That’s a more polite way of describe the location of his noggin than the one I’d use. Only a fool thinks that you can end a war unilaterally.
23 thoughts on “Obama’s Speech On Terror”
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That’s a more polite way of describe the location of his noggin than the one I’d use. Only a fool thinks that you can end a war unilaterally.
Comments are closed.
The whole Military/Civilian Law thing seems completely off into the weeds.
You can’t prosecute Rommel’s chef for War Crimes.
You can’t prosecute Rommel’s chef as a civilian (that’s actually a War Crime itself).
But you can hold him indefinitely as a Prisoner of War. Or as a Pirate (a non-state actor engaging in war).
So you aren’t trying to prove “Did you set this bomb?” and rack up a ‘years in jail’ count, you’re only trying to answer the question “Are you at war with the USA?” Which the Jihadis are mostly right up front about.
If he wants out, we’ll provide him as much paper as he likes to try to convince the jihadists to submit.
Al,
you said,
“But you can hold him indefinitely as a Prisoner of War. Or as a Pirate (a non-state actor engaging in war).”
Now I’m no ex-JAG type, but if I heard the Senior Chief right, when he was ‘splainin’ War Crimes WAAAAaaay back in Boot Camp, Rommel’s Chef could be held as an alien enemy, non-combatant if he was a civilian. UNLESS that chef was an Army cook, he or she can’t be held as a full on POW.
Look at the mess we have with the Islamofascists / terrorists, and all just because they wear ‘civilian’ clothing and not any type of standard issued or agreed upon uniform. That’s why the guys at GITMO are Enemy Combatants and NOT full and designated POWs.
As to Rommel’s chef being arrested and held as a ‘pirate’. The military has a VERY specific definition for the word ‘pirate’. Especially to the Coast Guard and Navy that word has a very narrow definition.
That’s how it as taught to young squids. And knowing how lawyers think, the definitions are more narrow now, not broader, if they’ve changed at all.
Even Misters Merriam and Webster, their competitors Misters Funk & Wagnalls agree that by definition, pirates are pirates for committing acts of piracy, which is defined by them as either theft, especially armed theft, on the high seas; or it it’s defined as the theft of copyrighted materials.
In the old days, anyone fighting a ‘war’, wearing civilian clothing, would be shot as a spy. Plain and simple, many of the Minute Men realized that after being captured by the British and or the Hessians.
[the DoD Dictionary available online says the following,
piracy — An illegal act of violence, depredation (e.g., plundering, robbing, or pillaging), or detention in or over international waters committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft against another ship or aircraft or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft. ]
It occurs to me that I may appear to be ‘calling you out’ on this. I am NOT trying to do that. Oddly, I recently had a conversation about the pirates my older son has been involved with over the length of his Naval career. The lady I was talking to thought piracy went out with wooden ships. And she couldn’t understand HOW you could convince a steel ship to stop for a wooden fishing oat or a rubber dingy.
In a word I told her it was about heavy firepower going against unarmed or under armed shipping.
So I had just re-thought, and re-remembered all I learned back in…well, way back there in boot, and I had also looked up the definitions on all this. Because everyone who attacks a merchant ship for gain is a pirate, and many of the worlds current pirates are Muslim, not all Muslim pirates are Jihadis.
Most are in it for the money. Or oil.
Meaning “Or (in the case of a Jihadi) as a Pirate) …” Rommel’s chef couldn’t be held that way, naturally.
Let’s be honest. Rommel’s chef could probably have been charged with food crimes, improvising innovative North African Nazi recipes like figs and sauerkraut, billy goat blood sausage, camel flavored cabbage rolls, couscous dumplings with spicy mustard, and potatoes mashed together with beets, bananas, and pickles.
While I’ll admit that this POTUS has head in his…in the sand, he’s NOT alone.
I watched BBC News this morning, and David Cameron was talking [in circles with little feeling] about the British Soldier who was beheaded this week. If he said ‘allegedly’ or ‘suspects’ once he said it 10 times each. he talked about evil, and murder and terror.
But EVEN THOUGH the ‘alleged’ perpetrators self identified as MUSLIMS , JIHADISTS and haters of all things un-Muslim, Cameron just couldn’t bring himself to say Islam, Muslim or terrorists while speaking of them or the radicals around the world, much less those in the UK.
I’m no professional historian by any means. But I do know, when the people of Europe minced around looking t their shows, shuffled past the obvious and refused to talk about Fascism, Hitler and the Nazis, millions of people died. Both in the amps, on battlefields and cowering in their homes.
The problem with Obama, G. W. Bush, Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and GHW Bush [oddly for that last one] is that they don’t see the current crop of religious fascists for what they are. They’ve followed a course of general apology and appeasement and tried to fight the War on Terror like it’s a fistfight on a grade school playground.
I think it’s going to lead to millions of deaths, again, just like it did with the Fascists and WWII.
I’d be content with the term “Jihadists”. And I really do wish the stupid party would use that at the very least.
