Again, if this minuscule part of what Diana West has said on this whole matter is so very important to you why don’t you just contact her with your concerns? Who knows,

Diana West didn’t post this bogus e-mail here on HA, you did.

That is half a million dollars on 6 guys!!!!” The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn’t cost close to that”

If one were to take all the costs that the U.S. is incurring in Afghanistan and divide that by the number of actual AlQ (even throw in actual Taliban) being killed I am confident that one would come up with an exceedingly high cost per killed.

True. So why use a bogus fake E-mail to point out the obvious.

Are all her readers really that stupid?

“The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn’t cost close to that.

“The United States is getting a lot of bang for a lot of buck but not much else.”

And she makes this conclusion based on a bogus E-mail? That’s kinda stupid ya think?

Yada Yada Bla bla

“Anybody remember Sisyphus?”

No I don’t, but I would assume, like most Greek mythology, the story has alternative endings based on whatever lesson is trying to be taught.

Remember Pygmalion? Pygmalion sculpted the most beautiful woman the world had ever seen. Pygmalion prayed to the god’s that he wanted spend eternity with this most beautiful woman.

Depending on the lesson being taught the god’s either turned Pygmalion statue into a flesh and blood woman, or the god’s were ticked off at Pygmalion and turn him into a stone statue.

AKA self-fulfilling prophesy, be careful what ya ask for cuz ya just might get it.

So basically her “points” are based on a bogus E-Mail and Greek mythology, which often has alternative endings based on whatever lesson is trying to be taught.

And this is what you consider “intelligent”?

Sorry I’m not impressed.

MB4 on July 4, 2009 at 6:05 PM

Hear! hear!

Many Germans were not Nazis.

Many Russians were not Communists. (ditto: Chinese, and others).

Many Italians were not Fascists.

many English were not Puritans.

How did that fact work out for them?

OldEnglish on July 4, 2009 at 8:11 AM

In a nutshell, yes. That’s the way it has always been with regard to tyranny. The whole is classified by the actions of that portion which defines the whole. if the extremists were impotent, then they would not be the defining factor – but they are not impotent.

The DHS does not speak for me, and I do not equate a single event as defining anything. However, a pattern does. There is a pattern in that there is a group of people who would quite happily kill me, just because I exist and, as far as i am aware, there is only the one group.

OldEnglish on July 4, 2009 at 12:59 PM

What you have said reminds me of the Unicorn story. What you have said is a pretty good summation of it.

In medieval times, people created fairy tales and magical creatures to make sense of their world. One of the most endearing is the unicorn, a horse with a single horn that symbolized purity and wholesomeness. In our modern times, people in Europe and the United States consider themselves more sophisticated and rational than people from the Middle Ages, but we still create myths, albeit more subtle ones.

Daily we hear reports of violent acts committed by Islamic terrorists on every inhabited continent. We try to wish it away with the myth of the ‘Moderate Muslim’, telling ourselves the Islamic agenda has been’ hijacked’ by a ‘tiny minority of extremists’ and that soon the huge, silent, moderate majority of Muslims will take charge and change things. However, post 9/11 very few Muslims have condemned terrorist actions. We are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities. Waiting for this self-correction is our modern version of searching for unicorns.

Moderate Muslims will not be able to wrest control of the agenda for several reasons. First of all, Mohammad, the Messenger of Allah’s eternal word, was not moderate. No moderate can legitimately tell another Muslim to stop doing the extremist things Mohammad himself did. Also, the Qur’an condones violence and coercion to further the Islamic agenda. People whom we call moderates are labeled hypocrites by Allah Himself in the Qur’an. Moderates will always lose the argument because, as ex-Muslim author Ibn Warraq says, “There may be moderates in Islam but Islam itself is not moderate.”

Islamic expert Daniel Pipes and others estimate ten percent of the Islamic world to be militant. In 1933 when the Nazi party took control of Germany it had 2 million members, comprising only three percent of Germany’s sixty-six million citizens. A tiny minority of extremists can control a vast number of moderates, making them irrelevant.

Placing hope in ‘The Moderate Muslim’ is like searching for unicorns in the forest.
- JihadWatch (A_Plague_on_Both_Houses)

“knowledgeable people on the matter” don’t publish/Post obvious bogus “stories”.

