Right Wing Nut House

The bodies strewn in the street at Euston in London as a result of a bus being blasted to smithereens weren’t even cold when the first of the “Blame Bush” threads at Daily Kos and the Democratic Underground appeared. The tone of the commenters was triumphant, cheering each lurid detail of the attacks and speculating about what this dastardly deed, apparently carried out by a European offshoot of al Qaeda, would mean for the President and Prime Minister Blair’s political support for the War in Iraq at home.

There was also an obscenely unhealthy dose of speculation that the attack was planned and carried out by President Bush in order to (wait for it) distract the people from Karl Rove’s supposed outing of Valerie Palme as a CIA agent in the Joe Wilson imbroglio.

After wading through this conspiratorial muck, I felt unclean - almost as if I had crawled on my hands and knees through a dank basement full of cobwebs and roaches. The bile rising in my throat resulted in a post where I highlighted several of the more disgusting comments from the left on the tragedy.

But then last night, I got a comment taking me to task thusly:

Nearly 4 years after 9-11 Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization commits wholesale murder in the capital of a major Western power, and all you can find to talk about is what people are saying on blogs?

It’s a good question and I’d like to respond to it.

The reason it’s important what the left is saying is that their reaction both to the War in Iraq and the terror bombing in London is part and parcel of the overall War on Terror. This is a war fought on many fronts and one of them is right here at home. Not with terrorists, but with the terrorists primary enablers; the far left in Europe and America who are so besodden with defeatism and paranoia that it has deadened their natural instinct for self-preservation and endangered the lives of the rest of us.

What is driving this impulse to self destruction? I believe it to be a self-loathing so profound that it manifests itself as a pathological hatred for the very things that you and I love about America and admire in Western Civilization. It’s isn’t just flush toilets and electric lights. It isn’t the material largess which drives many to strive to better themselves and all of us to enjoy a level of comfort undreamed of since the time mankind crawled out of caves to organize themselves into civilizations. It isn’t even the unbridled freedom - freedom to speak our mind, worship our god, to read, to write, to breathe, to choose, to dream.

At bottom, the left’s hatred reflects a lack of trust in the ability of ordinary human beings to live their lives according to their own lights unencumbered by the dictates of a government or the diktats of an overweening superset of wise men whose self important worldview allows them to believe they can meddle in the lives and life decisions of everyone else.

True, this tendency is not confined to the far left. Many on the far right are also afflicted with the malady of self-righteousness. But I would argue that the culture war being waged between the two is, at its heart, a battle for the human soul. And while the methods and personalities on the right can sometimes grate like a fingernail being run slowly across a blackboard and I violently disagree with many of the the cultural conservative agenda items, I believe that in toto, the right is generally on the side of the angels. Not so much in their desire to legislate a morality or behavior, but in their effort to pull civilization back from the brink the left has pushed us toward.

That said, the left’s compulsion to ally itself with the radical Islamists - either knowingly or through stupidity, unknowingly - is the greatest challenge facing Western Civilization in its War on Terror. The very people who should be leading this fight; the intellectuals, the educators, the editorialists, the journalists, and the literati are absent without leave in this life and death struggle. Instead, we find a an overwhelming majority of the left trying to “explain the root causes” of terrorism instead of getting up on their hind legs and fighting it. And instead of drawing clear, unmistakable intellectual and moral battle lines - a function their ancestors fulfilled more than admirably during World War II and much of the Cold War - we’re treated to an exercise in moral equivalency so profoundly disturbing in its sophistry and intellectual cowardice that our enemies don’t know whether to laugh before they slaughter us or simply shake their heads in bemused silence.

When otherwise reasonably intelligent people can find an intellectual justification for wholesale murder (”We’re killing civilians in Iraq so why shouldn’t we be a target?”) it’s time to start asking some very tough, very pointed questions directed at the purveyors of such twaddle. Who is killing civilians in Iraq? What would have been the consequences of doing nothing about Saddam while he bought off our European “allies” with Oil for Food bribes so that he could reconstitute his WMD programs? What alternative strategy should we follow in the middle east in order to not contain, not lessen, not simply fight, but win the war against the Islamists?

Hard questions these and no answers have been forthcoming nor will any answers be given soon. A gigantic pair of blinders has been placed over the eyes of the western left. And if the obstruction were to be removed, they would find themselves poised precariously on the edge of a moral precipice with nothing with which to hang on to. They have abandoned the traditional anchors of Western Civilization found in religion and reason and instead indulged themselves in a Bacchanal of hatred and loathing for the society that nurtured them. It has left them marooned on a barren wasteland of an island with no rescue in sight and no way out of the intellectual morass they have made for themselves.

The kind of moral equivalency that can blame the United States for the attacks in London yesterday is as much a part of this war as the car bombs and homicide bombers butchering the citizens of a free Iraq or the secretive men hiding among us planning the next attack.

What will it take to clear their heads and awaken them to the mortal danger in which we find ourselves?

For most of us who live in the real world, the terrorist attacks in London today were a sad reminder that the Islamist jackals who seek to destroy us may be weakened but are still capable of carrying out sophisticated assaults on our civilization.

Then there are the rest of us:

After all they have been setting us up for this since September 11, 2001, with the PR machine going into overdrive since Blair jumped into Bush’s lap the summer prior to the invasion of Iraq. And who are they going to pin it on? Our favourite CIA asset, Osama bin Laden…

That’s right. The “black helicopter” nuts and 9/11 denial crowd are already weighing in. I find it fascinating to dissect this stuff only because it reveals a mindset that has totally lost touch with the real world, preferring instead to exist on a planet where evil forces are at work and a cabal of conniving, manipulative men are puppet masters, pulling the strings and making us dance in order to fulfill this conspiracy’s long sought goal of…what? Well, that depends on which nutcase you’re talking to. For some, world domination isn’t enough. Nothing short of control of the entire human population of the planet will satisfy the lust for power of these evil manipulators.

