Fallout From Tulips (With Apologies to Barry Goldwater)
There were some great comments posted by readers about my piece Tiptoeing Through the Iraqi Tulips and I thought I`d share them:
William said...
During the American Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman said, “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” And he was considered a lunatic at the time, but he had a deep understanding of how terrible it was, but how total the destruction of an enemy must be for the war to end.
Right now, we don’t get it. Remember Kosovo? Remember the war fought from 30,000 feet? Well, it didn’t work. The Serbian dictator was removed but the much and the mire still goes on. Jihad filled the void.
War si terrible but as George Orwell wrote, “The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.” And if so, what a horrible time is coming.
9:14 AM
RoseCovered Glasses said...
I enjoyed your commentary. You make many excellent points.
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being usedby our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, "Odyssey of Armements"
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Adminisitrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be - Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can't. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won't happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
5:51 PM
Anonymous said...
In the present multi-culti environment, the ritual torture to death of captive warriors of other tribes, in honor of the victorious tribal god, is a feature of uncivilised savages which it is politically correct not to mention, especially as Native Americans such as the Iroquois delighted in these abominations.
Mercifully for the captives, death would normally occur within two or three days of continual torture, due to heart failure, dehydration, blood loss or infection.
But consider the fate of a warrior captured by a savage tribe with the same Satanic ritual urge to torture in the name of their ‘god’, but with modern medical support to prolong the life of the victim almost indefinitely.
Such was the fate of William Francis Buckley, a US army officer who was ritually tortured by Muslims in the name of Allah continuously and unremittingly for 444 days before death finally claimed him.
William Buckley must have endured more suffering than any other human being in history, for despite agonising 24/7 torture for more than a year, the best doctors in Iran were on call to give life support to prevent his escape through death.
Buckley was captured in Beirut By Hisbollah on March 16, 1984. and was smuggled to Tehran via Damascus aboard an Iranian plane and taken to the cellars of the Iranian Foreign ministry, where he was tortured without respite or mercy until he died of a sudden heart attack despite best attempts at resuscitation. This abomination was carried out with the full support of the demonocratic Iranian government and the vile Islamic pedophile-worshipping ‘clergy’.
Buckley’s remains were then sent back to Beirut and dumped in an unsuccessful attempt to hide Iranian involvement. However during his torture numerous videos of the kaffir’s suffering and ‘humiliation’ (very important to the Muslim male) had been made and these eventually found their way into Mosques worldwide, where they were (and probably still are) used as propaganda to inspire youthful Jihadists.
Buckley’s appalling fate illustrates the Satanic nature of Islamic tribalism. He wasn’t tortured to extract information. Like the prisoners of the Iroquois, he was tortured to appease a sadistic ‘god’ - Allah, aka Satan.
4:26 PM
Timothy Birdnow said...
Thanks for some great comments, guys!
I couldn`t agree more, William! Sherman was a ruthless SOB, but he understood the nature of the coming style of warfare, and ultimately he was correct; a popular rebellion such as the Civil War could never have been won by ``winning the hearts and minds`` of the South.
As an interesting side-note, when Grant was closing in on Lee at Appomatox, a proposal was made to the General to disband the army, send them into the bush and have them wage a guerrila war like Quantril was doing in Missouri. Lee pondered the proposal, then rejected it because he did not want to sentence the entire Nation to such a bitter and bloody experience. Of course, our current enemy has no such qualms...
Rosecovered, I have no doubt that what you say is true, at least to a degree; consider the trouble Bush has had with his attempts to reform the CIA. The Plame Game was clearly a case of the CIA running an op on the President, and I suspect many other dirty tricks have undermined his authority over the years. Bush clearly caved on the issue, which suggests he realized he couldn`t fight these people. Now, the DOD is far larger than the CIA...
Anonymous, I agree; slavery and cannibalism were the purview of warfare in primitive societies, as well as ritual torture (I don`t remember if it was the Iriqois or Illinis, but I read once a narrative about a ``foreign`` Indian adopted into the tribe; they were unfailingly kind to him, and an elder gentleman adopted him as a son. Unfortunately, times got hard and his adoptive tribe dismembered him, starting with the tip of one finger and progressing till he was dead. They would slice a chunk off the guy, then ask if he needed anything, since they really did like him. But the gods demanded a sacrifice, and so this poor schlub had to be bodily, painfully disassembled.
Of course, the Aztecs would cut the hearts out of captives, who would die while watching their own organ beating in the hands of the Aztec priest.