DSchoen on July 4, 2009 at 5:01 PM

“I recently read a military e-mail from Afghanistan that marveled over a similar scene: “As far as BDA (battle damage assessment) goes, check this one out. 2 GBU 36’s (bomblets) dropped the other day on estimated 6 guys!!!! That is half a million dollars on 6 guys!!!!” The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn’t cost close to that”

Amazing! After all this time you are still chewing on that one little GBU 36’s bone! The vast majority of people don’t even know what a GBU 36’s is, or much give a frack, and somehow you see this as your Holy Grail and another big Macbeth story.

You are doing all this obsessing about something that was only a very small incidental part of her article and not at all central to it and in your mind it has somehow destroyed her whole case. At this point I can now only “assume” that you are fixating on this one item in an attempt to “smear” all of her. You don’t even attempt to address the vast majority of what she has said. Why is that? If one were to take all the costs that the U.S. is incurring in Afghanistan and divide that by the number of actual AlQ (even throw in actual Taliban) being killed I am confident that one would come up with an exceedingly high cost per killed. I have no idea what a GBU 36 or 136 or 666 costs. For all I know that may have been the accounting cost in the email, including all manner of support and logistics and personnel, call it the end cost. What none obsessing person even cares as it was just one little item.

Again, if this minuscule part of what Diana West has said on this whole matter is so very important to you why don’t you just contact her with your concerns? Who knows, if you are tactful, she might thank you. As for myself, this one little twig in an ocean is just not something I would care to make the center of my entire universe. I have wasted too much time on it already. You think it is the be-all-and-end-all. I do not think it is any more than what it is, one small item in an ocean which has received too much fixation already, which actually is rather like too much blood and treasure for U.S. Islamic “Nation Building” in Afghanistan.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0509/west_archives.asp

or

http://www.dianawest.net/

LOL!!! If I wanted to try to “pre-empt honest debate” then, rather than referencing very knowledgeable people on the matter, I would just start calling people idiots.
MB4 on July 3

“referencing very knowledgeable people on the matter”

This is some reality disconnect ya got her MB4.

“knowledgeable people on the matter” don’t publish/Post obvious bogus “stories”.

Let me guess, at one time you were a member of IVAW?

Cause that’s what you sound like.

Remember Jessie MacBeth?

“Jesse MacBeth: An Iraq Veteran Speaks Out.”

“They would actually feel the hot muzzle of my rifle on their forehead,”

“The Iraqis would stand in a crowd and shoot at us. We had to kill civilians to get to them because we were ordered to shoot anything that came at us. I keep having nightmares about it.”

Macbeth’s uniform

“Stars and Stripes as says “There are… numerous wear and appearance issues with the soldier’s uniform – a mix of foreign uniforms with the sleeves rolled up like a Marine and a badly floppy tan beret worn like a pastry chef,”

Stars and Stripes also reported that Macbeth wore his beret with the insignia over the wrong eye and the beret is pulled to the wrong side of his head; all US Army berets are worn with the insignia over the left eye, with the extra material pulled to the right side of the head, and not the left as shown in his picture.

His undershirt is black; US Army wears brown undershirts under their BDUs.

His mustache is out of regulation by extending past the corner of the mouth”

Forgot ta mention he’s UA stupid.

Macbeth joined IVAW in January 2006 was kicked out, only after being exposedas a fraud on May 27, 2006 nearly ½ years. NO ONE at IVAW suspected Macbeth was a fraud.

Within 30 sec. Of his “video” thousands of ACTUAL veterans From ALL branches of the US military, nailed this guy as a fraud.

In your analogy, “A Tree in a forest of Trees”, Macbeth was a “Tree” his fellow members of IVAW were the forest of Trees.

IVAW did not, could not, spot Macbeth as a fraud.

What does that tell us about this IVAW forest (your analogy)?

You posted “cut and past” E-mail from Diana West that was an obviously a fraud. She didn’t spot it, Why?

You didn’t spot it or were too lazy to check, why?

Regardless of where you stand on politics/war, when “YOU” use Bogus, fake, phony “stories” it can ONLY hurt YOUR CAUSE.

MB4, you would have more success if you develop and use YOUR OWN info and do YOUR own research, as opposed to “just cut and past” from someone who knows less than most.

When you continue to defend your BOGUS posting by saying in effect “ okay ya that’s not true, but what about the rest of it”

You make your self as credible as IVAW.

That’s what you’re saying here – that the ideology is not defined by the vast majority of those the participate in it, but it is defined by the few that take it to the extreme.