Of course, not everyone can see this conspiracy. No, you don’t need those special glasses like you’d need to see a 3-D movie. And no, this isn’t some kind of religious revelation where a bolt of lightening hits you and you’re suddenly made aware of this sinister danger.

The way to enlightenment is knowledge. You have to be able to divine the signs, read between the lines of news reports - reports from a media totally controlled by these men - and recognize the evidence that’s sitting right in front of you. Evidence that only a select few have been granted the ability to see.

The rest of us, of course, are just sheep. We’re asleep. We’re dumb brutes who are unwittingly giving this conspiracy money and power to further their goals.

Here’s a taste of what passes for “evidence” from these folks:

Comment: Firstly, as evidence of how the mainstream press is in no way “free” or “impartial” but rather infiltrated by extremist right-wing thinkers and government lackeys, the above mentioned so-called “terrorism expert”, employed by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, is ex-British parliamentarian and Professor of Marketing at London City University, Eirc Moonman, who just also happens to be President of the Zionist Federation of London.

Surely everyone would agree that the opinion of the President of the Federation of Zionists on Arab terrorism is anything but objective, yet we note that Sky News did NOT inform their viewers of Moonman’s extremist Pro-Israel background, stating only that he is a “terrorism expert” and even then neglecting to provide any credentials that might support his claim to terrorism expertise

First of all, the idea that Sky News “employs” a terrorism expert is absurd. The producers of the piece have a Rolodex full of “terrorism experts” who they can call and get a quote fr0m any time they want. And not revealing the Professors religion or political beliefs is irrelevant. I would challenge the writer of this piece to point to any statement made by the “expert” that wouldn’t have been echoed almost verbatim by any other terrorism expert. That’s the reason he’s an expert. He’s a spokesmen for a point of view generally accepted by those who have made their life’s work a study of the issue of terrorism.

Having to explain something that simple is tiring. Let’s amuse ourselves a little:

Another most interesting aspect to today’s London bombings is that right next door to the scene of one of the attacks on the London Metro, the Great Eastern Hotel was hosting a conference on the Israeli economy, attended by Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most extreme right-wing “Zionist” members of Sharon’s Likud party and a staunch opponent of next month’s Gaza pullout plan. Most bizarrely of all, one initial report claimed that the Israeli embassy had received advance warning of the attacks from British police, a claim that Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later denied, while another report had British police denying that they had received advance warning of the attacks from the Israeli embassy, which then THEY denied! What seems clear is that one or other or even both DID know of the attacks in advance and now both are attempting to cover up that fact.

This leads to the inevitable Israeli connection to the bombings. I’m sure you recognize the stench of anti-semitism emanating from this site. If not, don’t worry. They get much more graphic and nauseating later in this piece.

As for the charge of Israeli complicity, the original wire service report that I covered here very early this morning did indeed say that British authorities had contacted the Israeli’s prior to the blast. In fact, this was an error. The Israeli’s aren’t denying they were contacted as the author of the piece says. The Israeli’s said, later confirmed and corrected by AP, that Scotland Yard called the Israeli’s after the first bomb went off.

No one is denying anything. The AP simply got the story wrong. Gee…I didn’t know it was possible for AP or any MSM outlet to be wrong about anything, did you?

I predict that this AP story will live on forever. I base this prediction on something very similar that happened during the Kennedy assassination also involving AP.

The legendary UPI reporter Merriman Smith was beating the tar out of AP during the first crucial minutes of the assassination story. In the days before satellites, the wire services were king. And the way you got on top was being first with the story. It was a job where seconds counted and Smith had the drop on the AP from the get go.

Since AP couldn’t catch up, the editors were pressing their correspondent in Dallas Jack Bell for more information. They were desperate. After Bell left Parkland hospital following Kennedy’s death, he collared every policeman within his grasp begging for news. At around 3:15, he cornered a Dallas policeman who told him a secret service agent had been killed in the motorcade. Without getting any confirmation, Bell sent it over the wire. Within minutes, NBC had reported it as fact. Of course, there was no dead secret service agent. NBC had to retract and to this day, the conspiracy nuts point to this story as proof there was more than one assassin.

Finally, we come to the nub of their thought processes. It’s a form of contrarianism where white is black, up is down, and the surest sign that the cabal is at work is how obvious the answer to any question is:

Contrary to the headlines on mainstream news sources and claims by the British government, the attacks today in London bear all the hallmarks of yet another false flag operation carried out by the intelligence apparatus of the UK, the US or Israel (or a combination of all three). Perhaps now is a good time to talk about the fact that, on many, many occasions in the past, US, British and Israeli intelligence agencies have employed “false flag” operations to further their political and military goals. Indeed, the idea of attacking oneself or the population of one’s own country and then blaming it on your enemies is as “old as the hills” and is a core element of covert intelligence agency tactics.

Take, for example, the Madrid train bombing of March 11th 2004. 191 people were murdered, supposedly by al-Qaeda, yet all of the victims were simple, working class people, many of whom had protested against the Iraq invasion and the then Spanish government’s decision to send troops to Iraq. So why would al-qaeda, an organisation that claims to represent the interests of the Islamic people, want to attack innocent people who to some extent share their opposition to pro-American European governments?

That last question would be laughable if placed in another context. It’s the same rant made by Michael Moore the day after 9/11 when he said:

If someone did 9/11 to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes’ destination of California - these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!

The ignorance is breathtaking. The whole point of terrorism is random violence with a great big emphasis on random. So in answer to the author’s question, al Qaeda is not crazy or stupid. The psychological effects of random death are incalculable. Unlike Michael Moore and the author of this piece, the rest of us know that we live in a democracy. If you make the people - ordinary blue collar, average people - uncomfortable enough your chances of affecting the policy of that government increases with the level of violence.

Notice also the “false flag” charge which is not only impossible to prove but gives the reader the impression the author knows something about the subject of intelligence. What the author doesn’t explain is where his proof for these prior “false flag” operations is and, more importantly, how these activities are at the “core” of intelligence agencies.

