Deport (from US) all Arab non-Citizens?

[Pure]

Hi jmt,

you said, of the Gettysburg Address of mid 1863,

//This simple address by President Abraham Lincoln, explains to me why America gets involved, sometimes its simply the right thing to do.//

Unfortunately politics is never so simple. Consider these well known facts:

from a civil war time line:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1863.html

[start quote]
March 1861 -- Lincoln's Inauguration.

At Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, the new president said he had no plans to end slavery in those states where it already existed, but he also said he would not accept secession. He hoped to resolve the national crisis without warfare.

June 1861 -- Four Slave States Stay in the Union.

Despite their acceptance of slavery, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri did not join the Confederacy. Although divided in their loyalties, a combination of political maneuvering and Union military pressure kept these states from seceding.

January 1863 -- Emancipation Proclamation.

In an effort to placate the slave-holding border states, Lincoln resisted the demands of radical Republicans for complete abolition. Yet some Union generals, such as General B. F. Butler, declared slaves escaping to their lines "contraband of war," not to be returned to their masters. Other generals decreed that the slaves of men rebelling against the Union were to be considered free.

Congress, too, had been moving toward abolition. In 1861, Congress had passed an act stating that all slaves employed against the Union were to be considered free. In 1862, another act stated that all slaves of men who supported the Confederacy were to be considered free. Lincoln, aware of the public's growing support of abolition, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion were, in the eyes of the federal government, free.

[end quote, my bold]

Note that, two years into the civil war, Lincoln frees slaves *in the confederate/rebelling states*. These states having rebelled two years earlier-- surely an opportune time to do what's right.

Yet, as the inaugural address note says, he took office without speaking of or starting 'abolition' in states already seceeded.

Final abolition of slavery would be a few years later {{Added: December 1865, after the war had concluded}}.

===
US History has always a mythic dimension, and this concern with 'right' is often imputed after the fact.

After all, both the Germans and the Japanese did a number of wrongs-- with the support of a portion of the US and England, including banker Prescott Bush-- before the US acted.

There is a fine account by Toby Rodgers, _Heir to the Holocaust: Prescott Bush, 1.5 Million Dollars, and Auschwitz._

at www.clamormagazine.org, of which I give a couple excerpts:

http://www.clamormagazine.org/features/issue14.3_feature.html

Throughout the Bush family's decades of public life, the American press has gone out of its way to overlook one historical fact – that through Union Banking Corporation (UBC), Prescott Bush [grandfather of GHWB], and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, along with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, financed Adolf Hitler before and during World War II.

It was first reported in 1994 by John Loftus and Mark Aarons in The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People.The US government had known that many American companies were aiding Hitler, like Standard Oil, General Motors and Chase Bank, all of which was sanctioned after Pearl Harbor.

But as The New York Times reporter Charles Higham later discovered, and published in his 1983 groundbreaking book, _Trading With The Enemy; The Nazi American Money Plot 1933-1949_, "the government smothered everything during and even after the war." Why?According to Higham, the US government believed "a public scandal ... would have drastically affected public morale, caused widespread strikes and perhaps provoked mutinies in the armed services."

Higham claims the government thought "their trial and imprisonment would have made it impossible for the corporate boards to help the American war effort."However, Prescott Bush's banks were not just financing Hitler as previously reported. In fact, there was a distinct business link much deeper than Mr. Higham or Mr. Loftus knew at the time their books were published.

A classified Dutch intelligence file which was leaked by a courageous Dutch intelligence officer, along with newly surfaced information from U.S. government archives, "confirms absolutely," John Loftus says, the direct links between Bush, Thyssen and genocide profits from Auschwitz.The business connections between Prescott Bush and Fritz Thyssen were more direct than what has been previously written.

This new information reveals how Prescott Bush and UBC, which he managed directly, profited from the Holocaust. A case can be made that the inheritors of the Prescott Bush estate could be sued by survivors of the Holocaust and slave labor communities. To understand the complete picture of how Prescott Bush profited from the Holocaust, it is necessary to return to the year 1916, where it all began. [...]

It has been 60 years since one of the great money laundering scandals of the 20th century ended and only now are we beginning to see the true historical aspects of this important period of world history, a history that the remaining Holocaust survivors beg humanity to "never forget."

Loftus believes history will view Prescott Bush as harshly as Thyssen. "It is bad enough that the Bush family helped raise the money for Thyssen to give Hitler his start in the 1920s, but giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is treason. The Bush bank helped the Thyssens make the Nazi steel that killed Allied solders. As bad as financing the Nazi war machine may seem, aiding and abetting the Holocaust was worse.

Thyssen's coal mines used Jewish slaves as if they were disposable chemicals. There are six million skeletons in the Thyssen family closet, and a myriad of criminal and historical questions to be answered about the Bush family's complicity."


[end]

Even the 'fighting nazism', certainly the right thing, took a bit of easing into. In the East, in the Rape of Naking, Dec 1937, 200,000 men women and children were slaughted by the Japanese. US efforts to deal with the evil in the East came after direct attack by the Japanese, in 1941.

J.

