“NOBODY HERE ‘CEPT US INCOMPETENT JIHADIS…”
LIBERAL BLOGGERS DISCUSS THE THREAT OF TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES
I would like to take this opportunity occasioned by the arrest of the 6 obviously deranged, laughably incompetent dufuses who planned to shoot up Fort Dix (and who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) to publicly and fervently thank lefty bloggers for their reality based approach to fighting terrorism in America.
What would we do without you guys? Keeping America safe from hysterical righties who see terrorists around every corner and terrorism in every “dog bites man” story must be taxing as well as boring work. Hardly a challenge for people of your intellectual acumen and discernment. After all, there’s a difference between being observant and alert to the danger of terrorism and being paranoid.
Just ask the airline security workers who let 3 of the 5 9/11 hijackers through their checkpoint at Dulles International airport even after they set off the metal detector.
“Frickin’ box cutters? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? These durn machines are a waste of time, dontchya think?” (Chuckling) “Move along, sir. And thank you for flying American Airlines.”
And making jokes about promoting the idea that an army of “John Does” can do more to stop terrorism here at home than the police, the FBI, and Karl Rove’s Super Secret Domestic Spying Machine and Pasta Maker put together is just your way of making sure that innocent pizza makers, convenience store clerks, and roofers (who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) aren’t caught up in “terrorist fever” and unfairly branded as “radical jihadists hell bent on killing Americans.”
I’m sure that will come as a relief to Mohamed Atta’s flight instructor.
“Okay, lemme get this straight. You want to use the simulator to learn how to take off and fly a commercial jet but you have no interest in learning how to land? Well, that will save some time, won’t it? Here. Let me get you started.”
I think we should follow the example of FDL’s TRex who BRAVELY informs us that even without reading right wing blogs, he knows exactly what they’re saying:
You know that Debbie Schlussel is turning clumsy-ass cartwheels of joy that there’s finally some Hot Islamic Jihadi Action for her to write about. And of course, their semi-questionable citizenship status has Michelle Malkin melting through her Victoria’s Secret white cotton lady briefs. You can go look at their blogs if you want. I don’t have the stomach for it. They’ll be dining out on these six losers and their woodland paintball games all the way to the 2008 elections and beyond. The Muslim Fanatics are, like, totally among us right now!! Time to start rounding them all up, eh, Internment Girl?
Never mind that we’ve done this song and dance before with those seven losers in a warehouse in Miami that got arrested last year. Never mind that this is all suspiciously well-timed for the Bush Assministration, whose poll numbers are tanking and whose pet idiot will be making his second (and undoubtedly awe-inspiringly bad) testimony before Congress the day after tomorrow.
No, this time it’s different! This time it’s important! This time the threat was REAL!
(”Wolf!” cried the boy, “Wolf! Wolf!”)
So, expect this to be in heavy rotation in the media cycle over the next couple of weeks. They’re going to milk it for every last possible fear-mongering, freedom-squelching, race-baiting drop that they can squeeze out. You’re actually going to miss the Anna Nicole frenzy. You think I’m kidding, don’t you?
How could I have missed it? IT’S THE TIMING! IT’S THE TIMING! Jeez am I dense. Gonna have to recalibrate my Bush Headlong Rush To Dictatorship Meter or I may miss out on all the fun next time.
And TRex has this thing nailed. Why get our panties in a bunch over these fanatics? First of all, did you notice where 4 of them were from?
ALBANIA FER CRISSAKES! Albania? Quick - name something dangerous that ever came out of Albania. No, not Dracula. Close, but he was from Transylvania. Jesus, the most dangerous beasts in Albania are the goats - vicious animals who’ve been known to attack unarmed civilian carts without warning.
And after all, let’s face facts. It’s not like these guys wanted to shoot up innocent civilians. So what if they wanted to kill a few soldiers, right TRex? They probably would have died anyway once they were sent to Iraq, right? I’m sure you’ll agree that this way, we would have saved money having to ship the bodies back home.