The fact is that the “core” of intelligence agencies today is analysis. More than 95% of our intelligence budget goes to analyzing information that pours in from an endless variety of sources, most of them overt like newspapers and books. And while there has been a massive effort to increase our human intelligence gathering capabilities since 9/11, the fact is our efforts have met with limited success.

But what about the other 5% of the budget spent on “black ops?” Here’s a story illustrative of how unlikely a conspiracy like 9/11 could be kept secret.

In 1982, the navy began one of the most secretive operations in the history of the United States. We sent a sub into Soviet territorial waters to tap into an undersea cable that connected the Soviet far east fleet with Moscow. The sub was on station for months at a time. If they had been discovered they would have been sunk.

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post had the story less than a month after the operation started. Thankfully, Mr. Woodward and the Post editors resisted the temptation to go with the story. Otherwise, that sub would have been lost.

The point? It’s virtually impossible to keep a secret in Washington. Think of some of the conspiracies that have been revealed in the last 50 years. Watergate was outed less than 2 years after the plumbers started their work. Poor Ollie North had his arms for the contras conspiracy exposed in less than a year. The fact is that if it’s juicy enough, the secret eventually gets out.

And that’s the problem with the conspiracy mongers. The kind of false flag operation envisioned by the writer involving three governments(!) would necessarily need dozens of people to set the operation up and then, more importantly, leave a false trail that only the enlightened ones who can read the signs will be able to follow back to the original perpetrators.

Up is down. Black is white. Don’t believe your eyes and make sure your tin foil hat is screwed on tight.

John Cole has similar thoughts.

UPDATE

Ladies and Gentlemen! Direct from Armadillo Headquarters, please welcome The Amboy Dukes (and Jeff Goldstein).

update 16: Predictably, Justin Raimondo is already seeing Joooos in the Shepherd’s Pie. Now, I’m not one to tell the Zionists how to run their international cabal, but if it were me who was in charge of running the world, I’d sacrifice up a few Hebes at each of these bombings, just to keep Justin Raimondo and his tireless investigators off my ass. Hell, I might even throw in a Likudnik from time to time, just to really confound the Truth Seekers.

Um…I think he put one too many “o’s” in Joooos.

I swear to God I ought to go into the palm reading business.

At about 4:30 this morning, as the news was first trickling in about the terror bombings in London, I predicted that the left would find some way to blame Bush and accuse him in the process of trying to make political hay out of the tragedy.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Kos, the DU moonbats, and lefty bloggers all over the sphere were jumping all over this story bashing the President unmercifully and offering the attack as proof that the President’s war on terror is a failure.

From Daily Kos:

One has to wonder if we were not physically encroaching in the middle east whether these travesties would be taking place against us. Certainly they would be less common.

If only Bush and Blair would have allowed the inspectors to complete their job this barbaric act today would probably never have happened…

Do you believe that Karl Rove isn’t plotting how to spin the London attacks at this very moment?

I agree we should mourn the dead from today’s attack. Perhaps many of us are cynical but it comes from experience of seeing how our so called leaders behaved after previous attacks

Democratic Underground:

Yes, Blair, “barbaric,” just like the daisy-cutter bombs you and yours dropped on innocent people in Iraq. As Richard Clark had predicted, your preemptive attack on Iraq–and your little buddy’s, the Chimp–has brought more terror on the world, not less. Wake the hell up. You brought this on all of us.

This is the post I looked for to make sure someone else pointed it out. Thank you. We can never make ourselves safe by killing people elsewhere and then expecting ourselves to be immune.

Thank you for remembering Crazy Reason #7 for killing brown people who live over oil in the ground

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

What can you say to such idiocy?

And remember George Galloway? He’s the British MP up to his neck in the Oil for Food scandal who came over and testified before the Senate committee? Here’s his reaction to today’s bombing:

We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.”

Talk about predictable.

The only question I have for you, oh gentle readers, can you imagine what the reaction from these moonbats would have been if the bombs went off here?

Oh the moonbats would have been barking then.

WE ARE ALL BRITS TODAY. RULE BRITANIA!
Thanks to Jeff Harrell of Shape of Days for the great idea.

London just got hit…bad.

Early reports, now confirmed, say that a double decker bus was the target of a bomb that witnesses say completely destroyed the vehicle. No word on dead and injured yet.

There were apparently 7 other blasts that hit the subway or “tube” system in London.

This has al Qaeda written all over it although I suppose I should hold off on speculation until more is known. Al Qaeda, you may recall, specializes in multiple attacks carried out in a short period of time. Witnesses on MSNBC are saying that the subway blasts occurred one after another in rapid succession.

One note: while the G8 Summit is being held in Edinburgh, Scotland it is improbable that the anarchists who are protesting there have anything to do with this. This kind of coordinated attack would seem to be beyond the capabilities of the unorganized group of violent mischief makers in the anarchist movement whose very nature precludes any kind of large scale cooperation. That plus I would guess that the anarchists may be one of the most infiltrated groups worldwide when it comes to police and domestic security agencies means that any large scale attack would probably be discovered in the planning stages.

The IRA? It’s a possibility but of late, the nationalist terror group has sought to work within the political system. An ultra-violent off shoot of the group? Again a possibility. Many of the most violent terrorists received their training from al Qaeda back in the 1990’s so it would make some sense that they would adopt some of the jihadists methods. But it would be a radical departure for the IRA to target civilians in their attacks. Their bombs are usually preceeded by warnings so that civilians can clear out of the danger zone. And IRA bombs in the past have been directed against symbols of British authority like police, army, the government, and even the royal family.

I’ll keep this at the top of the page all day so watch for updates.

UPDATE I

First report of “90 casualties” in the blasts. Here’s a AP eyewitness report via Drudge:

LONDON (AP) - An explosion destroyed a double-decker bus in central London during rush hour Thursday, police said, and several blasts also went off on the London subway. There were reports of casualties.

People covered in blood stumbled out of the subway, and a witness said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.

“I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double decker bus was in the air,” Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.

She said the bus was packed with people.

“It was a massive explosion and there were papers and half a bus flying through the air,” she said.