 

[Liar]

LOL

That's just part of our cunning plan to slowly, slowly drive you insane, so that we can take over as a world power. Kinda like we were a couple of centuries ago.

Ok, that's clever. Do we really want to drive people with nukes insane? IKEA assembly manuals are as justified a cause as any to launch a tactile missile strike.

#L

 

[shereads]

Ok, that's clever. Do we really want to drive people with nukes insane? IKEA assembly manuals are as justified a cause as any to launch a tactile missile strike.

Swedish "neutrality" is a sham. They're intent on taking over the world.

 

[shereads]

This simple address by President Abraham Lincoln, explains to me why America gets involved, sometimes its simply the right thing to do.

Lincoln should never have committed U.S. military personnel to a civil war in another count -

Oh.

Nevermind.

 

[Liar]

Israel wasn't a nation until the USA created it. The USA stepped into the region, took land from Palestine and called it Israel and declared it to be the land of the Jewish.

A tad bit of over simplification there. First of all, the United Nations, and not the US alone, created Israel. And second, the creation of this nation might with time had worked out just fine.

I rely on second-hand information here so this might be exaggerated, but in the piece of land granted to the jews it's former inhabitants were not that many, and save for a few fanatics, the two major people could had gotten along fairly well. The place was already occupied by a foreign power, how much worse could it get?

The major problem in the middle east is that the newly formed state of Israel applied an almost instant aggression policy and created their own little kind of Lebesraum. Segregation, ghettoisation, and just plain border expansion warfare against it's nieghbors.

Here however, I can blame the US for one thing. They alone had the realistic power to put the heat on and keep Israel on a leash, but chose not to. Thus, the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and Sinai, all arab muslim territory, were one by one invaded and occupied. And west, with US in particular, looked thew other way and/or cheered on. I'd be kind of grumpy too over that if I had been an arab. I'm not saying that everyhing was peachy before this, but the forming of Israel was not the match to the powder keg. It was the state of Israel themselves that, once formed, brought forth the flame-thrower.

I have no idea what would had happened if Israel had managed to stay humble and kept peace and a low profile through the first decades as a country. It is my personal opinion that the world would had been a much safer place today.

#L

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Before I start this rebuttal, I'd just like to make a disclaimer. I'm not perfect and so anything I have got wrong is from a lack of knowledge, rather than a lack of principles on historical discussion. However...



There is more than one way to bomb the USA. If Russia fell then the ports of Smolensk would take him within reach. Although Hitler lacked a bomber capable of reaching the USA, Britain didn't, so if Britain fell, Germany would have both the technology and the manufacturing capabilities. Using allies would have been a possibility too, whether he managed to convert Mexico (and it was no secret that the promise of California would have bought Mexico's support), or whether he entrusted the bombs to Japanese kamikaze pilots, who wouldn't have worried about the return journey.

Hitler didn't want to bring Britain into the war, that's true and honestly didn't expect us to enter over Poland, because of Chamberlain's peacemaking previously. In Mein Kampf Hitler states that he wants Germany to rule all the lands and Britain was free to continue ruling the seas. However in the same book, Hitler declared his hatred of America, his disgust of the freedom of the people, the proliferation of Jews and blacks and other 'inferior people.' In his long-term plan he stated that he wished to co-opt Russia for Lebensraum (living-room) to breed the new German nation. Then he wanted to go after the USA. His own words.



I do not deny that without the USA the war would not have been won. I do appreciate that fact. However the American navy managed to defeat the Japanese by the narrowest of margins. Although towards the end, victory was never in doubt, the USA were looking utterly defeated until some extraordinary luck over the battle of Midway Island prevented the Japanese from reaching resource-rich Australia. May I also mention the heroics of the Australian army in defending the Pacific Rim too - The Americans would not have held them alone. Britain brought Australia into the war. If the German army had taken Russia, they could have reinforced the Japanese through Smolensk and harried the USA, providing the straw that would have broken your back.

Even if the USA had stayed out of Germany's way entirely, given 20 years of building and plannign for war on the great enemy, with the entire resources of EuroAsia behind him, do you really believe that Hitler would not have been able to have a good go at defeating you. To claim yourselves immune from the greatest military threat faced by the world at that time is very presumptuous.



Israel wasn't a nation until the USA created it. The USA stepped into the region, took land from Palestine and called it Israel and declared it to be the land of the Jewish. The Palestinians were quite understandably upset about a foreign power effectively evicting them and called their friends to come and take the land back. The USA armed Israel to the teeth and applied pressure on the Arabic countries to back down. They did so, but only in deference to the USA's might. The creation of Israel caused two major wars and god knows how much of the current terrorism (How many members of Al-Quaeda are former Palestinians?). I'd say that counts as starting some of the problems. I will apologise for blaming the whole thing on the USA, that was incorrect - tension was high there beforehand (partly thanks to British Imperial policies). But the USA lit the powderkeg.



And then after the war, you used our debt to control our foreign policy. Take Suez. Nassar effectively issued a invitation to war from the British and French by stealing the money of French and British companies in Suez. We went to war and were 30 minutes from victory when the USA decided to side with the Soviet Union who were supporting Nassar and crashed both the pound and the franc, collapsing both our economies. The US foreign policy was that they would screw over our economies until we fell into line. The Soviet line incidentally.