But even more telling is that these guys evidently ran around the woods in New Jersey, whooping it up, shouting jihadi slogans and shooting paintball pellets at infidel trees. Give ‘em a pickup truck with a Confederate battle flag, fill ‘em full of white lightening, stick a chaw of tobacky in their teeth and they could be any group of fun lovin’, gun totin’, goober chewin’, bible thumpin’, cousin screwin’ militia men. Right, Dave?
The right-wing blogosphere needs to take a shower or something. They’ve been positively creaming their jeans over the arrest of five suspected Islamist terrorists who are charged with plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix. Malkin, of course, is leading the pack, but it’s seen as Vindication Day throughout the whole “John Doe”/Jihad Watch right, including Little Green Footballs and Der Perfesser.
Funny how little attention any of them have paid to the mirror-image case down in Alabama involving the militiamen who were reportedly plotting to bomb and gun down Mexicans in a nearby town. In fact, the only place I could find mention of it was at Outside the Beltway, and that was a post questioning the need for the arrests.
Dunno. Sounds serious. Planning between gulps of Mountain Dew to “bomb and gun down Mexicans” is a crime in most of these here parts. Alas, it doesn’t appear to have been quite what our Davey is getting his panties in a bunch about:
The sergeant major turned out to be a government informant.
And the informant reported to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the Free Militia was making and stockpiling grenades.
The indictment lists numerous other charges, including possession of a machine gun, a homemade silencer, a short-barreled shotgun, 68 homemade explosive projectiles and about 100 marijuana plants.
… The informant reported that Dillard tried to sell him some of the homemade hand grenades. He also reported that he and Dillard went to a military surplus store in Bynum to buy 12 grenade hulls and later packed them with powder and hid them under rocks by a dead tree in the woods.
The informant’s affidavit does not mention plans to attack Hispanic groups.
But at a bail hearing Tuesday, ATF agent Adam Nesmith introduced the idea that the Free Militia was planning to gun down Mexicans in the small town of Remlap northeast of Birmingham.
I QUESTION THE TIMING!
Um, no that’s not really right. But I’d ask Dave why he believes one branch of the government in one case (the ATF saying that the homegrown swag swilling yip yips planned on taking out a few of our darker skinned brethren) regarding a planned terrorist attack while another branch of government (the FBI saying that the Dix Six or the guys in Miami, or any other recent possible jihadi plans that have been thwarted) is to be considered suspect.
I guess I just don’t have that level of “discernment” necessary to be a true liberal. Not like the folks at Wonkette:
Ok. So, the plot was: six dudes from New Jersey buy some guns and storm Fort Dix. The Fort Dix that is full of lots and lots of Army reservists with way, way more guns. And, like, extensive military training and s**t. Yes, thank god these terrorists have been caught and locked up before they could be killed within minutes of deciding to carry out the dumbest f***ing terrorist plot we’ve ever heard of.
I heartily agree. No doubt that the dufuses would have been cut down in “minutes” - say, for the sake of argument, 5 minutes - which would have only resulted in a few needless deaths of soldiers who, after all, would probably have ended up in Iraq anyway and fallen victim to an IED or an insurgent bullet. Better they get murdered en masse here at the hands of fanatics (who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) then killed over there at the hands of…fanatics?
Yep. “Dumbest f**king terrorist plot” I’ve ever heard of…
UPDATE
Hugh Hewitt also notes that the left is downplaying (as usual) this particular terrorist plan and links to Andrew McCarthy’s excellent piece in today’s NRO:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it[.] … This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,†and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.â€
The direction is to everyone. And he is not ordering that it be done because Osama says so, like the mafia does something because the don says so, or the army does something because the commanding officer says so. In bin Laden’s mind, he is merely the medium; the direction, he insists, comes from Allah. In fact, bin Laden plainly knows he is not enough of an authority figure to command terrorist attacks. He needs to cite scripture to convince Muslims that it is the ideology itself which announces these commands. Commands which this ideology compels every Muslim, not just every al Qaeda operative, to perform.
Until this singular fact sinks in on the left and among our elites, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our backs. I’ve written extensively about the absolute need to get the western left fully engaged in this fight. But as long as they continue to use the War on Terror as a purely political issue or their own stupidity blinds them to the danger, we cannot and will not win.