Another report, now confirmed, states that another explosion rocked the square where the double decker bus exploded.

London is at a standstill as the entire public transportation has been shut down. The London Police Commissioner has just gone on TV and told people to stay home.

I hope that American officials in cities across our country are on a heightened state of alert and are taking measures to protect our public transportation this morning.

UPDATE II

Officials are saying that at least 3 buses have been the target of bombs. Since it was rush hour, the loss of life could prove to be large.

One witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was evacuated along with others near the major King’s Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.

Police confirmed an explosion destroyed a double-decker bus at Russell Square in central London and said they suspected a bomb caused the blast. Dow Jones Newswires reported that police said there were explosions on two others buses.

And more from AP:

Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King’s Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square in central London, near the British Museum.

London Ambulance Service said several vehicles had been dispatched to the area near Liverpool Street station.

Also a report from the Israeli’s (unconfirmed) that Scotland Yard approached the Israelis minutes before the explosions and told them that they had received warnings of a terror attack. If true, big trouble for Blair. Depending on what the authorities knew and when they knew it, this kind of thing could bring down Blair’s government.

We’re waiting anxiously for the first posting on the Democratic Underground website blaming Bush/Rove for the attack to gin up his support. Maybe they’re still asleep.

CNN has a Timeline of events and is now reporting that there were 6 blasts at subway stations (some people are apparently still trapped underground) and 3 other attacks on double decker buses.

The communication network is completely overloaded as everyone is using their cell phones at once to call loved ones to assure them that they’re all right. This phenomena is reminiscent of what happened all over America on November 22, 1963 when the telephone system in Washington, D.C. was completely shut down when it was overloaded. This led to some speculation by conspiracy theorists that the assassination was a coup de tat by the military. What happened in London proves that even sophisticated and technologically advanced systems are vulnerable.

Tony Blair confirms that the attacks are in fact, “terrorist attacks.” He’s leaving the G8 summit to return to London.

UPDATE III

Looks like officials here - at least in Washington - are in fact ratcheting up security in anticipation of something similar happening here:

The explosions on London’s transit system are prompting heightened security in the U-S.

Metro riders in Washington, D-C, should expect to see increased patrols. A Metro spokeswoman says officials are “ramping up security immediately.” She says officials will be using bomb sniffing dogs and officers will have a higher visibility and will be carrying machine guns.

The spokeswoman says officers will also be searching buses

I’m going to hold off on more updates until the picture gets clearer. So far, 2 confirmed dead and 90 injuries but that number is sure to rise.

UPDATE IV

Now that more information has been confirmed and some things clarified, here’s what we know.

Four bombs exploded in downtown London. Three devices went off in subway cars and one took out a double decker bus:

LONDON - Four blasts rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in the worst attack on London since World War II. At least 40 people were killed, U.S. officials said, and more than 360 wounded in the terror attacks.

A clearly shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called the attacks “barbaric” and said they were designed to coincide with the G-8 summit opening in Gleneagles, Scotland. They also came a day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. A group calling itself “The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe” claimed responsibility.

The explosions hit three subway stations and a double-decker bus in rapid succession beginning at 8:51 a.m. (3:51 a.m. EDT) and ended about 40 minutes later when a blast ripped the top off a bus. Implementing an emergency plan, authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday.

As of now, 40 are dead with hundreds injured. A European offshoot of al Qaeda has claimed responsibility.

What will this do for the war on terror? Hopefully, the major effect of this attack will be in a hardening of positions by the so-called E3 - Germany, France, and Great Britain - who are negotiating with Iran to stop them from enriching uranium so that the radioactive mullahs will be prevented from building a nuclear weapon. If we can put a little spine into Chirac and Schroeder when it comes to our coming showdown with Iran, all the better.

By the end of summer, the mullahs will have a decision to make; confront the west or acquiesce to our demands that they abandon their enrichment program and submit to regular and close inspection of their facilities. It would help when we go before the UN to try and get that body on board for any sanctions regime that would certainly be a first step in any confrontation. And while the probability that both Russia and China would veto any sanctions effort in the Security Council, Germany and France would be valuable allies in any military confrontation with the mullahs.

The Boston Globe’s James Carroll has evidently decided that the conventional history of our effort in the Pacific theater in World War II just doesn’t cut the mustard. He has taken it upon himself to not only invent an alternative history of those events, but to also accuse the troops who fought in that war of being inhuman monsters:

Even as the valor of what they did on one beachhead after another is properly honored, the American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war.

To deconstruct such idiocy would require one to ignore the actual history of that “savage” conflict and instead, travel with Mr. Carroll down the rabbit hole of obfuscation and ignorance and emerge in a world where moral equivalency has acheived supremacy over common sense and rational thought.

The theme that Mr. Carroll clumsily tries to advance - that American GI’s in the Pacific were somehow motivated by racism and revenge that led to a “generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war” is breathtaking in it’s discounting of Japanese war aims and the way that the Japanese military waged war.

The militaristic government of Japan launched wars of agression against China, Malaysia, the Phillipines, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Korea, Viet Nam, Singapore, and the United States to name a few. Their purpose was to unite all of east Asia in a “Co-Prosperity Sphere” where Japan would rape those nations of natural resources and use the inhabitants for both slave labor and sex slaves. Without exaggeration, it can be said that the Japanese army raped its way across the continent of Asia.

Only one thing stood in the way of Japan’s dream of empire; the United States Navy. Hence, the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the six months following the Pearl Harbor catastrophe, the Japanese attacked and occupied several island chains that served as forward bases both for defense and for future operations we now know were planned for New Zealand and Australia. In order for the US Military to win the war, it was believed that we would have to invade Japan proper. To do that, we had to defeat the Japanese military who were occupying the island chains that ran roughly southwest to northeast from New Guinuea to Okinawa.

Two things made the island warfare in the Pacific different from the kind of war being fought on the western front in Europe against the Nazis. First, the distances involved were staggering. From Pearl Harbor to the Philipines was 4,500 miles. These vast distances meant that any offensive operations against Japan would be totally dependent on the navy’s ability to carry troops and resupply outposts captured in our drive across the south pacific.