I will apologise if I am actually wrong on any facts and I understand that the sections referring to What-if history (The future of the USA if Germany became dominant) are conjecture. However I feel that I have debated my side of the argument quite well, backing up everyhting with facts and I do not appreciate being told that I am revising history to fit specious opinions.


Just on a side-note to people: Does anyone know whether the US declared war on Germany? I know they declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbour, but I'm not sure whether Germany declared war on them, or whether America declared war on Germany. Anybody help?

The Earl

Edited because I forgot to close quotes

Germany declared war on the U.S. Within a very short period after the U.S. declared war on Japan. It was hoped that in doing so Japan would declare war on Russia, this however did not happen.

Hitler's goal was not to take all of Russia, it was to push the subhuman slavs back behind the Urals. His living space for his people was envisioned to be in Europe.

Which bomber did Britan have that could reach the U.S.? The longest ranged bomber I know of you having was the Wellington or Hawker Hurricane. Even the B-17, to make the trip across had to be stripped of all weapons and carried a skeleton crew. Germany never even developed a four engine heavy bomber.

Mexico was never a threat. They already knew what good an ally across the ocean who didn't control the waves would have been. They had ousted Maximmillan and seen what good his European backers were. Waring us would have bought them an ass whipping and subjugation. There is resentment still in Mexico over the Mexican-Amerian war and the peace terms, but give them some credit. They are an intelligent people and going after us would have done nothing for them except cost Mexcan lives. And as non aryans trading a benevolent, if arrognat neighbor for an dictitoral overlord who held them to be sub human probably wasn't all that attractive anyway.

Know thine history, the Kamikaze were a last ditch desperation measure and even if they had been around they too lacked a bomber with sufficient range to reach the U.S. proper. Again, b-17's being ferried to Hawaii had to be stripped down with no machine guns and no bomb loads. That was to Hawaii. No where within the Japanese empires did they have planes that could get there short of Kwanishi flying boats of which they had very few. Certainly they were a more formidible foe since they possessd carrier air, but carrier planes had limited range and could not have hit targets in the industrial U.S. heartland even on suicide raids.

Um, no. We weren't looking utterly defeated before Midway. In fact, Operation MI, the invasion of Midway was born of the desperation one man felt. His Name was Isoruku Yammammoto and he was CinC, of the Japanese imperial Navy. He had traveled widely in the U.S. and more than anyone realizd the 6 month window he had given himself was almost closed. The U.S. 's industrial might was gearing up and once it kicked in he knew final victory could not be achieved. The U.S. still had her carriers and while, to old navy men we looked whipped, what with no battleships, history has shown the day of the big gun carrier as queen of the sea was already over. With able commanders like Michner, Halsey, Fletcher and Spruance and our three operational carriers were were too much of a threat to try an invasion of Hawaii and too much of a danger to let us build more. Midway was a victory of signals intelligence, incredible bravery on the part of our pilots, superior planning and yes, some luck. But it came not because we were "nearly defeated" but because were weren't nearly defeated enough to force a peace and we were fixing to start kicking ass and they knew it or at least he did.

Russia as an enemy was of even less concern to us. They had no bombers and their navy had been so viciously beaten by Japan in the Russo-japanese was that they had never recovered.

You seem to have a great deal of respect for Hitler's Germany. I don't share it. The government was rife with corruption, in fighting, graft, intrigue and overlapping fields of power. Lets see, a herione addict and probable transvstite whose primary objective was to steal art treasures, build a hunting lodge and design spiffy uniforms for himself. An ex chicken farmer who was more cncerned about the qulity of the genes being passed on to the next generation on his stud farms than prosecuting a war. An inverterate yes man who would have promulagated an order that all troops were to have a go at his wife if Hitler said to. And a malignant dwarf who liited access to the Fuerher in an attempt to make himself kingmaker. This group is going to build an army to take us on? Hell, they couldn't cross the channel, or keep their best field commander in enough parts and oil to keep whipping the british's ass in North africa. They are gonna figure out how to cross an ocean and invade the U.S.?

The German general staff was set up to fight land wars on the continent. None of the powers, minus the British commands had an amphibious force or the slighest idea how to build one. For them fording rivers was a monumenatl task. Projecting force across an ocean was beyond thier training and the only continetal power who had any skill at it was Britan. When we finished the Japanese, if we had turned on Hitler the odds are very good we would have won. Lets not forget we fought the japanes with out fleet split between two oceans and using mostly our Marine corps while our army was engaged over there.

As Sean Connery's character said in the Untouchables, "Here endeth the lesson". The next time you choose to find something bad in everything my country has done, don't try using history, it's too complicated. Just stick to accusing us of being reponsible for everything bad in the Mideast or never doing anything good for anyone without an ulterior motive and you won't have to sit there through a lecture. After all, everyone has opinions, but when you start calling historical fact into it you are asking for someone to make you look like an ass.

-Colly

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Swedish "neutrality" is a sham. They're intent on taking over the world.