I don’t think you adequately answered the charge that the NJ plot has gotten a massive amount of attentiton in the MSM and the blogosphere, while the AL plot has gotten virtually no attention. They are almost identical except for the ethnicities/religions of the perpetrators. I also wonder if you can explain to me why the perps in AL were not charged with any type of terrorism charge, just possession and manufacture of gernades?
Comment by Jeff — 5/9/2007 @ 8:24 am
“And TRex has this thing nailed. Why get our panties in a bunch over these fanatics?”
I think that if you read his post you’ll find that TREX was commenting on the fact that a bomb actually went off at an abortion clinic and a bunch of seriously deranged right-wing militia types were arrested with an arsenal of guns and bombs and the All-Jihad-All-The-Time rightwing blogs completely ignored them both. He was noting that every unattributed piece of terrorism (or terrorism looking activity) has been eagerly painted as Jihadi action (such as the VT massacre and the ‘Ishmail’ stuff) in short order, while genuine terrorist groups are ignored if they don’t fit the evil ROP meme.
You must know this because following on from the quote you pasted is this;
“I guess the thing that chaps my ass about the whole thing is that there were two other major domestic terror plots uncovered last week, but what has Wolf Blitzer had to say about that? Nothing. Nil.”
And he then goes on to detail them. Now you must have read that bit, you must have seen that he in no way suggested that shooting people in an Islamist fervour is a good thing, or that these nutballs shouldn’t have been arrested. You must have got his point that there is a group of commentators who seem to want to promote any and all Islamic terrorists as the end of civilisation as we know it while ignoring the more extreme behaviours of the far right.
And since you obviously know this, because you read the posting, I cannot work out what your point is. Is it that it is absurd to imagine that Bush et al would never consider political issues when dealing with issues of law and order? Is it that a jokey tone is inapproriate when dealing with Jihadis so dumb that they think posting their Jihadi video to a shop for remastering is a good idea?
Honestly, I don’t get it.
Comment by Drongo — 5/9/2007 @ 8:32 am
[...] Finally, Rick Moran rounds up leftist reaction, the gist of which naturally is that these guys were rank amateurs who couldn’t possibly have done any damage even though they were looking to buy AK-47s and Kalashnikovs and one was a trained sniper, and even if they did by some stroke of luck manage to kill a few soldiers, it’d only be a few soldiers. To recognize the threat is to engage in “scare tactics” about it whereas blithely ignoring it demonstrates reason, courage, and grace under fire. Which I suppose makes Truthers the bravest of them all. They’re also working some clever puns about the Bush “Assministration,” so you won’t want to miss that. digg_url = ‘http://hotair.com/archives/2007/05/09/fort-dix-six-non-update/’;digg_topic = ‘political_opinion’; [...]
Pingback by Hot Air » Blog Archive » Fort Dix Six non-update — 5/9/2007 @ 8:35 am
How is his call on Schlussel not spot-on? When VT got shot up, it was hilarious watching her update her blog comments (”People shot at VT? Has to be a Muslim!… He’s Asian? Must be an Asian Muslim!… He’s Korean? Must be a Korean Muslim!… He’s not a Muslim? That’s impossible, he must be a Paki in disguise!”) and of course her instant jump-to-conclusion about the idjit in Michigan that blew his hand off playing with black powder tennis balls.
The problem is that terrorism by non-Muslims gets thrown by the wayside and never gets factored into your thinking. The assumptions that Islam is inherently Satanic/evil, that all Muslims are barbarians, etc. is fed by things like this, yet terror acts by non-Arabs and non-Muslims do not get factored in.
“Aha!” this blog post shouts. “Our assumptions are justified!” despite the numerous terror acts by other groups that don’t fit into neat little categories that can be searched at airports because of their skin color or faith.
Comment by Baby-Eating Liberal — 5/9/2007 @ 8:47 am
“To recognize the threat is to engage in “scare tactics†about it whereas blithely ignoring it demonstrates reason, courage, and grace under fire.”
See what I mean? He never suggests ignoring this threat, he is just trying to point out that the media excitment is all pointing towards this threat while ignoring other either more prepared and heavily armed groups, or actual attcks because they don’t fit the desired narrative. The problem with this is that it leads people to form opinions on only a small subset of the available facts.