The second huge difference involved the way that the individual Japanese soldier fought. Subscribing to an ethical code known as “Bushido” or “way of the warrior,” these beliefs all but insured that any confrontation with western soldiers would result in combat that would confuse, frighten, and even overwhelm those unfamiliar with the strict tenets of the code’s “moral” precepts. These precepts included frugality, loyalty, mastery of martial arts, and honor to the death.

A perfect example would be the battle for Okinawa. Approximately 25,000 Japanese soldiers faced off against more than 100,000 Americans. Using tactics that disoriented and frightened the Americans - including night ambushes, firing from caves and prepared underground positions, suicide attacks against vastly superior forces, and mass suicide by civilians and military - our soldiers quickly realized that in order to stay alive, it was best to shoot first and keep shooting until all the Japanese were dead. Out of 25,000 Japanese troops engaged at Okinawa, 129 surrendered. The rest either committed suicide or died in combat.

How to deal with such fanaticism? Is it racism to kill an enemy before he kills you? There’s no evidence that Japanese POW’s were treated with any more malice than German POW’s. There were a heck of a lot fewer of the former for reason’s I’ve described. And as far as the “savage air war” that was carried out one has to look at the Japanese war industry and how they had made workers’ houses the hub of industrial activity that kept that Japanese war machine in business. By locating factories in residential areas, the Japanese military planners were able to disperse industrial production so that workers’ dwellings became mini-workshops contributing to the factory’s productivity. The only way to effectively bomb the factories was to destroy the housing for the workers as well.

All of this information is not a secret. It’s not locked up in a closet somewhere and guarded by CIA agents. The fact that Mr. Carroll didn’t bother giving any perspective to his screed cannot be due to a lack of available information. One must surmise it was a deliberate omission.

The racial overtones to the war in the Pacific were contained in the propoganda fed to the American people and soldiers who fought in that theater. But to say that the soldiers themselves were motiviated by racisim and revenge is ridiculous. One would have to be a psychic to be able to glean those kinds of intentions from our military.

Were some individual soldiers racist? Obviously yes. But to tar and feather the millions of fighting men who fought in the Pacific theater with such a baseless charge is either a sign of complete ignorance or of a virulent anti-Americanism that ignores history and circumstance and descends into hyperbole.

I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which explanation illuminates Mr. Carroll’s motives.

UPDATE

I came late to this party. Here’s Jeff Godlstein’s excellent takedown:

Leaving aside the idiocy of a formulation that insists that because war itself is hell, all those involved in fighting it are equally deserving of both its glories (such as they are) and its shames, Carroll’s real rhetorical transgression here—over and above the shots he takes at veterans—is to insist, against all reason and in the face of the billions of words spilled in its defense, that no one is able to say why we are fighting in Iraq. Which, like the rest of his piece, is utter nonsense.

And Ace weighs in with this:

There is a certain sort of person whose intellectual vanity causes him to reject what he considers the low-class and uneducated “standard” form of patriotism exhibited by his cutlural and moral inferiors. It’s the impulse to differentiate oneself from one’s (putative) lessers and thereby elevate oneself into the ranks of the elite.

The same shallow impulse that causes eggheads to reject good movies, such as Dumb & Dumber, because they’ve got mass appeal.

Paul Geary at The New Editor:

This isn’t even moral equivalence with fascists. At least they killed for a reason. We’re worse.

Why write this for publication on July 5? Why not publish this on Memorial Day, when we hapless Americans are busy honoring our dead non-hero racist savages who make war for no reason?

One of these days, if I ever get the time and ambition, I’m going to write a history of cluelessness in America.

It will be a multi-volume set, leather bound with embossed letters at the beginning of chapters just like the monks used when they copied the bible. I’ll have publishers lining up to bid on the darn thing, believe me. After all, any publisher that would accept a 1000 page manuscript from Bill Clinton that says absolutely nothing should have no trouble in taking on my literary project. And I won’t even ask for a $5 million advance.

I certainly won’t be lacking for material. One need only reflect on the America that existed at the time of our Declaration of Independence to realize an entire volume could be devoted to the cluelessness of the British in their handling of the American colonies. Or the idiocy of British military commanders like General Cornwallis or General Burgoyne, both of whom allowed the finest armies on the planet to be defeated by a bunch of brave, determined, but still raggedy and disorganized group of farmers, merchants, and laborers.

American General of Artillery Henry Knox was a bookseller by trade. The hero of Saratoga Benedict Arnold was an apothecary at one time. And yet, the British army never had a chance. They could win battle after battle and the more they gloried in their victories, the closer the colonies came to independence. Theirs was the cluelessness of arrogance. They actually thought that because some King had touched a sword to the shoulder of one of their ancestors thus making that worthy a “noble” that this somehow made them better than the free born farmers and merchants who opposed them. That kind of cluelessness cost them an empire.

Thankfully, we have an army of intrepid bloggers who protect us from that kind of cluelessness today. So without further adieu, let’s dig into some genuine, all-American stupidity.
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“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
(Sir Francis Bacon)
I guess that makes me an imprecise, unprepared, half-assed galoot.”
(Me)
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Red State Rant alerts us to Stephen Spielberg’s latest project that involves the Israeli agents who tracked down and killed the terrorists who murdered Israel’s athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.”Stephen Spielberg: Nuancy Boy” captures the director’s “moral equivalency” perfectly.

Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin. I wonder what analogy you could draw to describe those three cluebats? Kefuffles hits the nail on the head with “The Three Stooges do Europe.”

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy spanks the left for their yearning to see a Viet Nam redux. If the moonbats had any brains, I’d say they had a death wish. Since they lack the necessary gray matter, we can simply point to their utter cluelessness and shake our heads in collective bewilderment.

Giacomo of Joust the Facts brings us a Carnival favorite. Ted Kennedy has opened his mouth again - this time to warn the President on his selection for Supreme Court Justice - which means he’s automatically entered in the “Cluebat of the Week” sweepstakes. It really isn’t fair, you know. He should really step aside and give someone else a chance some time.