We’re twenty years from the first WTC bombing, and almost 12 since 911. And yet (just as you note) everyone, everyone, is doing verbal backflips. Because when you do say the naughty word “Islam” the entire rest of the discussion revolves around how evil that slur was and how sorry you were.
Use the word Jihadists. Typical moron commenter “How dare you impugn Jihadists!” Easy response: “I have to assume the position ‘at war with’ anyone who declares war on me … Why, do you think we should appease people that have explicitly declared war on us?” Typical moron commenter “Why, um, yes?”
If one insists “But that isn’t what Jihadist means!” -> “Then you’ve translated it wrong. :D”
I understand that you think I’m a “moron commenter”, but what would you say to the people at the following website:
http://myjihad.org/
“MyJihad is a public education campaign that seeks to share the proper meaning of Jihad as believed and practiced by the majority of Muslims. Jihad means “struggling in the way of God”. The way of God, being goodness, justice, passion, compassion, etc. It is putting up the good fight against whatever odds or barriers you face in your life. It is a central tenet of the Islamic creed that has unfortunately been widely misrepresented due to a) first and foremost, the actions of Muslim extremists, [… and so on]
1) Actually, I usually don’t.
2) The term Jihadist is not Arabic/Farsi/Punjab etc. Meaning I’m ascribing the definition “Those who are actively waging militant Jihad” into the term. If you feel the term already has a definition, I’m deliberately overlaying a new definition. Which has been done plenty of times before. Latest examples: “Assault Weapon” and “Marriage”.
3) I’m fine calling them Crusaders as well. Because it happens to have exactly the same connotations and denotations. -And- actually has a translation. But I think “Crusader” would actually get even more panties into a twist.
4) The groups that wage Peaceful Jihad don’t actually tend to refer to themselves as “Jihad-ists“. But the people to whom I ascribe the label see it as a badge of honor.
Bob-1,
I used to work with a guy who was 3rd generation, full blooded Muslim, Lebonese-American. His given name was Jihad. And if anyone I ever met hated that word being bandied about, misused or misapplied it was J.
He, and his father, who also worked on that site, were U.S. Army veterans. J’s dad was a Ranger and LRRP vet from Viet Nam, J was ‘just’ a Green Beret who also did time in Nam. BTW, his dad always busted his chops and said ‘just’, I’d never say that. I like my comforts to well to EVER volunteer for those kinds of jobs. My hat is off to them, and all those guys.
Both Jand his father had a fit when the ‘jihadis’ attacked the WTC the first time. For the obvious of course, America being attacked. But also because the media talked about Muslims, Muslims, Muslims, jihad, jihad, jihad. As if all Muslims were untrustworthy and bent on a jihad. I’m sure they were not alone.
But they were THE first people I ever heard say the word Wahabists. They were also the ones who explained to me the differences in the Shi’a and the Sunni. They also explained the Wahabists.
I suggest the people at that website take the issue up with the militant factions in their religion who use the word as a call to arms against anyone who is not of their faith.
You are blamming the wrong group of people for the way in which the word is used.
According to a friend on mine who served multiple tours in the sandbox, they call themselves jihadists. If we start calling them jihadists, we’d be validating their claim and giving them credibility in the Muslim world.
Der Schtumpy – At this point, I don’t care. Sure, not all Muslims are jihadis – I might even concede that not all of them would be jihadis given the opportunity.
The problem is that it is impossible to tell one from the other. And since taqqiya is also a fundamental creed of Islam and waiting until you have the upper hand is also…
I will concede that Islam has a place in British society after a few things happen. 1) someone of status in British Islam says, publicly, that he does not agree with Sharia applied to British Muslims – or Muslims living in Britain, not the same thing at all. 2) It becomes common for Muslims to denounce other Muslims, living among them and known by them to be violent extremists, or practicing FGM, or being members of ephebophile rape-and-murder grooming gangs, to the authorities. 3) Local congregations start expelling rabble-rousing lunatic preachers from their mosques.
Put more simply: Muslims in Britain: SHAPE UP OR SHIP OUT!
I think you’ll have to start with remaking the British government. After all, when Lee Rigby was hacked to death in the middle of the street in broad daylight, the Metros swung right into action… against people who said bad things about Muslims on Twitter. That sense of priorities says a lot about how far you’ll have to go.
I think the problem is, deep down, the British government realise the country is screwed and are trying to put off the inevitable conflict for as long as possible. They don’t want London to look like Stockholm on their watch and hope to have a well-paid job in Brussels before it happens.
As an ex-Briton I have no idea what’s going to happen there over the next couple of decades, but I doubt it will be pretty. Even some of my Muslim friends were complaining about the new generation of Muslim immigrants, who were largely the kind of people they had moved to Britain to get away from.
Fletcher,
I expect removing the rabble rousers in mosques right now, in the UK, US or anywhere else around the world, would be like removing rabble rousing racists from positions of control or authority in southern states during the Civil Rights Era.
Not everyone agreed with the vocal racists. But not many people were willing to chance beatings, shootings and home burnings to stand up to them either. I expect, given that’s what my son heard in Iraq, and what I’ve heard face pixelled, voice altered Muslims say in TV interviews, that many people disagree with the Muslim radicals, but fear speaking out.