Well done, sir.

flashoverride on July 4, 2009 at 10:42 AM

In a nutshell, yes. That’s the way it has always been with regard to tyranny. The whole is classified by the actions of that portion which defines the whole. if the extremists were impotent, then they would not be the defining factor – but they are not impotent.

The DHS does not speak for me, and I do not equate a single event as defining anything. However, a pattern does. There is a pattern in that there is a group of people who would quite happily kill me, just because I exist and, as far as i am aware, there is only the one group.

For a good movie on the opium/loan sharking business in Afghanistan see Traffik, the Brit mini-series adapted for Traffic.

It would appear that you are one of those people who insist that 100% compliance is necessary for evil to exist in a country/system. All that is required is for a sufficient number to take control – usually through violence, but creeping sharia law will do the job, in time.

No, but I am also not one who cries out in fear at shadows. I know that our system of government is wide and flexible enough to handle all sorts of differences. This is a testament to the wisdom of out Founding Fathers. I also know that just because a man does not agree with me, or worship like me, does not neccesarily indicate that he is “evil”. Oddly enough I also decry the rise of Salafism and the spread of Wahhabism – the difference is that I don’t blanket that on a billion people, most of whom live in second or third world status. I know enough to know that I don’t know enoguh about their mindset, and I don’t jump to the conlusion that they are evil.

As for the wearing of a uniform, that says much about the individual, but nothing about the system. America has a disaster for a president, at this time, yet there will still be individuals who will wish to serve their country.

And yet, so long as a new constitutional convention does not take place, nor a new amendment is passed, the basis of the country will remain intact. Our system is pretty flexible like that.

The evil that is Islam is not caused by individuals who do not commit violence, but by those who do – and they are the ones who would take over if given the chance – as per my original post.

Wow. So you agree with that DHS memo on the basis of smearing all veterans because McVeigh blew up a building? Or that all anti-abortionists are dangerous killers because of the one recent whack job? That’s what you’re saying here – that the ideology is not defined by the vast majority of those the participate in it, but it is defined by the few that take it to the extreme.

Well done, sir.

flashoverride on July 4, 2009 at 9:50 AM

I didn’t mention the democrats – you did. They were invited by a majority to do their dirty work.

It would appear that you are one of those people who insist that 100% compliance is necessary for evil to exist in a country/system. All that is required is for a sufficient number to take control – usually through violence, but creeping sharia law will do the job, in time.

As for the wearing of a uniform, that says much about the individual, but nothing about the system. America has a disaster for a president, at this time, yet there will still be individuals who will wish to serve their country.

The evil that is Islam is not caused by individuals who do not commit violence, but by those who do – and they are the ones who would take over if given the chance – as per my original post.

I’m afraid you missed the point, entirely.

In all of the cases I quoted the bad guys gained superiority – at least for awhile, and caused massive trauma to the rest.

So OldEnglish is here definitively stating, on HotAir, that Democrats are the not the bad guys and do not mean to cause massive trauma. Quite BRAVE! Bravo, sir.

Or maybe you meant something else? Like that Muslims are the bad guys? Let me ask you: is that true even when they’re wearing the uniform of the US military? How far out does that extend? What about maintaining our logistical and communication networks? Perhaps my children are filled with an insidious evil? Perhaps my wife’s entire family burns with a secret rage, passed down genetically to my offspring?

Or maybe you don’t have any idea WTF you’re taking about and failed to read the article cited above. Just because you think all MOOOOOOSLIMS are out to get you doesn’t make it so.

flashoverride on July 4, 2009 at 8:56 AM

I’m afraid you missed the point, entirely.

In all of the cases I quoted the bad guys gained superiority – at least for awhile, and caused massive trauma to the rest.

Many Germans were not Nazis.

Many Americans are not Democrats.

Many Russians were not Communists. (ditto: Chinese, and others).

Many Americans are not Democrats.

Many Italians were not Fascists.

Many Americans are not Democrats.

many English were not Puritans.

Many Americans are not Democrats.

How did that fact work out for them?

I don’t know, you tell me. Apparently enough Germans were not Nazis that we sought to subisdize their economic re-empowerment. Enough Russians (et al) were not Communists to pick up where Communism failed. Enough Italians were not fascist enough to prevent us from susidizing their resurgence. Many English to this day are English and not Puritans, so I don’t know what that has to do with anything.