Mr. Satire is at it again. The Master of Cluelessness gives us a piece called “The Supreme Court Relies On Foreign Couture.” Mighty pretty they are too! And this one is self explanatory: “Senator Dick Durbin Tied Pol Pot In Third Place, Vows To Beat Hitler.”

The folks at The Common Room take pity on Nancy Pelosi. To be clueless in private, in the bosom of one’s family is one thing. But to display one’s idiocy with the TV cameras and microphones picking up every clueless word is something totally different.

More on Nancy Pelosi from Going to the Mat. It doesn’t seem to matter what the subject is, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, the individual who represents the oldest continuously viable political party in existence, is quite simply, a loon.

Possum links us to a transcript of an interview with several clueless Congressmen and Senators regarding the upcoming Supreme Court nomination fight. Check out Lindsey Graham’s weasel words.

Mark Coffey of Decision “08 points his finger at David Corn of The Nation and asks for an air sickness bag. Anyone who uses his children to make a political point is not only clueless, they should be flogged.

Raven at And Rightly So has an excellent rant against Bob Geldof and the moonbats of Live 8. She has a message for the self righteous snots who constantly carp about America’s contributions: “They need to realize that by imploring the G8 governments to DO SOMETHING, they are demanding that I do something. I already have. I’ve given my money.”

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs is baaaaaaack! After braving the perfidious French for the better part of a week, our fearless correspondent shows us that as far as the French are concerned, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

The Maryhunter of TMH Bacon Bits takes us on a trip into moonbat land and the tiresome and dishonest rants by the anti-war left against the President every time he brings up 9/11. There’s a lesson to be learned there but I don’t think they’re listening.

Van Helsing from Moonbattery brings us words of wisdom from that noted philosopher and towering intellect Woody Allen. No, that’s not a typo. It seems Mr. Allen has taken something of a long view of history with regards to 9/11. Funny how his view of history shortens up quite a bit when it comes to his view of shacking up with his stepdaughter while he was married.

Okay…think real hard and tell me true. Is there anyone more outrageously clueless than Madonna? Northstar of The People’s Republic of Seabrook has the answer.

Two Dogs at Mean ol’ Meany blog has some “splodeydope” links for moonbats like Rep.Sheila Jackson Lee “(Dumbass-TX)” regarding our treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Ms. Jackson Lee has proven herself clueless on numerous occasions in the past which, of course, makes her easy pickings.

Cao of Cao’s Blog has an excellent and detailed post about Iraq’s ties to terror and WMD that gives a lie to the Democrats sloganeering “If you say a lie often enough you’re a republican.”

Harvey of Bad Example compares and contrasts Dick Durbin’s “apology” with one given by his blogson. It’s not only Durbin that could learn a thing or two from that kind of forthrightness, but also the rest of us and most especially, the MSM.

Josh at Multiple Mentality thinks it’s fantastic that Justice Souter may get his just desserts with the building of the Liberty Hotel on his property. I like the old Klingon saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold…like Gaach.”

Jan Bear at A World of Speculation links to the Sally Jenkins puff piece on “moderate” Howard Dean and what an ordinary guy he truly is. (Just scroll down until you see Howard’s picture). Trying to turn Mr. Dean into a teddy bear must have been a herculean task - much harder than cleaning the horse manure from the Agean Stables.

Finally, my own entry this week is also on Live 8 called “Geldof’s Goofy Gig.”

I was one of the five million or so AOL subscribers who tuned in to the Live 8 concert on Saturday. My interest was purely professional - something akin to the typical NASCAR fan who goes to a racetrack waiting expectantly for the spectacular crack-up.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Technically speaking, the event was great. There I was sitting at my computer a mouse click away from watching live performances in Berlin, London, Tokyo, Toronto, and Phladelphia. After a while, I stopped thinking about the enormous distances involved and just tried to enjoy the show.

Ain’t the internets somethin’ else?

As for enjoying the show, I managed to catch both an ancient looking Paul McCartney and a still defiant Madonna, whose middle finger salute was actually kind of appropriate. It reminded me of what these spoiled, rich, aging, philistines actually think about the rest of us. This Evening Standard gossip columnist fills us in on some really juicy details:

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY, who both opened and closed Live8, made sure every one knew exactly whose show it really was by continually strolling up and down the backstage area with his entourage of six in tow.

And when the McCartneys came face to face with the BECKHAMS it was always going to be interesting to see the result.

After praising Sir Paul on his opening number (which she was not actually there for), VICTORIA managed to infuriate the former Beatle by running off to hug an old friend. There were uncomfortable smiles all round because DAVID did not know how to explain his wife’s disappearing act to Sir Paul. When Victoria finally returned, Sir

Paul told her through gritted teeth: ‘Oh, well, if she’s more important than me …

BRAD PITT, on stage for all of two minutes, was furious that he did not have his own dressing room and RICHARD CURTIS, the director who heads the Make Poverty History campaign, had to vacate his for the actor

Whatever happened to the “We are the World” spirit where all the stars “checked their egos at the door?”

I guess there are some sacrifices stars just won’t make for a good cause.

And Live 8 was in fact, a good cause; if you are a member of a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) who would be partially responsible for divvying up the doubling of aid to Africa proposed by Geldof. The organizers are looking for some $25 billion in aid to the murderous kleptocrats and purloining shysters who make up the bulk of what passes for governments on that long suffering continent. A few weeks back, here’s what I said about that idea:

The problem with Africa, however, isn’t money. And doubling aid to the continent would be something akin to giving a convicted drunk driver his license back with a gift-wrapped bottle of Chivas Regal.

Others agree with that assessment:

As Paul Wolfowitz, the new head of the World Bank, pointed out yesterday: “Giving money to corrupt governments is a formula for ineffective assistance.” Wiping out debt is tantamount to giving money and it has to be done with very tight strings attached. It would also impoverish the World Bank, which should play a pivotal role in helping Africa to help herself. So an essential part of the plan to write off debts will also have to be an agreement to provide additional funding for the World Bank. It seems that the United States has been persuaded to hand over extra cash.