Your point about Buckley is (sadly) well taken.
William said...
During the American Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman said, “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” And he was considered a lunatic at the time, but he had a deep understanding of how terrible it was, but how total the destruction of an enemy must be for the war to end.
Right now, we don’t get it. Remember Kosovo? Remember the war fought from 30,000 feet? Well, it didn’t work. The Serbian dictator was removed but the much and the mire still goes on. Jihad filled the void.
War si terrible but as George Orwell wrote, “The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.” And if so, what a horrible time is coming.
9:14 AM
RoseCovered Glasses said...
I enjoyed your commentary. You make many excellent points.
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being usedby our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, "Odyssey of Armements"
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Adminisitrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be - Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can't. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won't happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
5:51 PM
Anonymous said...
In the present multi-culti environment, the ritual torture to death of captive warriors of other tribes, in honor of the victorious tribal god, is a feature of uncivilised savages which it is politically correct not to mention, especially as Native Americans such as the Iroquois delighted in these abominations.
Mercifully for the captives, death would normally occur within two or three days of continual torture, due to heart failure, dehydration, blood loss or infection.
But consider the fate of a warrior captured by a savage tribe with the same Satanic ritual urge to torture in the name of their ‘god’, but with modern medical support to prolong the life of the victim almost indefinitely.
Such was the fate of William Francis Buckley, a US army officer who was ritually tortured by Muslims in the name of Allah continuously and unremittingly for 444 days before death finally claimed him.
William Buckley must have endured more suffering than any other human being in history, for despite agonising 24/7 torture for more than a year, the best doctors in Iran were on call to give life support to prevent his escape through death.
Buckley was captured in Beirut By Hisbollah on March 16, 1984. and was smuggled to Tehran via Damascus aboard an Iranian plane and taken to the cellars of the Iranian Foreign ministry, where he was tortured without respite or mercy until he died of a sudden heart attack despite best attempts at resuscitation. This abomination was carried out with the full support of the demonocratic Iranian government and the vile Islamic pedophile-worshipping ‘clergy’.
Buckley’s remains were then sent back to Beirut and dumped in an unsuccessful attempt to hide Iranian involvement. However during his torture numerous videos of the kaffir’s suffering and ‘humiliation’ (very important to the Muslim male) had been made and these eventually found their way into Mosques worldwide, where they were (and probably still are) used as propaganda to inspire youthful Jihadists.
Buckley’s appalling fate illustrates the Satanic nature of Islamic tribalism. He wasn’t tortured to extract information. Like the prisoners of the Iroquois, he was tortured to appease a sadistic ‘god’ - Allah, aka Satan.
4:26 PM
Timothy Birdnow said...
Thanks for some great comments, guys!
I couldn`t agree more, William! Sherman was a ruthless SOB, but he understood the nature of the coming style of warfare, and ultimately he was correct; a popular rebellion such as the Civil War could never have been won by ``winning the hearts and minds`` of the South.
As an interesting side-note, when Grant was closing in on Lee at Appomatox, a proposal was made to the General to disband the army, send them into the bush and have them wage a guerrila war like Quantril was doing in Missouri. Lee pondered the proposal, then rejected it because he did not want to sentence the entire Nation to such a bitter and bloody experience. Of course, our current enemy has no such qualms...
Rosecovered, I have no doubt that what you say is true, at least to a degree; consider the trouble Bush has had with his attempts to reform the CIA. The Plame Game was clearly a case of the CIA running an op on the President, and I suspect many other dirty tricks have undermined his authority over the years. Bush clearly caved on the issue, which suggests he realized he couldn`t fight these people. Now, the DOD is far larger than the CIA...
Anonymous, I agree; slavery and cannibalism were the purview of warfare in primitive societies, as well as ritual torture (I don`t remember if it was the Iriqois or Illinis, but I read once a narrative about a ``foreign`` Indian adopted into the tribe; they were unfailingly kind to him, and an elder gentleman adopted him as a son. Unfortunately, times got hard and his adoptive tribe dismembered him, starting with the tip of one finger and progressing till he was dead. They would slice a chunk off the guy, then ask if he needed anything, since they really did like him. But the gods demanded a sacrifice, and so this poor schlub had to be bodily, painfully disassembled.
Of course, the Aztecs would cut the hearts out of captives, who would die while watching their own organ beating in the hands of the Aztec priest.
Your point about Buckley is (sadly) well taken.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home