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Yeah, it must be the unclean dogs fault.

Buy Danish on August 26, 2007 at 5:24 PM

I’ve been working in Baghdad over a year, and in various middle east or muslim countries for the last thirteen years. Believe me, their is nothing less clean than a toilet in one of these places.

“My great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.”

However that may be, so far, the United States have never relinquished one of their member States. If the U.S. Government were to return to its constitutional role as governing matters of Justice, Treasury, State, and War, leaving other matters to the States, the United States’ federal government could once again become the “umbrella organization,” so to speak, that it was designed to be. At its origin, it was the shape of a federal, worldwide government to come. Now, as its officials have tried to make it omni-provident and omni-competent, it’s become unwilling and unable to extend its peace and good order to new member States. Musharraf’s problem, fundamentally, is that he’s an outsider. His remote successor, in a future century, might have been the Governor of one of the United States. Now, given the corruption of federal order in the United States, perhaps the states outside will always be outsiders.

Americans continually make cultural blunders, like using canine units to search people’s homes (dogs are considered unclean in Muslim culture).

Oh, BOO HOO. Is there anything that isn’t offensive to Muslims? Beheading? Good! Stoning? Good! Dogs? Bad!

A Danish hygiene study found:

Most children appeared to be unclean (90%) and also a big part of the adults wore dirty clothes (55%). Interviewers also noted that most areas around the main water sources (80%), most of the yards (81%) and most kitchens (85%) were unclean. Animals, garbage or faeces were spread around those places.

Yeah, it must be the unclean dogs fault.

But hey, if you’re interested in being culturally correct with Afghans, here are the rules.

It will be fascinating, when accurate history books are written, to find out exactly when in the previous 6 years W found out bin Laden was dead, and how that influenced subsequent war strategy.

Halley on August 26, 2007 at 10:25 AM

Nice observation. You reminded me of how GWB seems to be averse to publicly taking credit for his accomplishments `or` taking advantage of circumstances for the political gain of his party (ie, not leveling with the American public that Secretary Rumsfeld was leaving, just before the 2006 election).

The fact is that Allah did deride our “risk aversion” this week and did defend Obama’s idiotic comments last week – two views which are contradictory on the face of it.

If Allah believes that they are not incompatible then he should present an argument that explains his position, rather than resort to calling BOD “stupid” and implying that BOD just wants to conduct a reckless, nuke happy war.

I do thank Allah for the link to the Newsweek story though, which I will print out and read poolside. I’ll save a chair for Allah, since it’s clear he has been working too hard and needs some well-served leisure time.

leanright on August 26, 2007 at 7:55 AM

you forgot the money part of the quote so let me refresh your memory.

No, you’re right. We should probably just nuke them. That’ll be the least risk averse solution of all.

You’re really stupid sometimes.

Allahpundit on August 25, 2007 at 8:50 PM

context is everything

I agree.

Thanks for the synopsis. I went to the link and just couldn’t read all those pages…being on newsweek. newsweek has screwed up a lot of things in the past so I have a hard time reading them. I read Tommy Frank’s book and it was good enough for me in regards to Osama and the near miss.

We should not nuke them?

It shows a failure of will by their infidel enemy.

We hardly need to give these psychopathic theocratic lunatics encouragement.

They cannot plot their terrorism as well when they are scurrying like scorched rats.

And cannot plot it at all if they are worm entrees.

TheSitRep on August 25, 2007 at 9:35 PM

Your information is dated. The last one was dismantled in 2003.
“High Airburst” of 20-30 devices will have a disastrous EMP effect on the entire region. No electricity in many countries including China and India. Call it a hunch but they might consider that an act of war.
Oh and it probably will knock out power to the oil wells, causing a global economic crisis.
You may want to rethink your strategy for killing a few hundred thousand Pakistanis in order to kill a couple of thousand AQ personnel.

You’re really stupid sometimes.

