Back in December both Bill Roggio and I said Swat was lost, (Pakistan Lost.) The post is ironically titled – Swat itself is a beautiful mountain paradise, or could be without the Taliban infestation. Traveling to Swat now would be like going upriver to meet Colonel Kurtz. Here’s what I said back then:
The military operation in Swat against the Taliban has failed, and Swat is lost for all intents and purposes. Girl’s schools will close, and what was once a world class tourist destination will devolve into a primitive hell hole to which nobody in their right mind will go.
Others are beginning to notice as well and agree:
Bill Roggio’s Latest article on Swat
What the others aren’t telling you is that Radio Maulana, aka Mullah Earthquake, or Mullah Fazlullah has been around for years and years, and the original TNSM terror group gave flanking cover and distraction as cannon fodder for Al Qaeda’s escape from Tora Bora. If you’ve read this blog the past two years you know exactly who this fellow is. (Here’s a search on TNSM, with articles running back to 2006 – you can also see that back in Dec. 2007 victory was prematurely declared in Swat by Pakistan’s military.)
The voters in the US are cyclic and this is their season of sorrow. The left is now ensconced in political power the likes of which they haven’t really seen since the days of the Johnson presidency. They have a near supermajority in the legislative branch, and they hold the executive branch as well. In this season their usual excuses can not hold any longer.
Singing a song of sorrow and blaming the Republicans for every ill won’t work and will ring hollow if even attempted now. The left has to put up or shut up after years of proclaiming of what they could do if only the electorate would place them back in power. Well now they have and the Democrats have to demonstrate with real actions or it could become a two and out scenario.
That doesn’t create an environment for good decision making on their part and they will likely tackle symptoms vs the real problems because of the groups they are beholden to. The big dilemmas in this early part of the century aren’t what most folks think they are. Energy independence and clean energy make for fine bumper stickers but the real problem is clean energy abundance for the world. Making the US an island of energy wealth in a sea of energy poverty is the fail and it will isolate and destroy capitalism. The retrograde or luddite factions in the Democrat party will try to create an environment of energy paucity and high cost because ever since Schumacher wrote “Small is Beautiful” energy itself is the evil, not the solution.
They will likely continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan, but fail to address the roots of terror. These run deep, and are a legacy of the death of communism, the rise of radical Islam, and pockets of tribal nationalism around the world. These causes are not addressed easily but longer term the end to permanent refugee cities must be sought. If you seek out any terror group you will find a large burgeoning city of ethnic refugees at some countrie’s border.
Whether these be the banilieus of France, the hellhole of Gaza, the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, the Terai Nationalist camps in Nepal and India, the Tamil camps in Sri Lanka, the Islamist camps in Thailand, or the Karen Camps in Thailand, other countries will exploit them and give rise to terror groups to destabilize their neighbors. When these camps are allowed to grow unabated and become ethnic nationlist refuges then you will get terror in large doses.
The ideologies as well must be attacked but the refugee camps are the start point, and new permanent refugee camps should not be created.
Now that the Democrats are back in power will the word Freedom be rehabilitated? Will they oppose the major tyrannies around the world? I don’t expect much from them on this front, but “the Sybil,” Joe Biden’s crisis is coming and the electorate is watching.
On the economic front the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but will the Dems realize this in time, or will they play up the current economic crisis for all its specious worth just to milk more “social justice” out of the wallets of taxpayers? That’s a hard call to make at the moment but all indicators are for a continued period of talking down the economy.
The challenges ahead are great, and long term solutions are needed – what can we expect from the small-spirited and attention deficit Democrats over the next year?
I took this ages ago with a weak-ass four or five mpx camera, but I still like it for the memories. I need to take a trip back with the Cannon and Sony cams. Click on the thumb for the larger version, there are tons of better pictures out there – for one thing I had the camera on close up shooting by mistake, but this one’s mine so I like it best.
* note that for some reason I remembered this as “Snohomish” falls, my wife corrected me however when she saw the mistake, she’s the better half of my brain.
Ayn Rand once wrote an essay that compared the crowd and the aftermath of the Apollo 11 Launch in 1969 to that of Woodstock. It was both acerbic and insightful, contrasting how the 1 million souls interested in science and the future at Cape Kennedy left the scene of the historic launch to how the 300,000 music and drug enthusiasts left Woodstock. I will leave it to you to determine what this post-innaugural video of the National Mall is more reminiscent of.
It makes you wonder how these people enthused by Green solutions will perform over the next few years.
IDF Video showing Hamas already moving back into schools to fire rockets at Israel
Meanwhile here’s an Al Arabiya reporter who thinks it’s humorous that Hamas just launched rockets at Israel from under their studio. She has no idea what counterbattery fire is, and is lucky that Israel doesn’t practice US procedures for counterbattery. The IDF knows these terrorists intentionally fire from locations they want the Israelis to shoot back at to create destruction to the people and infrastructure of Gaza for propaganda.
At PBS Bill Moyers has explained, but not really apologized for, his statement that “god soaked violence” is encoded in the Jews and/or the Arabs DNA. He explains by saying he was not being specific or precise enough in his words, and he meant it instead about all of humanity, even though he was talking specifically about the Jews, Hamas, and the conflict in Gaza.
When I wrote my previous post on this I didn’t state so, but I assumed this semi-retraction was coming and that he would either use this route or state that he meant it as a figure of speech, not literally.
Regardless, the retraction is weak tea and he uses it to further his view that responding or trying to stop terror just makes it worse. The “god-soaked violence” statement is contrary to everything classical liberalism stands for, but fits hand in glove with modern liberalism where nobody’s really responsible for their acts — after all it’s coded in our DNA right, or possibly he thinks that it’s god-soaked and thus fated?
I still believe Bill to be the worst sort of racist, those that profess not to be prejudiced while savaging by word and deed the people they are supposedly not prejudiced against; all the while maintaining a tone of high-brow snooty moral superiority. Stating that you are one of the good people does not make you one, even in Bill’s world of truth being a relative thing, an amorphous blob subject to the shaping of anyone’s POV.
So Bill, what part of our DNA is “god soaked violence” encoded in? Can you point to the spot where methylation could turn those genes off?
Below is the statement, the retraction starts at about 2:45 into the video.
“Hail,” said he, “Achilles, we have had no scant of good cheer, neither in the tent of Agamemnon, nor yet here; there has been plenty to eat and drink, but our thought turns upon no such matter. Sir, we are in the face of great disaster, and without your help know not whether we shall save our fleet or lose it. The Trojans and their allies have camped hard by our ships and by the wall; they have lit watchfires
throughout their host and deem that nothing can now prevent them from falling on our fleet. Jove, moreover, has sent his lightnings on their right; Hector, in all his glory, rages like a maniac; confident that
Jove is with him he fears neither god nor man, but is gone raving mad, and prays for the approach of day. He vows that he will hew the high sterns of our ships in pieces, set fire to their hulls, and make
havoc of the Achaeans while they are dazed and smothered in smoke; I much fear that heaven will make good his boasting, and it will prove our lot to perish at Troy far from our home in Argos. Up, then, and
late though it be, save the sons of the Achaeans who faint before the fury of the Trojans. You will repent bitterly hereafter if you do not, for when the harm is done there will be no curing it; consider ere it be too late, and save the Danaans from destruction.
Click on the thumnail for a larger version
Kasey as a PuppyIt’s hard to think back to when Kasey was a pup, so I’m glad I took some pics.
