Doug, Doug, Gray Doug
Ever wanted to watch the exposure cycle of a modern DSLR camera in super slow motion? Well now you can. Granted, it’s no pre-Assyrian jumping goat bowl1, but it’s cool nonetheless.
1“Pre-Assyrian Jumping Goat Bowl” would make an excellent name for a band.
Critics of Israel’s tactics in South Lebanon have been railing against their “inability” to destroy Hizb’allah’s military might. While this might be true, al Bawaba points out that the military “destruction” of the Hizbies might not actually be the end goal of Israel. Instead, they are simultaneously striking at The Party of Allah’s social services infrastructure, virtually ensuring that they will be unable to participate in the eventual rebuilding of Lebanon to any meaningful extent. Israel is seeking to cut the Shiia support base that Hizb’allah has bought with medicine, television, food and other social services right out from under the Islamist nutjobs.
By Jove, that’s a great tactic! It’ll be interesting to see whether it works or whether Iran is willing to pony up the billions of dollars that would be required to return Hizb’allah’s previous social capabilities to working order.
May you live in interesting times.
–Supposed ancient Chinese curse
“Watching” the events in Lebanon unfold on the newswires, I ran through an extremely odd combination of feelings at work today. I felt detached, almost entirely removed from the world as I watched Israel escalate their offensive against Hizb’allah in the south of Lebanon; I felt anger at the psychopaths responsible for the kidnappings of Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldvasser and Eldad Regev; I felt hope that Israel might finally strike mortal blows against not only the Islamists in south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, but also against their exiled leaders operating openly in the streets of Damascus; I dearly wished that Bashaar Assad be next on the list for his part in this affair.
Most of all, though, I felt anger, not with the parties currently involved in the conflict, but with the U.S. government. I felt anger most specifically towards the Office of the President and those who have held it over the past 30 years – most especially the detestable Jimmy Carter, but also Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton and W. Bush. Each and every one of them failed to take action[s] that could have prevented the current conflict. I fumed at Carter’s ineptitude, his waffling, his undermining of the Shah, his latent and unhidden anti-Semitism and his handling of the Embassy hostage crisis. I raged against Reagan’s refusal to take definitive action against Hizb’allah for the slaughter of 241 brave U.S. Marines in Beirut in ’83. I nearly retched over H.W.’s disgusting near-obeisance to the House of Saud, his craven refusal to push to Baghdad and his abandonment of the Kurds and Shia that his administration encouraged to rise up against Hussein. Clinton’s cut-n-run from Somalia, his pressuring of Israel for concessions to the detestable Arafat-lead P.L.O. and his flubbing of the USS Cole attack elicited more than anger. W.’s continuation of his father’s Saudi butt-kissing and his willingness to listen to the careerists-gone-native in the State Department cautioning against “destabilizing action” infuriated me.
Each and every Israeli soldier that dies in this current conflict can be traced back to the US kicking the can of Middle Eastern terrorism down the road. The blame for the attacks themselves are obviously the fault of the perpetrators – Iran, Syria and their Hizb’allah attack dogs in this case – but we have allowed for this sort of thing to creep in for fear of being labeled, well, I don’t know what. I can tell you what all of our avoidance and dissembling has labeled us in the eyes of the Arab Islamic world: the weak horse.
I hope that the U.S. government bites its collective tongue this time around and lets Israel finally do some much-needed terrorist house cleaning. Heck, it appears as if even the other Arab governments think Hizb’allah has gone too far this time, so the gloves might actually come off this time. Maybe the IDF will finally have the guts and the wherewithal to finish at least some of the jobs that we should have finished long ago.
Iowahawk has once again cut right to the heart of the matter with his exclusive translation of Iran’s flaming nutjob puppet dictator president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to President Bush (as well as a bowling night eVite for those world leaders In The Know) and boy, is it a doozy!
Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America:
For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international steel cage octagon of idea-thinkings? Here in which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered, and there are many important midterms coming up! These thinkings and contradictions and debations have given me many important headaches. I am telling you this the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them, and in hopes that you have some Tylenol II.
Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,
Feel obliged to go to the pancake breakfast at the Jesus (PBUH) mosque,
And also Bingo Nites,
Announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,
Make “War and Terror†into catchy advertising jingle,
And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which will be governed by Christ and the virtuous Hidden 11th Imam, but only after they recombine as MegaMessenger to do final battle with the diabolical MechaJew.
But at the same time, make crusader attackings on countries; taking their lives and going into villages and homes and mosques to steal cherished family collections of IEDs?
Do not answer! This is a rhetorical question, and I am not finished.
Go ye and read the whole thing, for it is informative and funny.
Remember the Mystery Stealth Boat of Doom Iran “tested” a couple of weeks ago, as well as the Magical Radar-Evading ICBMs of Ill Portent and the Super-Cavitating Super Rocket Torpedo of Super Islamic Doom? Well, it turns out that all three “new” technologies are most likely Russian-made, of dubious provenance, and, at least in the case of the torpedo, not a very big threat to US Navy forces.
Sounds like the Iranians may have been had, but hey, at least it wasn’t an old bomb casing filled with pinball parts, right?
I was listening to Bill Kristol on Fresh Air last night, and during the course of Terry Gross’ interview of Kristol, he said something to the effect of “We want to get Iraq to a place where it’s not a threat to its neighbors”. Now, I know what he was trying to say, but I have to disagree. We manifestly do want Iraq to be a “danger” to its neighbors. That’s the whole point of this “neo-con crusade” in the first place, isn’t it?
We want Iran to fear Iraq, as we want Syria, the House of Saud and, to a lesser extend, Jordan and Turkey to fear Iraq. A democratic Iraq. An Iraq with freedom of the press, with freedom of speech, with minority protections. The levels of support that the first three nations are throwing behind the “insurgency” show just how much fear those regimes already have of a free Iraq, while Jordan and Turkey are terrified of what an empowered, independent Kurdish Iraqi population will mean inside their borders.
That was the overarching goal of this whole invasion, right?