*whistle*

 

[Pure]

CT: //Hitler didn't want to bring Britain into the war, that's true and honestly didn't expect us to enter over Poland, because of Chamberlain's peacemaking previously. In Mein Kampf Hitler states that he wants Germany to rule all the lands and Britain was free to continue ruling the seas. //

Maybe you can elaborate on this a bit, given your excellent knowledge. Hitler might have struck a deal with Britain. At early points he thought of it seriously. Was not a significant section of Brits ready to deal? (pro nazi).

As I understand it, Britain and the US would have be quite happy if Hitler had gone east; no problem. But he also went after France then Britain.

US has no problem with Manchuria or Nanking; even Viet Nam and Phillippines could have been written off. But the Japanese went into the mid Pacific, as if prepared to go further.

Was not a significant section of Americans, esp. important folks, pro Hitler. Henry Ford, iirc. We know the Bushes and Harrimans had dealings with the nazis.

Again, I believe this is often said. Hitler was foolish to bring the US into the war. Even pressure on Britain didn't do it.

What I'm getting at, is that it took some doing for the US to get very interested in either Germany or Japan in the late 1930s.

So, although I applaud the ultimate decision to 'confront evil', the flavor I get, as with many other political events, is that considerations of 'right', or 'relief of suffering' are not primary, and are activated late in the game. This is not a special failing of the US, but the contrast is that US pretension of 'seeking right', or in Lincoln's words, 'new birth of freedom', etc. is greater, so the critique is stronger.

 

[shereads]

But what about me?

Humbly,

Ann Coulter

 

[Colleen Thomas]

CT: //Hitler didn't want to bring Britain into the war, that's true and honestly didn't expect us to enter over Poland, because of Chamberlain's peacemaking previously. In Mein Kampf Hitler states that he wants Germany to rule all the lands and Britain was free to continue ruling the seas. //

Maybe you can elaborate on this a bit, given your excellent knowledge. Hitler might have struck a deal with Britain. At early points he thought of it seriously. Was not a significant section of Brits ready to deal? (pro nazi).

As I understand it, Britain and the US would have be quite happy if Hitler had gone east; no problem. But he also went after France then Britain.

US has no problem with Manchuria or Nanking; even Viet Nam and Phillippines could have been written off. But the Japanese went into the mid Pacific, as if prepared to go further.

Was not a significant section of Americans, esp. important folks, pro Hitler. Henry Ford, iirc. We know the Bushes and Harrimans had dealings with the nazis.

Again, I believe this is often said. Hitler was foolish to bring the US into the war. Even pressure on Britain didn't do it.

What I'm getting at, is that it took some doing for the US to get very interested in either Germany or Japan in the late 1930s.

So, although I applaud the ultimate decision to 'confront evil', the flavor I get, as with many other political events, is that considerations of 'right', or 'relief of suffering' are not primary, and are activated late in the game. This is not a special failing of the US, but the contrast is that US pretension of 'seeking right', or in Lincoln's words, 'new birth of freedom', etc. is greater, so the critique is stronger.

Just a story. A simple one, but true.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor my grandfather was a welder in the shipyards in Mobile. One of a few liscenced welders in the US, and one of a handful in the deep south. Guarenteed deferment, essential civilian personelle. He also had a 2 year old boy, my dad, and his wife was pregnant with my aunt. He volunteered for active duty in Mobile on a Friday and they told him he was essential personel.

My grandfather hitch hiked back to Smith county Mississippi, didn't mention his job or his skill and by the time they found out he was missing from work Monday he was already on a west bound train for boot camp.

Just one man. He didn't go for money nor for some obscure geo-political reason. He went because there was evil in the world and he felt we had to fight it. One man. Represenative of a whole generation of young men who left homes, families and safety to enlist. They traveled across the sea, and fought and bled and died to see tyrany ended. They were called the greatest generation, and they richly deserved that acolade.

So to svenska I say, you didn't need us, but a lot of people did, including the hungarian Jews who were saved extermination by a hair's breadth. They needed us and we came.

To Earl I say, hate my country. You have the unique disnction of being the only person who has ever made me wish I was a man. Just so I could travel over their and stomp a lake in your ass.

To Pure I say, hate my country. Go looking for the worst in everything we do.

I am proud to be an American. So proud I could burst of my grandfather and of his generation. Look for your evil intent and ulterior motives in everything we have done. I still get a card every year on my birthday from a man who left his arm on Omaha Beach. I still send a card every year to the widow of a man I never saw walk beacuse he lost a leg in the battle of the bulge. From those men and the many like them I met as a small girl playing hide and seek at the VFW chapter I never got hate, greed avarice or any of the motives you find. I got only good men, honest men, men who did the right thing for the right reason and were proud of their service not only to their country, but to mankind.

So hate us. It's your god given right. Just be damned glad we as a rule don't hate back now. And even more so that we didn't at all when you needed us.

-Colly

 

[Guest]

Not going into politics at all here, but I am proud of both of my Grandfathers.

My paternal Grandfather served in WW1, in the trenches. He experienced as bad as it could get. The soldier next to him was shot through the head, my Grandfather was lucky, he merely lost his hand.

