebels but (guess who) Germany and Japan. Having talked itself up for decades, the US has now set itself the absurd task of being able to handle any international situation that may develop without any noticable cost. The USA has the power to handle Iran, but the price would be collossal: a full-blown economic crisis. Expect scenes resembling the LA riots but spread across dozens of cities. I would seriously expect the worst global economic crisis since the great depression and am willing to prove point by point exactly how this would come about.

I don’t think we’d see that, at least not for that reason, but the events you describe are not far off regardless of war with Iran. Iran should not be attacked simply because it has not attacked us, and poses no real threat to us, nuclear or not. If Israel wants to deal with Iran fine. let them both destroy each other in a mutual exchange. That would be the best result anyway.

[pzrmeyer2]

Thus far the US has shown (or at least some in the US) that it has just a bit more backbone in recognizing and dealing with the threat that fundamentalist Islam poses to all of Western Civilization, and the european approach of appeasing or ignoring the threat will not make it go away.

Where was this backbone and recognition in the early and mid 1990's when the French were warning of dangers of Islamic fundamentalism and dealing with Paris Metro bombings?

Most of bomber's infrastructure was in London and 99% of Americans didn't know what Islam was.

right right, the stupid Americans again. Why do you infer the all powerful France needed the US to deal with its internal problems? Whose fault was it that the UK deceided to let in every form of extremist and allow them to recruit?

What did the great European nations and union do to deal with the problem that in your mind was so successful? and keep in mind the party of those in charge of the US at the time still doesn't even recognize the threat.

1st WTC , African embassies, the USS Cole, etc etc. Its not a nationality problem, but an ideological one.

[phylo_roadking]

Who would walk through fire for the European Union?

Nah, but some of us wade thru sh1t for it LMAO

[Landser]

pzmeyer2 wrote:

Israel is supremely relevant. It is the number one reason why we are in this mess in the first place. Arab hatred for the "great Satan" would never have come to this had the US not so blindly subordinated its national interests to that of Israel. Ever since the 1960s, America has allowed the AIPAC crowd to completely steer the foreign policy in the mideast to one of "whatever is best for Israel is best for the USA". Secondly, and more specifically, we never would have gotten involved in this disastrous war if the same crowd had not stolen the ear of Mr Bush and convinced him that Saddam was a threat to the USA and needed to be taken out. It should be remembered that it was not the US homeland that would be threatened by Saddam's nukes, but Israel. Now the drumbeat is starting again both in Israel and the United States that Iran, a nation that has not attacked us, must be next to go. So Israel is very relevant.

This is exactly the whole reason for ALL the problems we are facing- finally.You really can't blame Islam for not taking the gross humiliations they had to endure.Since they are no match militarily with Isreal's powerfull
Godfather and his minion,we now
act hurt and cry fowl.It's all our own doing and as long as we stay on that course things will only get worse.

...the completely biased, one-sided support of Israel and its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. It is the main unifying factor among nearly all Muslims worldwide.

You got it!!!

[Reb]

Has Israel no defenders?

I despise the neo-cons and don't believe in foriegn aid except for disasters - never military aid to anyone. (note its not just the Israelis using our kit these days - arabs, egyptians, palestinians etc).

That said - Israel seems to me to be the most civilized of the semitic countries so why throw them to the Islamic wolves just because it might calm things down? As I read history Islrael has been more sinned against than sinning.

The Israelis have also been pretty mean themselves - but threaten me with extinction and watch how mean I can get. As I always say - we should have minded our business. But that does not include cheering a bunch of half savage Islamists while they wipe out the Jews.

cheers
Reb

[Hans]

Sid,

I am somewhat amused at the cavalier way you are prepared to write off your country men for the greater good [whatever that means]. Yet some time ago you rejoiced at the nuking of Hiroshima & Nagasaki as it meant your father [in Burma at the time I think] was saved. Rather a high price for the Japanese to pay to keep your father alive I would think. Don't you think the British soldiers in this case, whether in the right or wrong deserve just a little bit of assistance from their not at risk masters, bearing in mind that the cost of saving your father was enormous.

- Hans