You only have to look at people who seriously anticipate a day when Southern Baptists will be forced by a covert Islamic army to convert to Islam to see where this leads. You end up with a populace convinced that eventually Islam will have to be confronted with nuclear fire or we’ll all die, rather than one that can look at terrorism in context and say “Oh, you mean all political groups have their violent nutjobs, well maybe we should focus on the nutjobs, not the ideology”.
I expect that sort of nonsense from Malkin and such like, but here?
Comment by Drongo — 5/9/2007 @ 8:51 am
Well seeing as soldiers aren’t getting enough training maybe they were just being helpful patriots.
And why do white guys with guns get a pass…like huckabees kid who took a gun on a plane and was charged, tried, convicted and released with a slap on the wrist in less than a day…with no real news coverage of a presidential candidates son getting arrested.
Comment by madmatt — 5/9/2007 @ 9:00 am
Funny, HotAir is supposed to be a pro-gun site, but Allah somehow manages not to know that you can’t buy AK-47s and Kalashnikovs since AK-47s _are_ Kalashnikovs? It’s like the most trivial thing about guns there is.
And, Rick,
1) Sure that “question the timing” on FDL is stupid.
2) But the problem with “John Does” per Malkin is not that they are _vigilant patriots_, but that her manifesto is plain crazy, with such bits as:
3) Wonkette is a humor site that regularly writes outrageous nonsense like “Bush Jr. preparing to hide in South America”. It’s totally useless to try to look there for any kind of political ideas. Same thing for Ace who thinks that he caught Wonkette believing in Karl Rove conspiracy theories.
Comment by Nikolay — 5/9/2007 @ 9:39 am
Wow, I guess this proves that you righties are soft on terrorism.
Comment by MattM — 5/9/2007 @ 9:49 am
Albania? Wasn’t that the country we “invaded” in wag the dog?
I’M OUTRAGED!
Comment by Steve the LLamabutcher — 5/9/2007 @ 9:59 am
Toldjah So: Nutroots yawn over story of thwarted Ft. Dix plot…
Surprise!
Now, let’s imagine what the left’s reaction would be had the plot actually been carried out:
“BUSH KNEW!!!!”
As with everything else with the left, they are full of sound and fury signifying nothing but bluster. If an…
Trackback by Sister Toldjah — 5/9/2007 @ 10:04 am
What the right and left are going to “cream†themselves over is yet another reason to go off on each other, and yes I know “the other side did it first so nanner nanner nannerâ€. Here is the reality of the incident, and please note that I can present a view with out the use of the word “moronâ€.
1: AQ is as much a religious/inspirational movement as a terrorist one, there is no need for central control when the basic idea is to create as much mayhem as possible. This time it was a bunch of bunglers, next time we might not be as lucky.
2: Speaking of next time, even a bunch of bunglers can get lucky, attacking a shopping mall with pistols gets the point across as well as an attack on a military base.
3: An alert guy at Kinko’s spoiled the plot, not tapping cell phones or catching people from a terrorist watch list. Citizens being aware is the big asset, and by the way I would be willing to bet that our Muslim community has been instrumental in foiling terrorist plots we have no idea about.
4: The Albanians were illegal, this gives credence to the idea that wide open borders and illegal immigration is in fact a security issue, they might not have jumped the fence on the border but the immigration issue is still larger than just low wage jobs.
Comment by grognard — 5/9/2007 @ 10:10 am
This can’t be true.
We are fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here, ipso facto there can be no terrorist plot in America so long as we are in Iraq.
These idiots obviously didn’t read the rules.
Comment by r4d20 — 5/9/2007 @ 11:05 am
Quoting from Wonkette is like quoting from The Onion, both are over the top satire…the exception is Wonkette is political satire so some of it is actually true. Also, what happened to fighting them ‘over there’ so we don’t have to fight them ‘over here’?
Comment by aric — 5/9/2007 @ 12:12 pm
Rick:
You raise a fair point, but I think it’s important to take these kinds of threats seriously because eventually, some of these kinds of yahoos eventually do succeed, even if to all outward appearances they can’t find their ass with both hands.