Money, carefully spent, is undoubtedly part of the solution to Africa’s problems. It can provide food and education but, for the long term, it can also fund the micro-banks that, with relatively tiny loans, can help individuals to set up businesses. The money Live Aid raised may not all have reached its planned destination but some did. The lunacy of Live 8 is that, apart from the costs that the marchers will bring, one of the biggest concerts for many a year will not be raising money for a good cause.

The hyperbole from many of the participants was pretty tough to take at times. Coldplay’s Chris Martin get’s the award for most outrageous statement made by a clueless musician when he said the event was “the greatest thing that’s ever been organised probably in the history of the world.”

Wesely Pruden just couldn’t let Martin’s idiocy slide by:

Since “the entire history of the world” includes the extinction of the dinosaurs, the eruption of Krakatoa, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the construction of the pyramids, the Resurrection of Christ and man’s landing on the moon, Live 8 had to be impressive mush.

And the mush certainly wasn’t helped by Geldof’s own outrageous statement after the show that “3 billion people were watching.” Even MTV’s website couldn’t swallow that one:

With millions watching the globe-spanning concerts in person (see “In The Crowds At Live 8: Music, Mud And A Shared Desire To Help”) and an estimated billion or more tuning in to the broadcast for what will likely be the most-watched music event in history, the twin messages of Live 8 were inescapable: “We don’t want your money, we want you” and “Three seconds.”

The latter was the figure given for how often a child dies in Africa of extreme poverty. Will Smith dramatically illustrated the point by repeatedly snapping his fingers and exhorting the estimated million-plus crowd in Philadelphia to do the same, creating an eerie crackling sound that slammed the point home.

One billion humans tuning into a single event is impressive enough. In fact, it’s about the same number of people who tune into the Super Bowl every year. And you can definitely say that the game is a helluva lot more entertaining than watching Will Smith snap his fingers.

For contained in Mr. Smith’s stupid gesture is a perfect illustration of why this event is a futile exercise in sophistry. The idea that “raising awareness” of Africa’s plight will save starving children is absurd. In order to save those children, you don’t have to snap your fingers, what you need is wholesale regime changes in 2 dozen or more countries where governments use starvation as the weapon of choice against rebelious populations. Africa’s problem is not lack of food. It is not a lack of arable land, or water resources, or agricultural know-how (they’ve been farming in Africa since before the Egyptians got themselves organized). At bottom, Africa’s problem is, well, Africans. Embracing the socialist doctrines of the old Soviet Union and Cuba during the 1970’s and 80’s, the grandiose schemes and huge development projects undertaken with some of the $220 billion in western aid that has gone to the continent since the 1960’s proved to be boondoggles of the first magnitude.

Dam building for electricity that nobody needs or can use is just one small example. What isn’t known and probably can never be calculated is the out and out theivery of aid funds by African leaders, their families, their extended families, their cronies, and the western companies who are forced into kickback schemes in order to win contracts with this human daisy chain of graft and corruption.

Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines says that companies that give out bribes and get involved in kickback schemes are partly to blame because they don’t blow the whistle. Who are they going to blow the whistle to? Not only will they lose the contract, their chances of getting another in that country or any one of 2 dozen other countries is about as good as the Cub’s chances of going to the World Series this year.

What’s to be done? US Ambassador to Kenya William Bellamy made the mistake of calling out African leadership on aid saying “Turning on the fire hose of international compassion and asking Kenya and other African nations to drink from it is not a serious strategy for promoting growth or ending poverty.”

Pruden gives us the Kenyan response:

President Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, was off at the African Union summit in Libya, helping other despots draw up their gimme list. In his absence, a deputy fired back at Ambassador Bellamy, complaining that Kenya had been singled out for criticism just because it doesn’t take terrorism seriously. Aid for Africa, he told the ambassador, “should not get entangled with the politics of your dissatisfaction with a regime, unless you have decided on a regime change.”

Nobody has, unfortunately, and that’s exactly why aid for Africa is as close to hopeless as anything can be. Regime change all across the continent is sorely needed, even more than another concert by unemployed service-station attendants whanging away on electric guitars and other noisemakers

Precisely. Which makes Live 8 about as relevant to helping solve Africa’s problems as the activities of the masked anarchists who are gleefully running around Edinburgh smashing windows and torching automobiles as if to prove the efficacy of corporal punishment denied them when they were children.

I suppose I shouldn’t criticize an effort with such obvious good intentions. But when that effort is so short sighted and even deliberately blind to the real cause and effect of Africa’s misery, it’s imperative that the millions of impressionable youths worldwide who wouldn’t know a Mugabe from a Mandela not be misled into thinking that singing and dancing for one day with a bunch of over-ripe troubadours will solve anything.

Because of the 4th of July holiday, we’ve pushed back the deadline for submissions to this week’s Carnival of the Clueless to Tuesday night at 10:00 PM.

Last week’s Carnival garnered 22 posts from both the right and left side of the sphere. Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT.

It should be another interesting week. Washington has been such a target rich environment lately, trying to decide who or what is the most clueless is getting to be a herculean task - something like cleaning the Aegean Stables - with just as much manure being tossed around.

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

“Better Late Than Never” Edition…

Last weeks Watcher’s Council vote was a real nail biter but in the end, The House emerged triumphant with my post entitled The Left’s “Word Deficit.”

Finishing a close second was an excellent piece by Dymphna of Gates of Vienna called Pimping Misery. Is the United Nations salvageable?

The world has gotten smaller and the rate of change has increased exponentially so the last thing we need is central control. It can’t respond quickly enough, as the Tsumani aftermath proved; it has no moral authority, as illustrated in Darfur, and it has no accountability, as Oil for Food demonstrates, continuing to bubble out vast reserves of corruption and downright evil.

