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Morte Terrorist Du Jour

jelewis8 — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:40:50 +0000

So they got Zarqawi. Back when he was a media superstar, it was all newspapers could do to keep from grinning maliciously at the fact that the number 2 terrorist in the entire world had thus far eluded capture or annihilation at the hands of our elite military. It’s amazing how quickly the media’s tone will change at the small and slow victories that have, for all intents and purposes marked the war in Iraq (the taking of Baghdad notwithstanding). Zarqawi’s death is certainly that, but you hear and see it reported like it’s a brick removed from the yellow road, as opposed to the construction of a signpost reading “Thus always to tyrants”. Saddam was a tyrant of the pacing, finger-waving, kneecap busting ilk, proud and naive. Zarqawi was a different kind of tyrant, more subtle, less worldly, more media savvy. He paraded his cause before a media most willing to air his views and ideals. He got free advertising in every page of the international section of the newspaper. His superstardom was conferred upon him by a gushing and overawed machine, as long as his violent bombings and beheadings proved the was was a never-ending cycle of slaughter…until his body mass got converted to energy by a 2,500lb bomb, whereupon his status changed from Terrorist Du Jour to Just Another Jihadist. It’s disingenuous to imagine he had no real power or influence now that he’s dead–sure, it gives weight to the idea that we’re in a war that will last forever, but it doesn’t really look good when just a few months prior you named Abu Al-Zarqawi “Terrorist of the Year” and “Most Likely to Behead an Innocent American Civilian”. As honorific as those titles are, they clearly indicate the man was no small fry dhimmist. He was out for blood, for slaughter, for destruction, and his eradication from the earth and this worldsrealm is appropriate.
But the funniest thing is to hear average everyday citizens like Michael Berg, whose son Nicholas’ beheading was videotaped and sent ’round the world via Internet, say that he only wanted forgiveness, and that Zarqawi’s death would likely “foster anti-American resentment among al-Qaida members who feel they have nothing left to lose.” And he’s running for a House seat, which doesn’t give me much hope for Delaware. It’s this kind of idiotic thinking that pervades the mind of many people who are against the war. It’s as if they’ve turned off the part of their brain that has any kind of cognitive ability, and are now relying entirely on their sense of smell to determine their political outlook. The real miracle for these people would be the sudden flash of insight that, “Hey, I think these al-Qaida guys have it out for us no matter what!”
Bombing a guy into quantum particles is neither going to change the direction or outcome of a war, nor will it stop the continuing violence. But to say it will encourage more violence in an already violent region is like shoving a vial of poison inside a nuclear reactor core and then calling it dangerous. If you’re thinking along those lines, you’ve already missed the bigger picture, which is the countless number of homes and businesses that reactor provided power for. If you’re busy bemoaning the number of feathers the chickens have molted, you’d miss the egg count too.