Most people are content to be quiet and alive even when they know something is wrong, as opposed to being vocal and beaten, shot or dead. And the Islamofascists are NOT the first people to use these totalitarian tactics.
It’s a system of control that is as old as human interaction I expect.
Before 9/11/2001 we didn’t know we were in a war…
So therefore we got (not necessarily in chronological order):
US embassies in Africa blown up….
Khobar towers……
USS Cole………
1st WTC bomb attack……
After each and every one the general consensus was that these were one off events. We did not see the pattern.
We did not know we were in a war….
And so the war continued….without us participating in it. And we continued to suffer attacks.
Evidently this administration is unable to learn from history.
One more thing. “You can’t end a war unilaterally.” Oh yes, you fracking well can. The US President could have ended the 1400-year war in an hour, on 9/12. Heck, at a push the British government could have done it. (Our lines of command are a little less clear-cut.)
FC,
I’ve always said we passed a HUGE opportunity to stop much of the world’s Muslim terrorists when we didn’t march into Tehran from Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other. I’ve even had people tell me I didn’t ‘care’ about the number of U.S. / Coalition troops who would be [as one woman put it…] ‘senselessly slaughtered by the crack Iranian Military’. […yea, rightio..] I’d let them all vent their opinions and then told them I not only cared I had a vested interest in as many living as I possible as I had two sons over there fighting.
I just think we missed a golden opportunity to take out THE major money and support supplier to worldwide Muslim Radicals.
There’s a reason we didn’t allow Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan any Conditional Surrenders. The Allies wanted to break the back of Fascism. But this time we can’t even get a Conditional Surrender, because we didn’t attack the Ring Leader. I don’t know why I’m still puzzled or shocked over this. It’s the same way we’ve been fighting the war on drugs for 40 + years.
We beat the snot out of the street corner thugs and smugglers, but then leave the top level dealers alone, because it’s ‘too hard’ to get to them.
Obama did the whole blame Bush for why Afghanistan is not going well bit. But if Iraq was truly a distraction and prevented us from using our full force, then Obama had the perfect opportunity to shift all of those resources back to the good war, but he didn’t.
Obama gave several examples of domestic terror attacks. The guy who shot up the Sikh temple who must be right wing because he acted out of racism. Then the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building, commonly claimed by progressives to be right wing because he targeted the IRS despite him waxing socialist in his suicide note. Obama doesn’t know the story behind that one but is perfectly happy to attack his “enemies” with it during this speech.
Obama failed to mention all the OWS groups busted for bomb plots, the Democrats plan to bomb the RNC back in 2004, or even the Chic fil a shooter from several months ago. The Democrats celebrate the use of violence in politics perhaps Obama should stfu with his unfounded accusations but I guess it is part of his grand strategy to demonize and target for persecution his “enemies” because no one cares if the IRS, FBI, ATF, and OSHA go after people who fly planes into IRS buildings even if they assign blame to the wrong political philosophy.
December 7, 1941 – Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; also attack the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway.
December 8, 1941 – Japanese land near Singapore and enter Thailand.
December 10, 1941 – Japanese invade the Philippines and also seize Guam.
December 11, 1941 – Japanese invade Burma.
December 15, 1941 – First Japanese merchant ship sunk by a U.S. submarine.
December 16, 1941 – Japanese invade British Borneo.
December 18, 1941 – Japanese invade Hong Kong.
December 22, 1941 – Japanese invade Luzon in the Philippines.
December 23, 1941 – General Douglas MacArthur begins a withdrawal from Manila to Bataan; Japanese take Wake Island.
December 25, 1941 – British surrender at Hong Kong.
December 26, 1941 – Manila declared an open city.
December 27, 1941 – Japanese bomb Manila.
If only there had been some sort of pattern….
Roosevelt didn’t directly link any of those action (except maybe one) with the Japanese government in his Pearl Harbor speech.
(Yeah, Jijm taught me how to parse things the liberal way).
George Turner,
I just went and dug up a transcript of FDR’s Dec 8th, 1941 speech. Thr 4th paragraph follows.
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It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
.
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That sounds like he was rather pointedly putting the blame and responsibility on the Japanese Government. The speech continues, with a list of places attacked.
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The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves.
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I’m just not sure how you figure FDR wasn’t pointing his finger at the Japanese Gov’t, what am I missing that would undercut these words? Unless there’s some kind of Democrat nuance I’m not getting here, he was absolutely saying the Japanese Gov’t was responsible.
He only singled out the Japanese government for the attack on Malaya. All the others were just due to Japanese forces.
Remember, I’m using a Jim style parsing, like the one he used regarding Obama’s statements on Benghazi relating to terrorism, in which you use an alternate reading to argue that nobody heard what they thought they heard because… [insert long incredulous argument].
In that light, we would have to claim that FDR was just blaming Japanese forces, like the whole thing was a big oopsie, instead of clearly saying they committed a deliberate and preplanned act of war against the United States.