What MTV used to be like in 1995 at 2AM, after a night of… well, partying (in my former, rebellious days of course). The film, entitled Westworld, is slightly disturbing war footage with Aphex Twin and Stakker music overlaid. As a piece of video/music art of sorts, without words, it captures the darkness of 20th century warfare during the Cold War in Asia:
Tag: War
(Original): http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZfIcWnHqBz4kQR90lC_pXaHeW4Q
(Archived): http://www.westerfunk.net/archives/terrorism/Two%20ex-Guantanamo%20inmates%20appear%20in%20Al-Qaeda%20video/
You see? This is what happens when you let terrorists go that were in your custody. The fundamental problem with the West is that we do not understand the Islamic, Middle Eastern worldview. And I think this is true for those on the left and the right. On the right, we presume we can impose a Western style government upon an already existing theocracy (such as in Iraq). On the left, we think that simply being nice and kind will win them over. But we are all projecting a postmodern, Western ideology and worldview upon their thinking and worldview when this is simply not how they live or make decisions. We think we can give them the benefit of the doubt, but then, just like this, they’ll turn around and try to kill us again. Unfortunately, these people only understand a bullet. They are ruthless and cannot be reasoned with. Give them an inch, and they’ll slash you with the extra room. They are, as the Psalms describes of men thirsty for blood, brute beasts. And sadly, as much as I hate it myself, that means war.
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3079
If you want to see a picture of the future of Europe, then read this and watch the video. It is disturbing to say the least and has some cursing and violence in it so proceed with caution … just warning you in advance.
I post this because the video is such a very clear portrayal, from Muslims themselves who shot it during some recent riots in London, of the threat we face in the short and long term, and the impotence of the West to deal with the threat brewing from within its own borders. It apparently does not take much for a Muslim to go from moderate to radical. This video makes that abundantly clear.
“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.” – Will Durant on the history of Rome
May we learn from history. Rome was great … and it fell
I think what a lot of people are upset about concerning our actions are not so much that we took the course we did, many agree with that, but they’re upset with how the war is being fought and managed. In my opinion we should not have slowed down at Operation Shock and Awe. We should have kept it strong, gone in, wiped out the enemy, got political talks going on re-establishing the nation with a new political system, and got out of there. I feel the administration planned excellently for the initial strike to oust Saddam, but then lacked vision on the capability of the enemy, namely, “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” I tend to lean toward the camp that says that the war has been managed in a politically correct manner, where the troops have to step through all these rules and regulations before pulling the trigger, instead of just getting in aggressively, getting the job done, and getting out in the most efficient manner possible. We have instances where some troops are being charged with murder in this war. I find that rather ridiculous. It’s war. If anyone knows anything about history, this has been one of the most successful operations with very few casualties (while not in any way minimizing the casualties that have occurred though). I do feel we are overstaying our visit in many ways, but as with any war from history, there are all kinds of unknown variables that come into play. War is an always-changing environment where you must restrategize every chance you get to always be one step ahead of the enemy. War is what it is though. It’s dirty, brutal, unfortunate, and necessary to maintain peace because of people like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Bin Laden, and many others who selfishly seek the demise of either their own citizens or other nations. You can try to manage a war in the most humane way possible by instigating a thousand rules on what’s legit or not, etc, but somebody else wants to kill you and take away your freedom. How do you respond to that? I’m not just going to sit back, put my head in the sand and hope it goes away, because it won’t. Islamo-fascists want all of us dead in fact. If they had their way, the entire world would be converted to Islam. “Convert or die,” so to speak. 9/11 is one of the first giant proofs they want us dead, though there were many even before that. If they get a nuclear weapon, they will use it. From the radical Islamists worldview, they honestly believe they are advancing the cause of Islam by murdering thousands upon thousands of people. If they are crazy enough to kill themselves by flying planes into buildings, who says they wouldn’t go all the way and wipe out entire cities? Who would have thought they would do something as bad as 9/11? Where does it stop though? That’s the point of the rhetorical question. They won’t stop. They’ll just keep coming. That’s the bottom-line. What are we going to do? Let them do it? Iraq is a pivotal nation in the Middle East, and if it can be established as a solid nation economically, politically, and socially, there’s a chance that the entire Islamic region will stabilize and thwart many of Al Qaeda’s plans to impute radical Islam on the entire area, by force as it were. It’s real easy for us Americans to sit back and criticize everything that our leaders are doing wrong when we have no first-hand experience of what it takes to get the job done, nor do we have all the military intelligence and data our government does to make the decisions they have. I do have to say that after 9/11, we haven’t had another attack on our soil. That says a lot about what’s being done for us with this administration, though not everything has been perfect. War takes time. Americans have become so unbelievably impatient with the progress. Our country sure has produced some real whiners. And I’m getting sick of hearing it. 🙂
‘An Islamist threat like the Nazis’
If you know anything about history, you know that we must learn from it or else face the same consequences in different circumstances. I found the article above particularly interesting and important because it has to do with our future generations, if not our own.
The author links the rise of radical Islam in Europe to the rise of the Nazi’s in Europe in the 1930’s. Although many would suppose that the recent riots in France are simply due to racial oppression, there is something much deeper at work here. Though that may well be part of it, there is huge opportunity here for radicalism to envelop an entire generation of young Muslisms (if it hasn’t begun already), just as Nazism enveloped the German people.