[Part One] [Part Two][Part Four][Part Five]
CONCLUSION:
Of course, no senior U.S. or UK official will admit to winging it. The immediate response from U.S. policy makers and military planners, if asked if they had thoroughly reviewed the checkables, would be something like: "We didn't have time." "We had to work with the material we had on hand." "We had to defend America." Good rhetoric, superficially plausible in days of unthinking high emotion, and self-protectively wrapped in red, white, and blue -- and just as clearly factually wrong and deliberately misleading.-- Mike Scheuer
Imperial Hubris, p. 37[al-Qaeda's] goal is not to wipe out our secualr democracy, but to deter us by military means from attacking the things they love. Bin Laden et al. are not eternal warriors; there is no evidence they are fighting for fighting's sake, or that they would be lost for things to do without a war to wage. There is evidence to the contrary, in fact, showing bin Laden and other Islamist leaders would like to end the war, get back to their families, and live a less martial lifestyle. They share the attitude of the Afghan mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet war: They are weary of war, but not war weary in a way making them ready to compromise or fight less enthusiastically. In both cases, participating in a defensive jihad was a duty to God and therefore had to be pursued until victory or martyrdom.-- Mike Scheuer
Imperial Hubris, p. 17"Many people in the West are good and gentle people," bin Laden said. "I have already said that we are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system [i.e. U.S. foreign policy] which makes nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom."-- Mike Scheuer
Imperial Hubris, p. 156Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.-- 孫子 (Sun Tzu)
What makes a man, group, or country great is not just the good it does, but how said person/group sees himself as a result. I doubt many people would see greatness in a man who does a good deed -- many good deeds even -- and constantly reminds the world of the good he did. The mere fact that a man would time after time fall back on the good he's done is evidence of his belief that he has reason to believe that he is, at the same time, somehow flawed.
Only looking honestly at himself can he truly become great. In the same way, a nation that blows its own horn until blue in the face, while scoffing at criticism, especially from those we've "bailed out" before, is a nation bound to lose its way.
While things have started to change over the last year, I think most would agree that the first five years after the attacks saw a near universal rejection of anything that even resembled a sort of reasonable, honest answer to the question of why we were attacked -- other than, of course, the fact that they hate freedom, democracy, Jessica Simpson, the Boston Red Sox, American pie, and did I say Freedom? -- could count nothing less than the sting of thousands of fiery tongues. Yes, for quite some time, taking a look at the history and the events that led up to that horrible day amounted, in the eyes of many, as an attempt to give credibility to nineteen murderous criminals.
Somehow, we were led to believe that putting magnets on our cars and shopping was patriotic, leaving the battle to those who "know better" was in our highest national interest.
This view hasn't quite been put to rest, either. It's echoed in nearly every Republican debate thus far, most often dripping from the lips of the one man who should be honest with himself about what happened that day, Rudolph Giuliani -- who is presently the Republican frontrunner, and probably one of the worst candidates out there.
Here's an example.
That's right. You heard correctly. In case you weren't sure, here's what Rudy said:
That's right, the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden Unit says that there is only one candidate who truly understands the war on terror, and it's not Rudolph.
Scheuer isn't a voice in the wilderness either. The invasion, from all sources I can remember seeing, has been rejected by the intelligence community.
But, wasn't the war a result of flawed intelligence? Sure, they may have really thought there were WMDs, but there was not really any question as to what the implications would be if the US were to invade:
Scheuer, to be clear, is also no dove, either. In one of the two books that I've read (the aforementioned Imperial Hubris and Through Our Enemies' Eyes), he says that America has two choice: (1) to leave the Middle East (2) to fight like al-Qaeda. In the latter case, he says something along the lines of "Success should be measured in dead bodies, including women and children." I'm hoping he said that just to illustrate how high the stakes are.
Again, if you're wondering what all this has to do with Taiwan. Well, it's not unrelated.