My maternal Grandfather served in WW2. He was a dessert rat. He witnessed the public execution and flogging of Mussolini.

Adam (my hubby), his Grandfathers also fought in WW2. One for the Allies, the other for the Japanese. Both were fine, honourable men, who fought for their countries with pride.

All four died knowing what they had seen and experienced. They often told me of what they went through. I will never know, not really. I love them all. They are all heros to me.

They were all loving, caring human beings.

Lou

 

[Pure]

What I don't get, Colly is why all the passion and righteousness born of WWII gets channelled into defending the antics of a party boy, who used the rich kids' avenue to avoid service, whose father funded Saddam and Osama, and who great grand dad's bank was shut down for trading with the enemy (nazis).

Many of us have relatives who fought on the 'good' side of various wars; the motives of fighting men and women are not the issue.

 

[hiddenself]

There's no hope of agreement

The US is an imperial power -- has been for about a century now. US citizens grow up unconsciously in that sort of culture; others do not.

All empires are heavy handed and not particularly fair with the rest of the world, which is perceived as needing guidance or protection (at best) or chastising and punishment (at worst). Consequently, empires are not particularly loved by the rest of the world, whether they do right or wrong.

That's partly justified: empires are self-centered, arrogant, and conceited ("we know what's best," "without us, you're nothing"). Citizens are not particularly informed or involved (in contrast to smaller countries where passion reigns). And they basically look out for number one: themselves. Empires think they are God -- above and beyond anyone else.

But partly it's sour grapes: others feel impotent, envious, and resentful ("why you and not me?"). They think that the empire does not deserve to have that kind of power (it does; it is efficient, progress-oriented, and quite capable). They always think that the empire is out to exploit them, to get them, that it does everything with ulterior motives (which is not always the case). The rest of the world suffers from a paranoid inferiority complex against empires.

The US is no different than other western empires of the past (Great Britain should think of its own past; Byzantium, Rome, Egypt). History shows that those were great powers that had a huge positive influence on the world, pushed progress, but also committed countless injustices against other nations that happened to cross their paths. And they were more or less uniformly despised at the end of their lives by everyone around them. It's the nature of the beast.

I also think there's a European vs. American divide in how we view the world, history, and sociopolitical priorities. The US is geographically (and even socially) isolated. It's also fairly new and likes simple solutions. It makes for great leaps of progress. Europe has had centuries of cultural interactions and clashes (including with Asia and Africa) and tends to take a somewhat longer view.

Given a choice, I would probably take crusty old Europe over eager America. Fortunately, I do not have to make that choice and I can enjoy the good things that each has to give me.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

What I don't get, Colly is why all the passion and righteousness born of WWII gets channelled into defending the antics of a party boy, who used the rich kids' avenue to avoid service, whose father funded Saddam and Osama, and who great grand dad's bank was shut down for trading with the enemy (nazis).

Many of us have relatives who fought on the 'good' side of various wars; the motives of fighting men and women are not the issue.

They are the issue. When people like the earl go looking for reasons that paint us in a bad light for what we did in World War II. They are the issue, when people like Svenska glibly say they didn't need us. They are the issue, when people like yourself are happy to go digging for reasons what we did wasn't with good intent. They are the issue because they fought the war, not some politician, not some dark gang of conspiriors, they did. And they fought it for the purest of reasons, because evil had to be combated.

The anti-americanism in this thread has sickened me, from the assertion that we deserved 9/11 to celebrating with the underdogs after it occured. From trying to villify us for entering world war II to looking for a dark, sinister, or self serving reason for sending toops to europe in that conflict.

-Colly

 

[Pure]

Hi Collie, (Hiddenself, have a look!)

Ever read conservatives who are NOT active advocates of the world crusade against evil and big security-minded government, i.e., who aren't 'neocon'?

One example is Sam Francis
http://www.vdare.com/francis/rusher.htm

A fine example is Joseph Sobran is a longtime columnist for the National Review, and he opposed the Iraq excursion.

{{Frum, the neocon, predictably attacks these conservatives as unpatriotic

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp}}

Here's Sobran's comments just after 9/11

http://iraqwar.org/sobran.htm

{see also http://sobran.com/ for his archives}

The Unknown Enemy

September 11, 2001

by Joe Sobran
[start]
[Breaker quote: Why should anyone want to hurt us?]

It was predictable. For years I've been writing that
the U.S. Government has been making more enemies than
Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one
of these days some of them would have a nasty surprise
for us.

In fact it nearly happened a few years ago, when
Islamic radicals tried to blow up the World Trade Center.
But of course they made a botch of it and got caught.

This time, though, someone pulled off what must have
been an extremely cunning conspiracy, a criminal feat for
the ages. They managed to execute a secret plan calling
for four simultaneous hijackings of airplanes. Those who
committed these coordinated deeds -- in spite of all
security measures -- also had the determination to die in
hitting their targets.

