New evil preventing victory in Iraq

Some more wise words below from Dennis Prager

I never thought we could see a new form of evil. After the gas chambers of the Holocaust, the tens of millions murdered in the Gulag, the forced starvation in the Ukraine, the hideous medical experiments on people by the Germans and the Japanese in World War II, the torture chambers in all police states, I had actually believed that no new forms of evil existed. I was wrong.

Of course, for sheer cruelty, one cannot outdo the Nazis; no depiction of hell ever matched the reality of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But while Islamists and Baathists in Iraq have not devised new forms of torture - there probably are no new ways left - they have devised a new form of evil: murdering, maiming and torturing as many innocents among their own people as possible.

I do not know of an analogous form of evil. When the Allies conquered Nazi Germany, disaffected Nazis did not go around murdering and cutting off the heads of fellow Germans in order to make the Allies leave. Nor did disaffected Japanese blow up Japanese students so as to make the American occupation of Japan untenable.

Here is the latest example of this new form of evil as reported by the Associated Press: "Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations on the Joint Staff, said . . . the vehicle used in the attack [on Iraqi civilians] was waved through a U.S. military checkpoint because two children were visible in the back seat. He said this was the first reported use of children in a car bombing in Baghdad. 'Children in the back seat lowered suspicion, (so) we let it move through, they parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back,' Barbero told reporters in Washington."

These same "insurgents" routinely blow up children who line up to receive candy from U.S. troops. Likewise, college students are targeted for death, as are men lining up to apply for civilian jobs, men and women attending mosques, physicians in hospitals, and so on. The more innocent the Iraqi, the more likely he or she is to be targeted for murder.

I submit that there was no way to anticipate this. And no one did. This includes all those who predicted a civil war in Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis. I include myself among those who predicted savagery in Iraq. On a number of occasions prior to our invasion of Iraq, I recounted to my radio listeners this chilling story:

As a young man, in 1974, I was riding on a bus traveling from Beirut to Damascus. The man I sat next to was an English-speaking Iraqi whom I asked at one point in our conversation, "Can you describe your nation in a sentence?" "No problem," he immediately answered. "We Iraqis are the most barbaric people in the world." I obviously never forgot that man's words, and therefore anticipated great cruelties in Iraq. But neither I nor anyone who predicted a civil war had so much as a premonition of this unprecedented mass murder of the men, women and children among one's own people as a military tactic to defeat an external enemy.

It is, therefore, unfair to blame the Bush administration for not anticipating such a determined "insurgency." Without the mass murder of fellow Iraqis, there would hardly be any "insurgency." The combination of suicide terrorists and a theology of death has created an unprecedented form of "resistance" to an occupier: "We will murder as many men, women and children as we can until you leave." Nor is this a matter of Sunnis murdering Shiites and vice versa: college students, women shopping at a Baghdad market and hospital workers all belong to both groups. Truck bombs cannot distinguish among tribes or religious affiliations. If America had to fight an insurgency directed solely against us and coalition forces - even including suicide bombers - we would surely have succeeded. No one, right, left or center, could imagine a group of people so evil, so devoid of the most elementary and universal concepts of morality, that they would target their own people, especially the most vulnerable, for murder.

That is why we have not yet prevailed in Iraq. Even without all the mistakes made by the Bush administration - and what political or military leadership has not made many errors in prosecuting a war? - it could not have foreseen this new form of evil we are witnessing in Iraq. That is why we have not won. There are respectable arguments to be made against America's initially going into Iraq. But intellectually honest opponents of the war have to acknowledge that no one could anticipate an "insurgency" that included people leaving children in a car and then blowing them up.

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Fallout fear puts deadline on nuclear sites attack

IRAN is several years away from nuclear capability but any plan for a pre-emptive attack on its nuclear sites may have to be implemented before the end of the year to avoid the danger of serious radiation fallout. Sources cited by The Jerusalem Post say a US or Israeli strike on the Iranian facilities would probably be carried out before Iran had enriched weapons-grade material in sufficient amounts to trigger a nuclear catastrophe if hit. Iran is believed to be attempting to produce a critical mass of enriched uranium before the end of the year. Any attack after that would risk triggering fallout that could kill civilians over large distances and make parts of Iran uninhabitable.

The same consideration figured in the timing of Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. The Israeli cabinet decided then to approve the attack when it learned that a shipment of enriched uranium fuel rods was due to arrive at the new reactor south of Baghdad. An attack on the reactor once it became "live" would release massive radiation, experts had warned. It would turn the bombing into a nuclear attack, despite the use of conventional armaments. Israeli warplanes demolished the Iraqi reactor before the rods could be installed.

In view of the possibility of an early strike against the Iranian facilities, several foreign embassies in Tehran are reportedly updating their emergency evacuation plans, including choosing alternate land routes out of the country. Israeli officials welcomed Sunday's decision by the UN Security Council to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in an effort to persuade Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The officials said earlier sanctions by the Security Council, though relatively mild, were already having an effect. They said influential voices were being heard in Tehran calling on the Government to avoid escalating the confrontation with the international community....

More here

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Brookes News Update

The US economy: the coming recession and what to look for: Every credit boom ends with a bust. Although it is impossible to predict the precise timing of an impending recession, one can look out for certain danger signals. Let us begin with the fallacy that consumer spending drives economic growth
The Iraq surge: why it's working: Early signs are positive; early indicators say that we're winning. As General Petraeus cautiously concluded, 'We'll be able to evaluate the situation for sure by late summer'
Turning the tide against terrorism and the Democrat Party: In 1973 the Democrats callously cut off all aid to South Vietnam so that it could not defend itself against communist aggression. Today the Democrat Party is trying to do the very same thing to the Iraqi people. Once again the Democrats have revealed their total indifference of the suffering and pain of others. This party is without remorse, pity, integrity and
patriotism
President Bush versus the Democrats' phony attorneys scandal: At the heart of the latest dust-up in Washington is the news that the Bush administration, through Gonzales' Justice Department, fired eight federal prosecutors
US economy: will a housing bust cause a recession?: Terry McCrann of the Herald Sun unwittingly revealed the truly dismal state of economic 'debate' in Australia. According to him inflation is 'the absolute foundation of sustained growth in the economy and of living standards"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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