Now, one interesting barometer for who has his head on straight when it comes to the War on Terror would probably be who actually gets the most money from American soldiers. I'm not going to present the numerous findings and claims that Paul has raised more money than any other candidate (see the comments for the debate), because none of them are official.
I will share this, though, a letter from a Marine, explaining why he, and many others in the armed forces, support Paul [emphasis mine]:
In closing, there are plenty of reasons (which I will get to in yet another post) that I like Ron Paul, but the one which originally attracted my attention was his realistic view of US Foreign Policy. I believe that America is neither a bad place or a force of evil. I know that America(ns) do(es) a lot of good, but if we are not honest with ourselves about the ills to which our country's foreign policy contributed, we will see a continuation of the American image's downward spiral.
We need a candidate that will believes in his country, who has been honest with himself and with us, and who has the will to put us back on the right track.
I feel dirty just for writing that. I'm not an overly patriotic person, and I've never written something like this about a politician. I just can't help reading that Giuliani is the Republican front-runner without having the carthartic urge to put this stuff out there.
Pre-conclusion:
The first time I ever came across Ron Paul was late one night when I was up writing a paper, rather I was staring at a blinking cursor, trying to kick start my synapses. I had been listening to all of the loudest, most abrasive music on my MP3 player to keep my blood flowing: Rage Against the Machine, the Deftones, Soundgarden, Tool, etc. During the last song on Tool's Aenima, "Third Eye," there's a clip from one of Bill Hicks acts.**
So, I decided to google and see if I can find some clips of his other stuff. I ended up at the Sacred Cow Productions website. Which (as you can see from their site) seems to be the production company of choice for conspiracy theorists and pro-legalization sorts. There was tons of stuff on there, including videos of Hicks himself at the Waco, Texas compound (not in, at), and if I remember correctly, he's tripping.
Among the myriad of videos hosted on the site was a lecture from Ron Paul (requires RealPlayer), railing against the direction he saw his country heading in. He voiced opposition to the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, the lack of foresight (and the subsequent lack of accountability for it), etc. Of course, at the time (sometime in 2004), these views were still on the fringe -- after all, a majority of Americans still believed there was link between Iraq and al-Qaeda -- and I was more than shocked to hear them being voiced by a Republican.
* Any Bill Hicks fans out there will notice that this quote is remarkably expletive-free.
** A fake news report: Today young men on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one conciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream in which we are the imagination of ourself...here's Tom with the weather.
Only looking honestly at himself can he truly become great. In the same way, a nation that blows its own horn until blue in the face, while scoffing at criticism, especially from those we've "bailed out" before, is a nation bound to lose its way.
While things have started to change over the last year, I think most would agree that the first five years after the attacks saw a near universal rejection of anything that even resembled a sort of reasonable, honest answer to the question of why we were attacked -- other than, of course, the fact that they hate freedom, democracy, Jessica Simpson, the Boston Red Sox, American pie, and did I say Freedom? -- could count nothing less than the sting of thousands of fiery tongues. Yes, for quite some time, taking a look at the history and the events that led up to that horrible day amounted, in the eyes of many, as an attempt to give credibility to nineteen murderous criminals.
Somehow, we were led to believe that putting magnets on our cars and shopping was patriotic, leaving the battle to those who "know better" was in our highest national interest.
This view hasn't quite been put to rest, either. It's echoed in nearly every Republican debate thus far, most often dripping from the lips of the one man who should be honest with himself about what happened that day, Rudolph Giuliani -- who is presently the Republican frontrunner, and probably one of the worst candidates out there.
Here's an example.
That's right. You heard correctly. In case you weren't sure, here's what Rudy said:
May I make a comment on that? That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of Septemeber 11th, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.And the crowd goes WILD!!!
And I would ask the Congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us he didn't really mean that.Of course, Paul didn't rescind. In fact, he went on several news networks and read selections from the 9-11 Commission Report. In searching for said videos, much to my surprise, I found a joint press conference between Ron Paul and Micheal Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit whom I've quoted above. I had no idea this video existed until now.