There was, for instance, the case of Bradley Glover and his “Tri States Militia,” which in 1997 was busted for planning an attack on Fort Hood, Texas, rather similar to the one envisioned by the Fort Dix bunch — though, in fact, Glover’s bunch was much farther along in planning and deployment, and they in fact appeared fully capable of inflicting a large number of casualties.
Or there was the case of the Sacramento militiamen who plotted to blow up a nearby propane facility, which if they had succeeded would probably have resulted in several thousand deaths, on a scale rivaling 9/11. Fortunately, they were also spectacularly stupid, and had very little chance of success — but if they had managed to stumble their way to accidental competence, well, it would have been disastrous.
I think if authorities had stumbled upon Tim McVeigh and his little cluster of plotters before April 1995 they would have had good reason to view them the same. They were a bunch of crank users who lived in trailers, and McVeigh was lining up soup cans on a kitchen floor to plan the explosive attack, and they were testing their formula out in milk bottles in tests that never did really work. April 19 was the first time they had ever gotten anything to actually explode.
Likewise, Buford Furrow was just a big loser who drifted from job to job — not the kind of person you would expect to post a serious threat — before he walked into that Jewish day-care center back in 2000.
So yeah, it is vital to nip these plots in the bud before they can metastasize into events that cause real harm. Being proactive in these kinds of investigations, it’s clear, has played a substantial role in the decline of actual domestic-terrorism events in the past decade, despite a noteable increase in the actual number of plots.
Again, as I said in my post — having been through a number of these cases, it’s important not to leap too far afield in speculating, because the evidence always plays out in court. It’s from that vantage point, I think, that we can assess the actual level of threat from these kinds of plots. And we can also better assess authorities’ and informants’ claims, both of which it behooves everyone in the public to acknowledge may or may not be accurate. Presuming guilt in either case is, frankly, an ugly course to follow.
Comment by David Neiwert — 5/9/2007 @ 12:14 pm
Well, bust my buttons, the right wing misses the point completely since reality is too far over their childish statures…
Hey, knuckleheads, this is a terrorist plot on American soil while “we’re fighting them over there so…”
Umm, no, that can’t be right. Let’s try something else.
“The judicial system is not the way to handle jihadis. It’s not a law enforcement problem…”
Wait. Hey, Karl! What rhetorical BS am I supposed to use here to shout down the lefties? Huh? Oh, OK, thanks.
“Good thing the president wasn’t receiving oral sex while this was happening. Who knows what could have happened?!”
Comment by roondog — 5/9/2007 @ 12:22 pm
Rick Moran, much as I enjoy your ability to finish a sentence, I deplore the knee-jerk shortsightedness that pervades, IMHO, most political speech. Not just on the “left”, not just on the “right”. You want “lefties” to realize that some Muslims, inspired by al Qaeda rhetoric, will commit murder on a large scale (or plan to do so).
“Until this singular fact sinks in on the left and among our elites, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our backs. I’ve written extensively about the absolute need to get the western left fully engaged in this fight. But as long as they continue to use the War on Terror as a purely political issue or their own stupidity blinds them to the danger, we cannot and will not win.”
This fight is larger than just the Muslims.
I cannot speak for “lefties” everywhere, particularly as I disagree with “lefties” almost as often as I disagree with “righties”. However, I’ll share my perspective on the “War on Terror”.
Since before recorded history, groups of humans have been killing each other for a variety of reasons. In the past few hundred years, the definition of the modern nation-state has meant that the action of killing the civilians in another group has been divided into two categories: war and murder (or genocide). A sub-category of murder is terrorism. When a nation-state declares a war, we can kill civilians and its okay (as long as we pretty much follow the rules). If we don’t declare a war, or if we break the rules too much, then we consider ourselves (people) to have committed murder, genocide, or war-crimes. I like these categories, and find them useful.
My problem with the “War on Terror”, besides the whole “War on [class of phenomenon]” issue, is that we are not seeking to create a world system where the rule of law is supreme and civilians are only killed on a large scale in declared wars. We are actually doing several things at the same time:
1. Occupying central Asia and acquiring control of valuable oil reserves.
2. Attempting nation-building in two (at the moment) violently chaotic areas.
3. Attempting to prevent any Muslims from killing US citizens (or, presumably, citizens of other countries, though I’m not clear on that).