This wasn't "terrorism." This was war. It wasn't a
random attempt to scare people with an arbitrary
atrocity, like the bombing of a pizza joint; it was a
serious attempt to kill as many people and do as much
material damage as possible at two strategic targets, the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But, as I write, hours after the attacks, we don't
know who is at war with us. We may never know. Who has
reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million
people -- Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others
whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers.

Imagine hating a country so much that you were
willing to cross an ocean and carry out an elaborate
revenge against its people, killing yourself in the
process. This is something far more than the sort of
ideological anti-Americanism that leads student mobs to
throw stones at U.S. embassies abroad; that's kid stuff.
This is an obsessive, fanatical, soul-consuming hatred.

Foreigners aren't quite real to Americans, and most
Americans are unaware of how profoundly their government
antagonizes much of the human race. We are easy-going
people who generally have no idea how bullying we seem to
foreigners. Until now, we have had no experience of what
the U.S. Government has so often inflicted on others.
Now, at least, we have an inkling of what it feels like.

Government spokesmen have responded with their usual
cant of "cowardly attacks" by "terrorists" who "hate
democracy and freedom." Rubbish. A fanatic who is ready
to die is the opposite of a coward, and nobody can "hate"
such abstractions as "democracy and freedom" with that
kind of intensity.

It's dangerous to belittle your enemy, especially
when his courage and cunning have already proved as
formidable as his hatred and cruelty. The first question
you should ask about your enemy is why he is your enemy
in the first place.

You may be deluding and flattering yourself if you
assume he hates you for your virtues. But our "leaders"
assure us that our enemies are unnaturally evil people
who hate us only because we are so wonderful. And they
manage to utter this nonsense with an air of tough-minded
realism.

True realism, on the other hand, doesn't mean
blaming Americans for bringing these horrifying and truly
evil acts on themselves. It does mean trying to imagine
alien perspectives from which our government's conduct
might appear so intolerable that some people might be
driven to take atrocious revenge.

"To understand all is to forgive all," says the
French aphorism. Not true. But understanding all can at
least teach you how to avoid making enemies, and avoiding
making enemies is the best defense -- better than a $300
billion "defense" budget that didn't defend the World
Trade Center.

The great director Jean Renoir was once asked why
there were no villains in his films. He answered simply:
"Everyone has his reasons." Your bitterest enemy may have
his reasons for hating your guts. You may not think they
are good or sufficient reasons, but you'd better take
them into account. If he has any brains, he may find a
way to hurt you.

The United States is now a global empire that wants
to think of itself as a universal benefactor, and is
nonplussed when foreigners don't see it that way. None of
the earlier empires of this world, as far as I know,
shared this delusion; the Romans, the Mongols, the
British, the Russians and Soviets didn't expect to rule
and to be loved at the same time. Why do we? [end]



Subscribe to the Sobran column. See
http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml or
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[shereads]

The anti-americanism in this thread has sickened me, from the assertion that we deserved 9/11 to celebrating with the underdogs after it occured.

Good God, Colly. Is that what you thought I meant when I said I went to a middle eastern restaurant to show my support? As it happened, a mosque had been vandalized in my city on the day after 9/ll and there was a lot of hate speech directed at Arab Americans. Showing my support for a family-owned local restaurant seemed like the one positive thing I could do that night.

You equate that with "celebrating?"

 

[Dirt Man]

I really get a kick out of other nations calling the United States an empire. Especially countries like Great Britan, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Egypt, Greece, and Iraq, (Formerly known as Pershia). And to say that we have been an emire for the last century is probably the biggest compliment ever. We who could have rightfully claimed the very moon, Earth's only natural satilite, and colonized it, didn't. Nor did we claim any country, or parts of countries that we shed blood on. Nor do we claim emminent domain of outer space as is plain to see by the very fact that the only space station orbiting this planet now is called the Internationl Space Station. (That's what ISS stands for.) Yet our Tax money is what mostly supports it being up there.

Okay, so we have more money, and we have more technological advances used daily here in American than anywhere else. Does that make us an empire, or have we just created a very viable, or even somewhat great environment that makes all of this possible? Oh sure we have our homeless, and unemployed, and that's nothing to make light of, but show me one country on earth that doesn't have them? But then you'd also have to show me another country that has as high an import of immigrants as we do, even though we no longer invite your tired, your poor, your longing to be free from tiranny, or oppression here, and that's basically for lack of room left here now.

It's funny what the words FREEDOM, and LIBERTY inspires people to do. And the lengths they'll go to keep them. I'll grant you that. So if it seems that we are empiracal in nature because we go to what others consider outrageous lengths to uphold FREEDOM, and LIBERTY over here in the United States, and abroad. Then we formally appologize for not being sensitive enough to consider your feelings in these matters. We are a young nation after all, not quite as old as Mexico, and just slightly older than Canada. We haven't learned that minding our own business, and forgetting the rest of you exist on this planet just to serve our greedy natures was, or is a viable alternative to co-existance yet. We're still partying after overthrowing the last King that tried to rule us with his tyranny, or the last fool president that tried to be king here. I mean we've only been around for a couple of centuries here, we haven't learned all of the rules yet I guess. Or that the rules always change once we get involved.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[Icingsugar]

They are the issue. When people like the earl go looking for reasons that paint us in a bad light for what we did in World War II. They are the issue, when people like Svenska glibly say they didn't need us. They are the issue, when people like yourself are happy to go digging for reasons what we did wasn't with good intent. They are the issue because they fought the war, not some politician, not some dark gang of conspiriors, they did. And they fought it for the purest of reasons, because evil had to be combated.