That's right, the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden Unit says that there is only one candidate who truly understands the war on terror, and it's not Rudolph.
Scheuer isn't a voice in the wilderness either. The invasion, from all sources I can remember seeing, has been rejected by the intelligence community.
But, wasn't the war a result of flawed intelligence? Sure, they may have really thought there were WMDs, but there was not really any question as to what the implications would be if the US were to invade:
Blaire's wasn't ignorant of the possibilities either.Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.
Scheuer, to be clear, is also no dove, either. In one of the two books that I've read (the aforementioned Imperial Hubris and Through Our Enemies' Eyes), he says that America has two choice: (1) to leave the Middle East (2) to fight like al-Qaeda. In the latter case, he says something along the lines of "Success should be measured in dead bodies, including women and children." I'm hoping he said that just to illustrate how high the stakes are.
Again, if you're wondering what all this has to do with Taiwan. Well, it's not unrelated.
Now, one interesting barometer for who has his head on straight when it comes to the War on Terror would probably be who actually gets the most money from American soldiers. I'm not going to present the numerous findings and claims that Paul has raised more money than any other candidate (see the comments for the debate), because none of them are official.
I will share this, though, a letter from a Marine, explaining why he, and many others in the armed forces, support Paul [emphasis mine]:
"Thank you so much for your article. I am currently in the Marine Corps and I thoroughly enjoyed your article. It boosted my morale and reinforced what I only suspected to be true. I know that Ron Paul is the only one that truly speaks for the military. As an active duty Marine, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I take that oath very seriously and see Ron Paul as the only candidate that has actually proven through his actions that he cares about preserving our Constitution and our constitutional republic.Paul's campaign contributions have, nonetheless made national news (mentioned towards the end of this clip):"If there were more public awareness about Ron Paul and what he stands for, I imagine that he would have nearly unanimous support among military members and veterans. However, his fame is spreading fast and I'm sure a lot of ground will be covered between now and the election in 2008."
In closing, there are plenty of reasons (which I will get to in yet another post) that I like Ron Paul, but the one which originally attracted my attention was his realistic view of US Foreign Policy. I believe that America is neither a bad place or a force of evil. I know that America(ns) do(es) a lot of good, but if we are not honest with ourselves about the ills to which our country's foreign policy contributed, we will see a continuation of the American image's downward spiral.
We need a candidate that will believes in his country, who has been honest with himself and with us, and who has the will to put us back on the right track.
I feel dirty just for writing that. I'm not an overly patriotic person, and I've never written something like this about a politician. I just can't help reading that Giuliani is the Republican front-runner without having the carthartic urge to put this stuff out there.
Pre-conclusion:
Did you watch the flag burning thing? Wasn’t that great man? Boy, everybody showed their true colours then didn’t they? Scary. People just flipped, they reacted like The Supreme Court approved of flag burning, know what I mean?
"Does that mean we have to burn our flags?.. They said that we ha-"… NO NO NO NO NO NO, they didn’t say that. They said that if someone wanted to burn a flag, he perhaps doesn’t need to go to jail for a year. Pretty harsh on their part, huh?
"They said we should bur-" They didn’t say that, they didn’t say that, they didn’t say that!
"Does that mean I have to go and -"….NO NO NO NO NO NO NO… Listen, read , think, calm down, relax, SHUT...UP
"Well I don’t get it..I don’t wanna burn my flag"….then DOOOOOOOOOOON’T.
People snapped, they were like "Hey buddy, my dad died for that flag"
"Really?…I bought mine…They sell ‘em in K-Mart…"
"Yeah..He died in Korea for that flag"
"Wow, what a coincidence. Mine was made in Korea… the world is THAT big man…"
No one, and I repeat no one, has ever died for a flag. A flag is a piece of cloth, they might have died for freedom, which, by the way, is the freedom to burn the...flag you see? Burning the flag doesn’t make freedom go away, it’s kinda like Free-dom. Ok? Ok.