Allahpundit on August 25, 2007 at 8:50 PM

He was being stupid though. When villages get bombed and civilians killed, it is not because of lax controls. Controls are usually very tight in the US military. In the case of this article, excessive controls were exactly the reason why OBL and Omar had escaped.

The guy implied that having even more bureaucracy would prevent civilian deaths, which is pure B.S.

The one reason why Israeli special ops and military are so successful is because there are less controls in place. The guy in the field has more freedom to act.

Nuance is the keyword.

Ap, never under estimate the positive effects of 20 or 30 well placed thermonuclear devices. I recommend high air burst. I hear the Neutron devices inflict mass casualties with amazingly little property damage. That just sounds ideal.

TheSitRep on August 25, 2007 at 9:35 PM

Considering the type of infrastructure in that area, mud huts and tents, what is the point of trying to save it?

AP is BANNED. No Nuke em talk here.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

progressoverpeace on August 26, 2007 at 12:39 AM

At the risk of sounding stupid, the article shows all the signs of being written by committee (which it is: Sami Yousafzai; Zahid Hussain; Rod Nordland; Mark Hosenball, Michael Hirsh, Michael Isikoff, John Barry, Dan Ephron, Eve Conant; Christopher Dickey, Roya Wolverson and Evan Thomas.)

It appears contradictory to me. For example, one minute the intelligence is good enough to launch troops from hang gliders, the next minute it’s non-existence and even intentionally misleading. I’d need to sit down and map out all the things that seemed contradictory to me upon a first reading, but it really isn’t worth it. The main point they seem to want to get across is that Afghanistan is a failure because of Iraq. That point is one of the few they seem to make clearly and consistently.

The secret word was never given. As the Qaeda sentry watched the U.S. troops, the patrol started moving in a different direction. Bin Laden’s men later concluded that the soldiers had nearly stumbled on their hideout by accident. (One former U.S. intelligence officer told NEWSWEEK that he was aware of official reporting on this incident.)

What official reporting is there on an incident that the US was not aware of? What incident is Newsweek talking about in the parentheses? The near-miss, that the US didn’t know about, obviously. Sheik Said’s words about the incident? (Though Newsweek doesn’t say who the sheik was talking to, other than a Taliban guy who told Newsweek)

Am I missing something? That note about the reporting makes no sense to me, at all.

Actually Gulf War I was pretty successful, with respect to Kuwait anyway

MB4 on August 25, 2007 at 10:21 PM

Yes, on that limited point, but a horrible failure overall – which is why we are there, now. A success looks more like Japan – fiercest enemy transformed to trusted ally and highly productive and non-threatening nation. But we had to do things like target masses of civilians and threaten the people with absolute extinction (along with actually beginning to carry it out). Not nice stuff, but that’s what armed conflicts require sometimes, depending on the culture of the enemy. The arabs/persians/muslims are of the same types of cultures and will, in the end, require the same sort of action, at least as far as I see it.

and to very much degradating Saddam’s Army.

Not to the extent that was required at the time. Gulf War I was a miserable failure, and, even worse than what happened on the ground, the UN was empowered by Bush Sr, in one of the dumbest moves in all of recorded human history.

Korea was very successful for those south of the DMZ anyway.

But North Korea is, tothis very day, one of the worst problem areas on Earth and no one has any idea what the heck they are going to do out there. No, I don’t call the Korean War a win. I don’t even call it a draw, since the North has not just retreated, but remained a major problem in the world – and worse every year.

Afghanistan was pretty successful at the start.

Well, the initial invasion was great, though the screwup with trusting the tribes there … I mean everyone knows that double-dealing is just par for the course in that part of the world. It is not personal, but cultural, and when people do it, they need to be punished as that culture would punish. But we don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing.

But Afghanistan is still ongoing, and not yet determined, though it has been quieter … but then we get into the actual subject of this thread!

Iraq II was successful till Bush changed the mission.

I like Bush, but … his attempt to sell the Iraq conflict as a mission of mercy for the Iraqis is just, plain [insert nasty description], in my mind. Holier-than-thou kills, and it usually kills the holier one.