The Flaccid Species

jelewis8 — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:37:12 +0000

We live in a universe of wimps, pansies, and lily-livered narcissists. Just turn on the evening news. The latest proof that there are very few real men and women of courage and self-sufficiency comes in the form of some cartoons published by a Danish newspaper depicting Mohammed in various ways. My current masthead features one of the twelve cartoons that were published, along with some subtle mocking of Islam’s moderate and extremist position on the offensiveness of the cartoons. The imbroglio is about as ridiculous as one might expect from a gutless, pusillanimous, unmanly religion that encourages and supports responses ranging from cries of protest to burning of embassy buildings.
Still, one can’t expect too much of a religion whose dictates include wiping off the face of the planet anyone who does not submit to their way of thinking. They are children; barbaric, senselessly violent, systematically simple in reason, unbearably intolerant of any jot or tittle that offends their delicate spiritual digestion. They have no respect for life, no fear of God, no ounce of tolerance, no hair of sensibility, and no ability to distinguish the sacred from the profane. They claim to be the servants of Allah. If they are, then Allah’s minions are no more than butchers and death dealers with a sadistic worldview and just enough intelligence to construct the necessary number of suicide vests and lead pipe bombs to make the world in their image, or break it to pieces, ball bearing by ball bearing. Their goal is nothing less than the complete and utter dhimmitude of the planet.
However, the real proof of the debilitated state of humanity, the milquetoast acquiescense that defines us as a species, comes in the form of our own precious gatekeepers of truth and fact. News organizations such as CNN, the New York Times, and other bastions of the written and televised journalistic treatises that we regard with such awe, are responsible for the coddling of these villainous religious cretins who deem twelve tame cartoon depictions of Islam’s most holy prophet worthy of annihilating buildings with flame, rioting en masse on government installations, and delivering their gutless, invertebraic whinging as if were Allah’s own word and deed. These news institutions, so brave to publish images profaned images of Jesus in past times, have deemed the publication of these cartoons as “adding fuel to the fire”.
Would it be impertinent of me to remind these venerable organizations who set those fires in the first place?
The Fourth Estate’s pablum that passes for justification of their policy is the thesis of docile calfs waiting to be slaughtered. In it we can hear the faint-of-heart editorial board room meeting talks, their decision making quorums, voted without the merest opposition, to suspend, abdicate, reduce, and deny their chosen field’s most basic tenet. With one deft motion, the media has chosen to give the reigns of their most able horses to the hordes of unreasonable religion.
And they do it all in the name of free speech.
We, sodding and plodding people of the West, accept and shrug our shoulders. We fear no burning buildings here. We fear no toxic invasion from the East. If only we knew. If only our gatekeepers would tell us of the impending doom of our species. Instead, they’re blurring out pictures of the Most Holy Prophet.
Religion is safe to offend only when the offended doesn’t have the clear and precedented will and ability to cut off your head with a sword. Religion is only safe to offend when its followers don’t possess keys to vehicles filled with C4 and shards of metal. And the bottom line for a limpwristed society is that survival means acquiescence to the guy wearing the suicide vest. Even at the cost of honest reporting, free speech, and self-respect.
Are we men? Far from it. We’re better than the butchering children who seek to enslave our cultural mindset and overwhelm us with fear, intimidation, and overt displays of barbarism and savagery one associates with the most base of animals. But only barely.

Al-Zarqawi In Trouble

jelewis8 — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 02:59:16 +0000

“As we pledge to maintain homage to your throne and to our precious Jordan…we denounce in the clearest terms all the terrorist actions claimed by the so-called Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al-Khalayleh, who calls himself Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” the family members said.
“We announce, and all the people are our witnesses, that we — the sons of the al-Khalayleh tribe — are innocent of him and all that emanates from him, whether action, assertion or decision.”
“A Jordanian doesn’t stab himself with his own spear,” they wrote. “We sever links with him until doomsday.”
This is surely going to make al-Zarqawi crap his pants in fear and frustration.

