Posted: 11/22/2002 11:42:20 AM EDT
|
[url]www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4718[/url] "I have adopted Eliot Cohen’s formulation, distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, that we are in World War IV, World War III having been the Cold War. And I think Eliot’s formulation fits the circumstances really better than describing this as a war on terrorism. Let me say a few words about who our enemy is in this World War IV, why they’re at war with us and (now) we with them, and how we have to think about fighting it both at home and abroad. First of all, who are they? Well, there are at least three, but I would say principally three movements, of a sort, all coming out of the Middle East. And the interesting thing is that they’ve been at war with us for years. The Islamist Shia, the ruling circles, the ruling Clerics, the Mullahs of Iran, minority -- definite minority of the Iranian Shiite Clerics, but those who constitute the ruling force in Iran and sponsor and back Hezbollah, have been at war with us for nearly a quarter of a century. They seized our hostages in 1979 in Tehran. They blew up our embassy and our marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. They’ve conducted a wide range of terrorist acts against the United States for something now close to a quarter of a century. The second group is the fascists and I don’t use that as an expletive -- the Baathist parties of Iraq and really Syria as well, are essentially fascist parties or modeled after the fascist parties of the ’30s. They’re totalitarian, they’re anti-Semitic, they’re fascist. The Baathists in Iraq have been at war with us for over a decade. For Saddam, the Gulf War never stopped. He says it never stopped. He behaves as if it never stopped. He tried to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait. He has various ties, not amounting to direction and control, but various associations with different terrorist groups over the years, including al-Qaeda. He shoots at our aircraft, again yesterday, over the no-fly zones. He’s still at war. He signed a cease fire, which he’s not observing, and so it’s even clearer that he is at war. And he has been so for at least 11 years. The third group, and the one that caused us finally to notice, is the Islamist Sunni. And this is the most, in some ways, I think virulent and long-term portion of these three groupings that are at war with us, and will be at war, I think, for a long time. The Wahhabi movement, the religious movement in Saudi Arabia dating back to the 18th century and with roots even well before that, was joined in the ’50s and ’60s by immigration into Saudi Arabia by Islamists, or a more modern strife of essentially the same ideology, many of them coming from Egypt. And the very fundamentalist -- Islamist I think is the best formulation -- groups of this sort, more or less focused on what they call the near enemy. Say the barbaric regime in Egypt, and to some extent, the Saudi royal family -- the attacks in 1979 on the great mosques in Mecca. They were focusing on what they called the “near enemy” until sometime in the mid 1990’s. Around 1994, they decided to turn and focus their concentration and effort on what they call the Crusaders and Jews, mainly us. And they have been at war with us since at least about 1994, give or take a year or so, in number of well-noted terrorists incidents, including the Cole and the cast African embassy bombings and, of course, September 11th. What is different after September 11th is not that these three groups came to be at war with us. They’ve been at war with us for some time. It’s that we finally, finally may have noticed and have decided at least, in part, that we are at war with them. If these are the three groupings -- and by the way, I think of these more or less as analogous to three mafia families. They do hate each other and they do kill each other from time to time. But, they hate us a great deal more and they’re perfectly willing and perfectly capable to assist one another in one way or another, including Iraq and al-Qaeda. " R. James Woolsey I've been refering to the current state of affairs as WW IV for a while now and people think I'm nuts, untill I explain it to them. I think Mr. Woolsey sums it up nicely. Bilster |
|
It fits well with: [url]www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-488755,00.html[/url] and, [url]www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4737[/url] "When we finally went to war in 1941, it was not because Hitler had conquered Europe. Even then we had not been roused from our slumber to respond. We went to war because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. 9/11 is our Pearl Harbor. It was a wake up call and our nation responded. But that was more than a year ago and our nation is only half awake and can still go back to sleep. And there are many who want our nation to go back to sleep." Paul Wolfowitz |
|