The world not only doesn’t need the United Nations, the sad fact is the world would be a better place without the United Nations. If it ever had any usefulness that utility is so long past it’s no longer visible.

Agreed, with one small caveat: If the UN didn’t exist, it would have to be invented. This yearning for one world government is an outgrowth of the socialist impulse that has colored European politics for nearly 150 years and is probably with us to stay. Prior to World War I, the dream of a supranational organization that would prevent war, regulate trade, and generally unite mankind in peace and harmony was pretty much confined to a few philosophers (Immanuel Kant) and nutcases (Hegel). It took liberal saint Woodrow Wilson (and the slaughter of 20 million during World War I) to create the League of Nations. And when that failed, it took another liberal saint in FDR to try again with the UN.

What these efforts have in common is a denial of man’s natural inclinations, i.e. the urge to disobey as many of the ten commandments as possible especially nos. 6 through 10 with a special emphasis on #6 and #7. There may in fact be a formula out there for some kind of worldwide extra-governmental organization. But it will never be invented by a liberal. Only a conservative would recognize the inherent evil of human beings and create a world body accordingly.

I’m kidding of course. No conservative would be so stupid.

Tied for second in the voting with Dymphna was the good Dr. Sanity and a fascinating post on terrorist enablers: (”The Consequences of Enabling Terror”)

Whatever Michael Jackson was or wasn’t doing with those young boys was hardly a mystery to the boys’ mothers and/or families, which had to be complicit and enable Jackson’s behavior (the kids didn’t get to the Ranch on foot, nor did they stay overnight without permission). No, it served the purposes of the parents to enable Jackson’s behavior. It serves the purposes of the Feminists et al, to ignore the brutality of Islam towards women, in favor of demanding that the Harvard President whimper and wallow before them in abject apology for remarks that were scientifically justified.

Yes I am angry. And I’m fed up with such insane moral equivalence.

I’ve decided that it isn’t just a question of moral equivalence as the good Doctor Sanity so rightly points out. It’s also people who have fallen in love with the sound of their own arguments. It must be very sweet sounding to these lickspittles to hear the word “Gulag” or “Hitler” come out of their mouths when they talk about America or George Bush. The endorphins released in the brain when making such analogies must make the comparisons to evil and tyrants irresistable. There is, in fact, a recognized pathology at work here.

It’s called looniness.

Finishing a close third was Council newbie Rhymes with Right. Greg’s post on the SCOTUS Kelo decision is spot on: (SCOTUS: Your Property is not your Own)

Imagine that – these poor dumb citizens believed that they had the right to decide when and if they would sell their homes and property to private developers, and at what price.

Didn’t they know that the government has the right to give them a low-ball price for their homes and turn around and sell them at that sweetheart price to a favored local developer or appealing corporation. After all, why should a homeowner be able to decide that he wants to stay in his house when a multinational corporation worth hundreds of millions of dollars wants the lot for parking at their new offices? And don’t you understand that government should be able to decide that it would be economically beneficial to have a 100-house neighborhood consisting of million dollar homes rather than 500 houses valued at a mere $100,000 – it will bring a better sort of person, too. If the old owners can’t find a house in the town they grew up in – let them buy trailers!

Given the spate of seizures since the decision was handed down, this may be the most disasterous ruling made by the Supreme Court since Plessy v Ferguson which upheld the excreable notion of “seperate but equal” facilities for the races. Not even the made up privacy right granted in Roe v Wade caused as much constitutional mischief as this ruling has the potential to do.

John Hindraker of Powerline (writing in The Weekly Standard) doesn’t agree. But the question of the immediate and dire impact on individual American citizens and their right to be secure in their property is answered with more and more examples of Kelo type seizures that have come to light in the past week.

The impact will be most heavily felt in very small towns and ex-urban areas where the confluence of money, politics, personal relationships, and greed are most in evidence. Part-time politicians who are elected as Trustees or Assemblymen and whose campaigns are bankrolled by developers are wide open to the kind of corruption Kelo invites.

These are real world situations not theoretical constitutional constructs. It remains to be seen whether there will be any protections that can be legislated short of a constitutional amendment re-affirming our property rights.

The winning Non-Council piece was submitted by Maxed out Mama and it’s a doozy. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford, best selling author, winner of numerous academic prizes…and moonbat extraordinaire: (Ehrlich’s Wit and Wisdom)

“We must institute the Chinese Communist system of compulsory abortion in various forms of infanticide so that each couple will have only one child. We must hope that our government doesn’t wait until it, too, decides that coercive measures can solve America’s population problem…. The price of personal freedom in making childbearing decisions may be the destruction of the world.”
[Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University]

You know what’s really cool? The German government is thinking about imposing penalties upon childless people in an attempt to boost their birthrate RIGHT NOW. Europe’s decline and fall basically is rooted in the declining birthrate. One thing I love about these types - no matter what the problem, they can always come up with a reason why the government must to force people to do something for their own good.

Has there ever been an individual more wrong, more often, in the history of popular culture? Because that’s been Ehrlich’s enduring appeal; his dreams of catastrophe have resonated with the scientifically illiterate, the ignorant, and the anti-industrialization crowd ever since his best selling The Population Bomb became the bible a certain segement of the anti-science left. Here’s Ehrlich, writing in 1970, on the world food situation in 1980:

“This vast tragedy, however, is nothing compared to the nutritional disaster that seems likely to overtake humanity in the 1970s (or, at the latest, the 1980s) … A situation has been created that could lead to a billion or more people starving to death.”

Read the entire post if for no other reason than to realize that the very same people who were enthusiastically agreeing with him in the 1970’s and 1980’s are behind the Global Warming scare of today.

If you’d like to participate in this week’s Watcher’s Council, go here and follow instructions.

Welcome to the House!

Here are links to my “Countdown to Gettysburg” series that Hugh was kind enough to mention:

June 27, 1863, June 28, 1863, June 29,1863, June 30, 1863, July 1, 1863, July 2, 1863 and July 3, 1863.

And here’s a link to an essay on the battle:

America’s “Love Battle.”