Bollocks To Cajones

jelewis8 — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 02:33:29 +0000

I’m pretty astonished at the turncoating Democrats who are now insisting on immediate troop withdrawal. It’s as if collective amnesia and stubborn idiocy are now mixing into a vile cocktail of petty partisanship and disastrous antipathy for the soldiers in Iraq. The Administration’s response hasn’t been nearly forceful enough, but it is encouraging to see the GOP demonstrating some stiffness, as they voted to reject the “Democratic Hawk” John Murtha’s call for troop removal from Iraq. This guy is a hawk? How far left have we tilted, if that’s the case?
There’s far more intelligent and interesting coverage of this new upsurge in true revisionist history on the part of the Democrats to paint the push for war as “misleading” and “based on lies”, so I won’t try to throw in my thoughts on the matter, except to say this about the Dems who now insist there was no evidence to support the reasons given for going to war: I didn’t realize that cajones could be that big. Because you’ve gotta have a pair to say that without fear of having soundbites you made in 1999 regarding the removal of Saddam Hussein thrown back in your face.
Even if this current debate (can it really be called a debate when the facts are so one-sided?) isn’t about cajones, you could say that it distracts from the real issue, which is accountability. If you voted in favour of war and now you want out (as based upon a false premise), we’ll consider the issue. In the meantime, you ought to be ousted for poor leadership. This isn’t nuanced decision-making; it is political expediency at its most opportunistic, its most disgustingly venal.
If you don’t think so, consider the following: Murtha was having second thoughts about invasion back in September 2002, a month before Congress gave Bush authorization. He indicated that he would not vote in favour, but did so anyway. Fast forward to May 2004, where he called for more troops: “We either have to mobilize or we have to get out,” Murtha said, adding that he supported increasing U.S. troop strength rather than pulling out. He even voted in favour of reinstating the draft to raise more troops (remember the big scare that had Bush reinstating the draft that everyone got hepped about?), one of only two people to do so. Now he insists that pulling the troops out of Iraq is the only way to end the insurgency. He now claims that terrorism began when we invaded, although he offers an alternate timeframe for the beginning of terrorism: Abu Ghraib.
A man who makes John Kerry look like a political rock isn’t one who should be turned down for interviews, if for nothing else other than the entertainment value. Although it would be a lot funnier if what he was doing didn’t put troops in harm’s way. But his grandstanding and opportunism is encouraging to the enemy. And I say bollocks to that.

Little White Sambo

jelewis8 — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 01:43:23 +0000

It’s quite alright for leftist bloggers to reference ugly racial imagery when it suits their party cause. I mean, clearly, it’s perfectly within their rights, because they also bear the same skin tone as the person they are racially lampooning. It’s the height of ludicrousness to think otherwise.
So I’m assuming this picture of Arnold as “Little Whitey Sambo” won’t raise any hackles. I was thinking of going with the Nazi theme, but I just like the name “Sambo” so much, I had to use it. It reminds me of this time I read this story about this kid named “Little Black Sambo” and he had to get some butter for some pancakes his Aunt Jemima made for him, but he got chased around this tree by a bunch of tigers, but then the tigers started eating each other and then they went around the tree so fast they turned into butter. Then Little Black Sambo had all the butter he could eat for his wheat germ pancakes.
Mmmmm, them’s good eatin’.
See, if Arnold was a huge black man, I couldn’t call him “Little Black Sambo” because not only would it be inaccurate, it would be racially insensitive. But, since he is a white man with a funny accent, I can call him whatever racially insensitive thing I want, and because I’m a right-wing blogger, my views are unquestionable.
In conclusion, if you are upset at a gubernatorial or senatorial candidate because he has betrayed you and your kind (read: abandoned your peoples, you know, racially), then it’s okay to call them Sambo (or some variation thereof). But only if they’re your colour. And only if you’re (not) a racist.

HR Puff ‘n’ Stuff

jelewis8 — Thu, 19 May 2005 19:46:56 +0000

Obviously, I am not a great fool…you would have counted on it! So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
From the Huffington Post, a link to a New York Times article with the waspishly hopeful headline Senior Officer in Iraq: American Enterprise in Iraq ‘Could Still Fail’. Would I be in error in observing the following maxim?
Where there is the suggestion of American foreign policy failure, there you will also find the stifled smiles of blue staters.
I realized last night that I’m really not a good blogger, in the sense of maintaining a cohesive, consistent viewpoint. I began Fringe as an outlet for my political rage (just kidding, sort of) but I’ve moved almost completely out of sync with posting politics here. For some reason, I am more comfortable keeping politics out of sight for a while. Even when I get the urge to say something, I’m reminded of the paltry fact that someone else out there has probably said the same thing, only better.
It does piss me off that blogs like the Hooverington Post don’t offer comments. I’d like to have words with the cretin who continues to mislead the public by insisting on the myth of 100,000+ dead Iraqi civilians. Wasn’t the Lancet report debunked so much it had stretch marks?
How about this golden newbie?