My criticism of Woolsey's methodology is that he starts his timeline in limbo-as if the US/western powers perspective is all that merits appraisal[land/principalities 7,000 miles away]. That's simply BS.'History', nor racial memory, didn't just 'start' when it's convenient to slant facts a decade or so ago! We [US and allies] essentially stole arab lands and 'gave them away' by the Balfour declaration to europeans from the ghetto. They weren't ours to 'give'! Isn't that simple enough for anyone to understand? Adding insult to injury, we 'gave' them to a rival semitic tribe. [NONE of this having anything to do with western 'religious' concerns-simply our votewhores meddling]. Now, the arabs- that actually fought the Turks for the allies- find themselves looted-without a by-your-leave to the advantage of their tribal enemies. Why does anyone fail to understand why that type 'diplomacy' causes just a tad of animosity? Duh![When Truman broke Roosieveldt's promise to Faisal about supporting an Arab homeland, Truman told his cabinet it was because the jews had more votes in the US than Arabs!!!? Spoken like a true democrap votewhore! So much for xtian morality.] So declaiming current 'terrorist' attacks hardly qualifies as any rationale to 'explain' the problem/'war'. It's the equivalent of the Brits saying our Revolution was 'caused' by US throwing tea in the Boston harbor. It's silly;it's disengenuous;it's historically ignorant and intellectually a sick joke. ALL we have to do is simply leave the semites alone! Can't we mind our own business anywhere? We're in every crap-hole on the planet simply at the whim of our fascist votewhores in DC. Has NOTHING to do with american citizens except stealing their tax dollars to fund this global fascism and make them targets when the other side gets tired of our crap. There are no IC's[innocent civilians] when stupid sheeple ALLOW themselves to be used by their govt. AGAINST other sovereign states. As that poll going around the net demonstrated-most americans don't even know WHERE Iraq IS-much less any history. Stupid people are dangerous-hopefully alot of that sort get killed so Darwinism can operate. Ghost |
|
All said and done, but the simple fact is we are at war. Now, did it start in 1979 or 1948? Did it start sooner? Who is right? Them? Who is wrong? Us? Is it it Our Fault? You seem to be implying that. Yes, stupid people are the most dangerous weapon in the world. So, because we have generations of stupidity, are we supposed to just take it now? Let them kill us at whim? Here and abroad? Should we bend over backwards now and undo all of our diplomatic policies for the last 54 or more years? They're academics in this land that think Pearl Harbor is our fault too. Similar reasons as you noted above. We fucked the Japanese with an oil embargo {we voted for these people}. Almost a century earlier, we forced them at naval gun point to open their ports (we voted for them back then too). Shortly there after they made a determined effort to modernize. No one was ever going to dictate policy to them again. So, they embarked on a policy of dominating their neighbors. Taking what they could. Then, because it is our fault, they attacked us. Basically I asked if other people thought we were in WW IV now. So, who thinks we are in WW IV? Bilster |
|
We are at the beginning of WWIV. COnsidering the resources expended, and the killing in all directions, WWIII was a sufficiently costly one. The specific start date is of no consequence and, is arbitrary and probably incorrect. It all depends on who you talk to and his/her/its motives. As with the attack by Japan, this latest war deserves the fullest possible response. I tend to agree with many who say that WWII was partly our fault. But it does not excuse the Japanese for making the attack. That act ended all arguments. Before you start flaming about Japan, a few simple facts. Take the provocations mentioned above in earlier posts. Add to that a meeting between Roosevelt and CHurchill in August of 1941, off the coast of Greenland on board the HMS Prince of Wales, during which meeting Roosevelt agreed to enter the war on the side of Britain. It is not important how one feels politically about this. The fact is that it happened (the references were, among others, from Gen. H.H. Arnold's diary/papers/notes). Whether or not one likes the Japanese is also not important. Recognize that they are not stupid. They found this out, and you can fill in the rest at the high command levels. What would we do now if we found out that some nation was planning to enter a war on the side of our opponent? Same is same. We brought a lot of the current situation on ourselves by our blank check to Israel. I do not for one moment deny Israel's right to exist, indeed I feel they have every right to do so. But, we have gone so far that we have created hating masses. Nevertheless, as in the case of Japan, the attackers have ended any debate in my mind. They attacked US and should pay the price. No further debate even makes any sense. After all is over, politicians should be made to review: - President Washington's Farewell Address; - Thucydides, "The Pelopponesian Wars" |