Keep trying. Maybe you can come up with some South Vietnamese who are still…. oh wait, nevermind. Or some Ba’athists who are still…. oh wait, nevermind again. Or some Kurds, buried deep in mass graves. Or….

the plain fact is that you’ve got nothing.

Many Russians were not Communists. (ditto: Chinese, and others).

Many Italians were not Fascists.

many English were not Puritans.

How did that fact work out for them?

MB4, along with a few others, posits that Islam as a religion is the defacto reason that countries fall into disrepair. Let’s forget that no failed empire before 600 AD ever failed due to Islam or Islamists or any other function or derivative of the word.

Let’s also remember that before 1776 there was never any republic on the earth, in the sense of the word we understand today. Even Plato never called for a government in which citizens held the final sway.

I have posited that Kosovo constitutes a predominatly muslim country that revels in freedom, ergo Islam and freedom are not inherently opposed. MB4 posits that Arab countries are “backwards” and in essence that all muslims are Arabs or want to be Arab. He apparently is unaware of the fact that 80% of muslims are not Arab and that most muslims live from Pakistan westward.

This is not to say that there are not crazies – the Chechens and certain Pakistani groups spring to mind – but there are no active jihadi groups in Kyrgyzstan; essentially one attempts to even propagandize in Uzbekistan, almost none operate in Kazakhstan; almost no domestic groups in Malaysia, and even Indonesia is stepping up its anti-Jihadi campaihn.

However, conditions in Somalia are ripe (you know, since we deposed the government and left) for Jihadis in terms of training and logistics. I fear Somailia is going to come around and bite us in our short-sighted asses before too long if not dealt with properly.

I am a muslim. I believe that there is one god, Allah, and that Mohammed is his prophet. This does not mean that I submit to or adhere to Wahhabism or Salafism, which are both a blight on Islam and a stain on the human soul. If King Faisl did not owe it to the Wahhabis for his power, then I feel this world would bein a better place. Alas, it is not my power to make it so.

If she couldn’t tell this E-mail (tree) was a fraud, how many of these fake E-mail (trees) has she received to and put into that forest.

DSchoen on July 4, 2009 at 5:39 AM

You are like a dog with a chewy bone. Not much of a bone but you keep getting all your sustenance from it. I didn’t want to deprive you of your “Moment of Triumph” as it doesn’t seem that you get them very often, but a moment was all I could spare for it. I don’t think I have ever seen someone carry on so much with one item to the exclusion of all else. I am all over the forest hitting all manner of areas in all manner of ways and you stay with one tree which you seem to have anointed into your Holy Grail. Why don’t you contact her with your great concerns about one email. She posts on at least two web sites.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0509/west_archives.asp

and

http://www.dianawest.net/

I don’t look at only one tree in a forest and neither does she.

Uhm that’s kinda sorta was my point.

If she couldn’t tell this E-mail (tree) was a fraud, how many of these fake E-mail (trees) has she received to and put into that forest.

There is nothing more horrible than the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts.

La Rochefoucauld

DSchoen on July 4, 2009 at 5:25 AM

You seem to be inordinately pleased with yourself because you seem to have managed to find one, largely extraneous to the main points, flaw in all of Diana West’s writings, even though you have shown no sign of being able to counter the rest at all. Sure doesn’t take much to ring your self-bell.

There is nothing more horrible than the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts.

La Rochefoucauld

DSchoen on July 4, 2009 at 5:25 AM

There is nothing more horrible than the murder of women by brutal followers of the Koran.

DSchoen,
That was so beautiful I’m wiping tears from my eyes.
flashoverride on July 3

Thank’s

As someone once said:

There is nothing more horrible than the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts.

La Rochefoucauld

So please, Amr, spare me the whine that Honor Killings are a blip when considering 1.5 billion Muslims. There are likely 100,000 Muslim women each year who disobey some male member of the family, ask for a divorce, wear western clothing, have consensual sex, get raped or refuse to marry some old Islamic fart, and I have no doubt almost every single one of them are Honor-Killed but the crimes are hidden, under-reported, non-reported, misreported, buried, mis-characterized, misnamed, misfiled, and al taqiyya-ed. The murder of Muslim women is like the Mafia joke where we are told that the victim committed suicide by stabbing himself 18 times and then strangled himself to death and then shot himself in the back of the head.

For photos of victims of honor killings see Atlas Shrugs

These girls, these women are ignored, relegated to the dustbin of irrelevant news stories, so as not to insult Muslim men