And they’ve had 4 cases in this country’s 200 year history, so it’s not that big an issue. One of the hotter smokescreens they’ve put down the pipe. I don’t wanna burn a flag, but what business is it of mine if you do?
Is it my business if someone wants to. Is it? No.
Is it my business what other people read or watch on TV? No, it's not. Thank you.
You see, when we talk these things through, it becomes a little clearer doesn’t it? That’s called logic, and it’ll help us all evolve and get on the fucking spaceships and get outta here.*
The first time I ever came across Ron Paul was late one night when I was up writing a paper, rather I was staring at a blinking cursor, trying to kick start my synapses. I had been listening to all of the loudest, most abrasive music on my MP3 player to keep my blood flowing: Rage Against the Machine, the Deftones, Soundgarden, Tool, etc. During the last song on Tool's Aenima, "Third Eye," there's a clip from one of Bill Hicks acts.**
So, I decided to google and see if I can find some clips of his other stuff. I ended up at the Sacred Cow Productions website. Which (as you can see from their site) seems to be the production company of choice for conspiracy theorists and pro-legalization sorts. There was tons of stuff on there, including videos of Hicks himself at the Waco, Texas compound (not in, at), and if I remember correctly, he's tripping.
Among the myriad of videos hosted on the site was a lecture from Ron Paul (requires RealPlayer), railing against the direction he saw his country heading in. He voiced opposition to the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, the lack of foresight (and the subsequent lack of accountability for it), etc. Of course, at the time (sometime in 2004), these views were still on the fringe -- after all, a majority of Americans still believed there was link between Iraq and al-Qaeda -- and I was more than shocked to hear them being voiced by a Republican.
* Any Bill Hicks fans out there will notice that this quote is remarkably expletive-free.
** A fake news report: Today young men on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one conciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream in which we are the imagination of ourself...here's Tom with the weather.
7 comments:
I'm a big Paul fan because of his foreign policy views myself. In fact, the way I like to describe him is that he is the only person saying anything rational at all on stage.
I mean, he's not just the only honest man up there who isn't making tons of political posturing.
I honestly believe he's the only guy saying anything sane half the time.
Not to say I want to get rid of the Federal Reserve, but we have got to have a foreign policy that's based in some way on reality.
On the Democratic side there's also Kucinich whose policies aren't quite as hawkish as the other Democratic forerunners.
His ideas for domestic policy are a bit different from Ron Paul's though, but I think he's a viable choice if you're disappointed in past US foreign policy.
On a side note, that was an excellent quote you found about flag burning, thanks a bunch.
Steve, if you like the quote, you should check out more Bill Hicks. I think he was hilarious.
Listening to him talk about the first Iraq war (he died not long after Gulf Storm) is eerie. He could be talking about the mess we're in right now.
I know a lot of people don't like him because of how irreverent he was, but he was also really good at pointing out hypocrisy and just plain nonsense.
For instance, when he talks about doing a show somewhere in the south. Afterwards, he was ruffed up by two big guys that were angry at jokes he made about Jesus.
They pushed him and said, "We're Christians and we don't like what you said about Jesus."
"Okay," said Hicks, "Then, forgive me."
There are tons of clips of his on youtube:
http://youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=bill%20hicks&search_sort=video_avg_rating&search_category=0&search=Search&v=&uploaded=
The link got cut. Just got to youtube and search Bill Hicks.
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out.
rob... saw you again today crossing the street with your gf (fanfan, right?) around 1pm today. i'm assuming you guys were going to "chai-yuan" to catch the bus? i was driving with my wife and as soon as i saw you i wanted to yell out "hey rob" but my windows were closed. ok, just i'd let you know. that's all.
Hey Andres,
That's funny, because I was thinking about how we've still yet to meet. I'm not as busy as the last time we talked about meeting up. Maybe we can do it sometime soon. I won't be able to this weekend, but maybe the next.
If that works for you...
Post a Comment