Although I disagree with the necessity and the choice of strategy for 1 and 2, I’m happy to go along with 3. I’d just like to make it more inclusive — attempt to prevent anyone, including Muslims, from killing people on a large scale without first declaring a war. I’m not sure about the best way to do it, although I favor a mix of “global Marshall Plan” to reduce the poverty and related disorder that inspires violent genocide like that of Rwanda or Nazi Germany, and an international treaty organization with criminal enforcement powers (yes, it’s the world government, sorry). Of course, that treaty organization would be completely irrelevant to most of the mass murders in the States in recent years: school shootings, Oklahoma bombings, and our various violent homegrown religious extremists.
You may say I’m not enough of a “lefty” to qualify for your comment, but I have heard similar things from those who consider themselves deeply left wing.
To sum up: IMO, many “lefties” are deeply concerned by large scale killing, whatever inspires it; the fairly smart ones I know regard most activity promoted under the “War on Terror” as a dangerous distraction from the issues that really make us either safe or at risk.
Comment by Nathaniel White — 5/9/2007 @ 12:42 pm
The fact that these guys were obviously pretty incompetent doesn’t mean that they weren’t a threat. Most criminals are none too bright, after all, but they can still shoot the place up, especially in a country awash in guns. What doesn’t make a lick of sense, however, is to pick out nutcases that happen to be Muslim as if they are all that different from nutcases of any background. Many of our homegrown American terrorists have been Fundamentalists, for example, but that doesn’t mean we should treat Southern Baptists as crazed assassins.
It simply isn’t the case that Islam is some unitary ideology that commands all believers to go medieval. And the proof of that is the extreme rarity of cases like the Fort Dix episode. There are many, many Muslims in the U.S. and very, very little terrorism. Claiming that every member of a large and heterogenous group harbors the same malevolent essence is pretty much a definition of racist thinking. How does this paranoia make anybody safer? After all, if, as a garden-variety Muslim, I’m going to be despised anyhow, I might as well live up to the stereotype imposed upon me.
Comment by Jim Harrison — 5/9/2007 @ 12:43 pm
In the right-wing world, only Muslims are terrorists. Armed militias, abortion clinic bombers, white supremacist groups, and assorted dangerously insane types, do not fit the bill. In their warped view of the world, the Timothy McVeigh types are not terrorists…
Comment by Devil's Advocate — 5/9/2007 @ 1:45 pm
“The direction is to everyone.”
Any yet virtually no-one answers the call, do they?
What, population of 1.5 billion, total deaths in the US homeland 3000 odd.
If Rev.Phelps called for the murder of all homosexuals because the Bible justified it, how many Christians would respond? Not very damn many. Same with Muslims. Invade their country, yeah, they’ll fight. Otherwise you get a few select nutcases.
This isn’t optimism or hiding my head in the sand, it is observation of the last 5 years.
Comment by Drongo — 5/9/2007 @ 1:49 pm
Oops, I cut-and-pasted two first paragraphs and forgot to proof-read. Basically, I like your writing. Forget the “knee-jerk” comment, since it has nothing to do with the rest of my post.
Comment by Nathaniel White — 5/9/2007 @ 2:39 pm
I looked it up! The answer is out there amongst the zeroes and ones that are the actually building blocks and residue off our barely perceptible reality construct. It’s true; I checked it out. Hence:
When Mercury is Direct
Communicate: A good time to write important letters and death threats, sign contracts, express yourself, buy a car, get suckered into a 5 year service contract worth shite, publish and advertise your desire to counteract the steady chlorinization of all large bodies of potable water, make important phone calls, plan or take a trip.
Jeez! First the guy insults me and then he seeks advice on salesmanship!
When Mercury is Retrograde
Use an extra dose of clarity, caution and pet care pertaining to travel and toxic levels of Flexiril in the blood stream, especially when delivered by car, communications of any kind, contracts, sending letters, small bulbs, wax bonnets, and publishing.
If you can avoid the above until the retrograde period ends that’s even better.
Calculated for Eastern time zones, 5 hours and several minutes later, there was a definite effacing of the high sheen porcelain finish as most of the night’s previous bounty of chipped beef didn’t quite make it to the bowl.