The anti-americanism in this thread has sickened me, from the assertion that we deserved 9/11 to celebrating with the underdogs after it occured. From trying to villify us for entering world war II to looking for a dark, sinister, or self serving reason for sending toops to europe in that conflict.

-Colly

I'm sorry, Colly. I've read this thread now, from first post to last, and I just can't find the hate you see spewing out from all angels at your country, and as it seems, at you personally. What I mainly see is concern over current US administration's foreign politics., and on a bigger scale, US' role in the world at large. Things that affect us all, and thus are matters that should and will be debated.

You'll have to take things for what they are, different personalities with different ways of expressing this concern. Some comes off as hard-hitting, even slanderous. In the heat of the moment both too harsh words and too unchecked data has been thrown across the room (or thread). But still, I can't find a single post that expresses the brutal hate you read into it.

I have lived in your country. I love it as I love my own. That is yet another reason why I express my concern.

Then of course, I don't have any family who have fought in wars, I have never experienced war myself. Noone I know have gone off fighting in the desert of a far off coutry. I have never witnessed terrorism up close. I am just a citizen of the world who is concerned about the state that it is in, and who, since that subject was brought up here, expressed my view of what the US' sole in the world of today is. Maybe that doesn't give me mandate enough to speak.

If you see objections against politics as anti-americanism, and hate towards the fighting men and women, then I'm afraid we are so incredibly distanced from each other rethorically that we just can't talk about this.

pax,
/Ice


ps. Sweden "didn't need you!" beacuse we actually would had prevailed WWII and any outcome of it by being the coward, Nazi-grovelling, backstabbing bastards that we were. It is our shame that we didn't put ourselves in a position where we would had needed your help. I thought that was made pretty clear.

edited for a plethora of funky typos...

 

[Dirt Man]

ps. Sweden "didn't need you!" beacuse we actually would had prevailed WWII and any outcome of it by being the coward, Nazi-grovelling, backstabbing bastards that we were. It is our shame that we didn't put ourselves in a position where we would had needed your help. I thought that was made pretty clear.

No biggie Icing, Spain was nutral during WWII also. They'd had enough of war just before that, thanks to Germany's lend lease of their new Stuka bombers.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt man

 

[SummerMorning]

I really get a kick out of other nations calling the United States an empire. Especially countries like Great Britan, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Egypt, Greece, and Iraq, (Formerly known as Pershia).

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

Erm... Iraq wasn't Persia. That's Iran. Iraq is actually an artificial state formed by the Brits after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.



As to America being an empire...well, it's certainly not a classical empire - but then we're not in the classical period anymore, are we? It is an empire in the sense that it dominates and to a great extent controls much of the world - not necessarily by military power, but that is not the only power that a state can wield. There is economic power, financial power, technological power, ideological power.

Also, our world is complex. Relational power (i.e. the power to make Iraq change its dictator) is not the only power, there is also structural power. America often dictates what is important, what procedures are followed, what answers are acceptable.

I'm not saying any other state would not use its power in much the same way if it were in a similar position - it would. And it's ridiculous when you hear someone from a small country say - "Oh, those Americans are idiots. They don't know how to behave responsibly...etc. We would never do that" - they never could do that, which is why the moral high horse is so appealing.

In this respect - fine, so America is today's greatest Empire, sole superpower - however, it should also realise that with supreme power also comes supreme responsibility.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Good God, Colly. Is that what you thought I meant when I said I went to a middle eastern restaurant to show my support? As it happened, a mosque had been vandalized in my city on the day after 9/ll and there was a lot of hate speech directed at Arab Americans. Showing my support for a family-owned local restaurant seemed like the one positive thing I could do that night.

You equate that with "celebrating?"

Read what you typed Sher:

Doubt it. There's a middle eastern restaurant near here that's usually half-empty and was packed with people the night after 9/ll. Some Americans, maybe remembering that our own ancesters came here as rejects and outcasts, have a knee-jerk reaction the other way: in support of the underdog.

Television showed people across the middle east celebrating. Arabs handing out candy to children in the Gaza and Westbank is one I shall never forget and is probably why I have no sympathy at all for their cause. The underdogs had just struck a blow at the American super power.

If you had calrified that statement with mentioning the desecration of a Mosque or of hate speech against middle easterners at the time it is one thing. Without that that clarification, I took the statement at face value.

The events of 9/11 occured during the day. The night after 9/11 could reasonably be interpreted to mean the night of the 11th. In you clarification you obviously meant the night of the 12th, which is also a valid interpretation of the night after 9/11. It also allows a day for hate crimes to have occured when in the way I read it people were still in shock and afraid.