Newsweek relied on faulty intelligence to write a magazine article. George W. Bush relied on faulty intelligence to start a war which has cost over $200 billion, and which has taken the lives of over 1600 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Here’s the difference. Newsweek didn’t know its intelligence was phony. And Newsweek apologized.

Wait. Fault or phony, which is it? There is a difference, you know. And even if Newsweek didn’t know its intelligence was phony, they sure rushed to put that information out, which has helped splinter relations with Afghanistan (most Iraqis seem less affected by the phony allegations of Koran flushing). How long did Newsweek wait to post their uncorroborated source material? A week? That’s pretty generous, considering how little vetting that info actually received. My bet’s on the hour. Rush that sucker, it further paints a picture of the decadent corruption of the American military!
Here’s the real difference: Bush supplied more than faulty intelligence for adequate reasons to go to war. And he waited a year and a half after 9/11 to give other options a chance. Given the good faith Bush supplied the UN in offering that corrupt world governing body a chance to actually follow its mandate, and knowing now how nearly every country who opposed invasion had their hands stuck so far up Saddam’s coffers they came out looking guilded, it’s a stretch to compare a shoddy reporting job with a legitimate attempt at restructuring the Middle East through a process of war, diplomacy, and installation of infant democracy. Big stretch.
The author of that post better get with the party line there at the Hufflepuff Post regarding civilian dead. It’s 100,000+, you dolt! Not tens of thousands!
And I’ll be waiting in line tonight for the big event. You know the one. Revenge of the Sith, or How I Learned to Cause Fanboys and Nerds to Stop Living and Prostrate Themselves At the Throne of the Almighty George. I think that second part is an unofficial title. I have criticized Lucas before, even offering some suggestions for Episode Three titles. But I can be gracious when I need to be. I will admit to being excited, though not ecstatic, at the prospect of this dark third. Maybe it’ll be good. Maybe it’ll blow my low expectations into orbit. Maybe, just maybe, Jar Jar will die.
And maybe Shooter5 is reading this now. If so…you were right.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

jelewis8 — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:05:26 +0000

Can the New York Times be trusted? Oh, if only it were a simple query with a simple response.
As murky as the waters of the question posed above are, there is no doubt of the clarity of deceit posed by the NY Times’ editorial decisions, giving voice to, as Instapundit calls it, “out-and-out dishonesty” concerning the reasons we went to and continue to be at war in Iraq.
If the Bush administration is culpable in the active misleading of the American public concerning the reasons for going to war in Iraq (I believe it is not), then certainly these detractors on the left are equally damnable for a continuing campaign of revisionist history.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. And then there is the New York Times editorial page. I wonder, when it comes down to it, which is furthest from the truth.

Revisiting Old Vile Claims Once More

jelewis8 — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 03:15:16 +0000

I’ve stopped reading Instapundit on a daily basis, instead hitting his site about once a week to get the latest on whatever blogging fad he’s linking at the moment. So I missed a post from last Thursday in which he addresses the leftist fallacy that freeing Iraq and making way for democracy in that country is/was a bogus claim/reason made by the Bush administration and war supporters after the fact of the war and the WMD that failed to surface in Iraq.
He brings up a few links that I missed when I addressed this issue back in…oh, January. The money quote, from Ian Hamlet, and which I wholeheartedly believe is true: “The reason a large block of the country doesn’t recall Bush’s speeches calling for Iraqi liberation is that they simply were not listening. After all, they had already decided that they knew what Bush “really” meant, so they ignored what he said.”
I can think of at least one person who thinks that our inaction in Darfur, Sudan is indicative of this administration’s true foreign policy, our arrogance as a nation, and the depths of lies to which the government has sunk AND to which the “loyal guard” of Republican supporters have fallen in stubbornly refusing to see the truth.
What I find interesting about that mindset is how it mirrors the selective memory Hamlet talks about in the preceding paragraph. It does not matter to the anti-war left that the Bush administration spent over a year and a half working with the international twinkletoes operation known as the United Nations to resolve the Iraq situation in a peaceful manner. More than just the two major, news-making UN resolutions were passed authorizing force to be used in ousting Hussein from leadership. And the world did seem at the brink of some collective agreement that action needed to be taken.
The wheels of power move slowly, they do. It isn’t surprising that an already hamfisted organization like the UN would take as long as it has to collect its scattered head and decide to take action in Sudan. But look at the timetable. It mirrors what began in the early months of 2002, after the world began to breathe again after 9/11.
Yet once again, we are hearing the familiar refrain. Is Iraq a simple matter? Is there reason to suspect that the recent optimism coming out of Iraq is the result of “bogus” reasoning on the part of the Bush administration?
The fevered imaginations of some people who seem to think that their wild claims make any sense when paired against a comprehensive Google search–does that matter?
I thought not too.