A healthy dose of clarity in this consciousness journey for the young at heart and the hard of hearing. Two alternate areas of hysteria: Things I understand and Things I Do Not Understand Too Well Yet.
Captain Jutta is the navigator who charts our living miracle of beauty, love, and floppy sacks: The mind and cosmic energy on bass. The organ called the brain. The brain waves bye-bye, vapid eye movement exercises, jumper cables and spiritual Roto-Rooter.
Comment by Carl Gordon — 5/9/2007 @ 7:25 pm
Sorry for the test thing… But these days most Republican Right Wing Blogs have fire walls to stop most any one they don’t agree with. They most have very strong views, these blogs… They just don’t know how to defend them. And they call us cowards!!!
Any way, I know this is not in this blog’s topic but I am very curious to know why for the most part blogs on the Right are keeping mute about the fact that the Iraqi Government is planning to take a two month vacation right in the middle of our surge. This unprecedented event by the way happens right at the time when more than ever our soldiers are paying with their blood to buy them the time to establish a true Democracy.
Or at least that’s the latest talking point by the White House.
Instead blogs on the Right continue to attack the Democratic Congress for tying in the money for this war to the Iraqi Government’s performance. As in we need results, not more promises of results. Sincerely Republicans do you have any idea how this makes you look as a party, supporting the Iraqi Government that’s taking off on vacation while attacking the Democrats for trying to hold the same Iraqi Government accountable?
There is no question that our soldiers will do their duty, and may even quiet down for a while some of the daily caos in Iraq…. But where is the other all important part of the equation here? On vacation for month? Is this thee commitment of the Iraqi Government you support ?
Can any one of you tell me what has been accomplished by this Iraqi Government? And now they go on vacation? Every Republican politician out there is now “Waiting for Gen. Petraeus September report to decide if the surge is working” I can tell you right now that Gen. Petraeus can say that militarly the surge is working (maibe), but that the other and most important part of the equation THE POLITICAL EQUATION is an absolute failure. Unless you Republicans would consider kindly on Democrats abandoning Congress for two months without any bill, or any resolution passed and living stranded over one hundred thousand soldiers in Iraq.
Dear Republicans it is your call. You want to continue to support this madness iy will be the end of your part and by god you will richly deserve it. I for one has lost patience with this entire enterprise. You march like Robots nehind Bush, and the man is an incompetent fool so is your call Republicans.
Comment by gil — 5/9/2007 @ 8:05 pm
Funny how the Anthrax attacks never count as terrorism. Most likely because it is assumed it is some domestic militia type who did it.
This latest bust further illustrates that AQ is deliberately holding off staging any large-scale, serious attacks in the US.
Freelance and angry, using the autonomous fighter model of the militias in their approach, they were caught mostly by being dumb. Thank goodness.
These guys could have been as deadly, or more so than the Virginia shooter and I take their planned attack very seriously.
Just as I did the right wing militias that I wrote about way back in the day as something of a regional expert on those guys.
Then there is the gentleman with the cyanide bomb and dozens of weapons found not too far from Crawford a few years ago.
It’s not an either or situation. We should take every angry, highly armed, politically motivated group seriously whether it is neo-nazis, anti-abortion nuts, or jihadi’s.
Comment by Richard Bottoms — 5/9/2007 @ 8:16 pm
[...] So I’ll be out tomorrow. Instead read these 3. Instapundit on a Romney weirdness. Varifrank on accomplishing missions. Right wing nuthouse on the Albanian Jihadists. [...]
Pingback by May 10 « I Think ^(Link) Therefore I Err — 5/9/2007 @ 11:16 pm
I am sick of the “dumbest plot ever” meme. It is suicidal but Army posts are gun-free zones to keep soldiers from being stupid. Unless there is training going on, soldiers keep their weapons locked in the arms room. And even when issued their weapons for training, they aren’t given ammo until they hit the range.
Even on Camp Victory, Iraq soldiers are only required one magazine. The big difference between this and VTech is that the soldiers wouldn’t wait in line for thier bullet.
Comment by Y7 — 5/10/2007 @ 5:55 am