So yes, I badly misinterpreted what you typed. I am used to you being a passioante and generally eloquent voice of the far left. So while the message I got shocked me, and saddened me, it was not through seeing you as less patriotic than myself, it was simply through reading what you wrote and being so upset I did not question your word choice or intent. Under less stressful circumstances I probably would have, but after Flicka saying we basically got what we deserved I was understandably upset I think and not reading things with the critical eye I usually do.

-Colly

Edited to add: In retrospect your comment was also directed at my statement that if forced to remember those days many would agre with Ann.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

Read what you typed Sher:

Doubt it. There's a middle eastern restaurant near here that's usually half-empty and was packed with people the night after 9/ll. Some Americans, maybe remembering that our own ancesters came here as rejects and outcasts, have a knee-jerk reaction the other way: in support of the underdog.

Television showed people across the middle east celebrating. Arabs handing out candy to children in the Gaza and Westbank is one I shall never forget and is probably why I have no sympathy at all for their cause. The underdogs had just struck a blow at the American super power.

If you had calrified that statement with mentioning the desecration of a Mosque or of hate speech against middle easterners at the time it is one thing. Without that that clarification, I took the statement at face value.

The events of 9/11 occured during the day. The night after 9/11 could reasonably be interpreted to mean the night of the 11th. In you clarification you obviously meant the night of the 12th, which is also a valid interpretation of the night after 9/11. It also allows a day for hate crimes to have occured when in the way I read it people were still in shock and afraid.

So yes, I badly misinterpreted what you typed. I am used to you being a passioante and generally eloquent voice of the far left. So while the message I got shocked me, and saddened me, it was not through seeing you as less patriotic than myself, it was simply through reading what you wrote and being so upset I did not question your word choice or intent. Under less stressful circumstances I probably would have, but after Flicka saying we basically got what we deserved I was understandably upset I think and not reading things with the critical eye I usually do.

-Colly

Edited to add: In retrospect your comment was also directed at my statement that if forced to remember those days many would agre with Ann.

-Cool

I've been trying to hold my tongue on this, but I'm just not that strong. In September of '01 I did not feel the way that Ann Coulter and much of the country did. Please don't misunderstand me, Colly. I also still find the subject of 9/11 difficult to discuss because of the terrible emotions it still brings to the surface. But among the terror and sorrow for the horror of that day I also remember an immediate fear for all Americans with Muslim names or who appeared the least bit Middle Eastern. Four days later not far from where I live, Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered for standing outside his business wearing a turban. Leaving aside the fact that the poor man was not even muslim, he was a sikh, he was an innocent man gunned down in the backlash of 9/11. I still cry when I think of the horror of September 11th, but I also cry when I think of September 15th.

- Mindy, stopping now before I end up going to work with red eyes

 

[Colleen Thomas]

If someone has asked me the day of or even the day after the events of Sept. 11 if I were in favor of deporting all Arabs from this country then I would have said yes. If I had been asked if I supported deporting all non resident Muslims, then I would have said yes.

If you had asked me a week later, I would have replied no to both questions. This country has grown to what it is by accepting immigrants of all cultures and religions and while we are apparently hated by the world, it's a good place to live for most and I dare say there is nowhere else I would rather live.

My only point, in my very early post here, was that the article this thread is based on was written Sept 12. On Sept. 12 a lot of people said things they are glad are now long forgotten. Most of us didn't have a public forum where we could indelibly vent our pain and anguish. I imagine there are a lot of us who are happy now that we didn't.

I don't care if you hate Ann Coulter. I don't care if hate the U.S. I simply said and maintain, she should be given a pass on this article. I dare say many of us said, thought and even wrote things from the heart on that day that our heads later told us were wrong and inspired by fear and pain.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

If someone has asked me the day of or even the day after the events of Sept. 11 if I were in favor of deporting all Arabs from this country then I would have said yes. If I had been asked if I supported deporting all non resident Muslims, then I would have said yes.

If you had asked me a week later, I would have replied no to both questions. This country has grown to what it is by accepting immigrants of all cultures and religions and while we are apparently hated by the world, it's a good place to live for most and I dare say there is nowhere else I would rather live.

My only point, in my very early post here, was that the article this thread is based on was written Sept 12. On Sept. 12 a lot of people said things they are glad are now long forgotten. Most of us didn't have a public forum where we could indelibly vent our pain and anguish. I imagine there are a lot of us who are happy now that we didn't.

I don't care if you hate Ann Coulter. I don't care if hate the U.S. I simply said and maintain, she should be given a pass on this article. I dare say many of us said, thought and even wrote things from the heart on that day that our heads later told us were wrong and inspired by fear and pain.

-Colly

Very well said and I do agree that the e articles quoted are moot as no one was in a rational mindset at that time.

- Mindy, defintely late for work now

 

[shereads]

Colly, for you to conclude that any American may have "celebrated" 9/11, by associating with Arab Americans or any other way, is beyond my comprehension. I am less patriotic than you. I don't love my country less than you do, but I am substantially less patriotic in that I feel it's my duty as a citizen in a democracy to question our actions and to try to understand how we are perceived in the world at large. We share the planet with people who aren't Americans. Their impression of us is not filtered through their love of our country, and it doesn't mean they hate us. [/QUOTE]