End of the Illusion?

jelewis8 — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:04:10 +0000

The Bakery links to BullMooseBlog, which asserts the American Right now apes all that it hates about liberalism–that is, the excessive power-hungry, process-sidestepping use of federal powers to institute a policy of righteousness. BMB says that with Congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and with Bush prepared to wake in the middle of the night to sign a hastily constructed, single-person law, the “era of big government conservativism is in full swing.”

At its heart, conservatism had reverence for process and order. But what we are witnessing now is the triumph of ends over means. That is exactly what the right loathed about the left. In the eye of conservatives, the left would stretch the Constitution and the law to serve its so-called noble ends. Liberals would turn to the federal courts to nullify the judgments of localities. In the end, according to the right, the law of unintended consequences would prevail and the rule of law would be obliterated.
Process no longer matters to the right – after all they are on the side of the angels. Whether it is pork barrel spending , the Senate filibuster or federal intervention in a family dispute, modern conservatism knows no boundaries. The right is now intoxicated with power – process is for wimps.
When it comes to federal intervention on behalf of the disadvantaged, the conservative response is to leave it to the states and the “mediating institutions” of community and locality. However, when it involves pandering to the religious right, federal power in the pursuit of righteous aims is no vice.

He’s got some very good points there. It’s hard to argue that conservative lawmakers aren’t working out of the hands of the Religious Right. And though my knowledge of constitutional law isn’t close to anything resembling competence, I do understand that what now passes for constitutional power limiting federal government is simply being bypassed via creative interpretation of the Constitution itself–exactly what conservatives have accused liberal judges of doing.
With the RNC concerned that the 2006 midterm elections could prove to be a day of spoils for Democrats, this shoring up of the defenses by appealing to the very core supporters isn’t just the purview of a single party. However, this has a particularly odious stench, because it is exactly what liberals constantly (and before 2001, usually baselessly) accused conservatives of doing.
I am in favour of keeping Schiavo alive, but the means by which the GOP has taken her case and made it a banner issue are appalling. Using Schiavo as a brace against a perceived secularism to “rally the troops” and impose federal mandate where there should be none is quite simply a case of the conservative movement overstepping its bounds. Methinks “compassionate Conservativism” does not, and should not condone federal hands groping and grasping further into the blouse of constitutional restrictions on federal powers.

Bush Negativity Revealed, Bloggers Rejoice

jelewis8 — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:08:48 +0000

Bush got decidedly more negative news coverage during the last election than did Kerry, according to a new study by a press watchdog affiliated with Columbia University. What does that mean for Bush supporters? Hopefully not a lot of gloating and “I told you so’s” to people who didn’t believe them when they accused the media of being overtly biased and decidedly unobjective in newscasting decisions. Hopefully not angry Take Back the Night rallies designed to make citizens aware of the disastrously liberal press and the vast left wing conspiracy housed in the 4th Estate. And for God’s sake, hopefully no conservative bloggers raising this as a pendant of celebration, promoting it as evidence that the blogosphere was directly responsible for thwarting the prodigal media’s devious plans to put a Botox-ing, French-speaking, Vietnam warrior of convenience in the White House. Dear God, anything but that.
via Fark