Someone in the military after 9/11 proposed letting Osama bin Laden know that if he tried to attack the US again, the US would bomb Mecca. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed but that shows you the idiotic thinking that was going on at the time and how little they knew about Islam.
(Source: Counterstrike by Eric Schmitt)
18th December 2011
Today is the beginning of the 10th year of the war in Afghanistan.
1801 US Casualties
2753 Total Coalition Casualties
50,000+ Afghan Civilian Casualties
$461 Billion
Reblogged From paxamericana
Notes: 513
One of the only two documents from Able Danger to survive. Able Danger was a program that has been alleged to have identified Mohammad Atta before 9/11, although Senate investigations say that never happened. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experiment in data mining. For more information on it, see the Wiki page.
(Image from intelwire.com which is an awesome source daily news about terrorism and counter-terrorism)
Honestly, why do people enjoy his essays? He throws around literary and historical references to give himself the appearance of erudition, but they’re often forced into pieces and awkward, like a kid desperately trying to show off some fact he heard but does not really understand. I’ve never found any of his opinions to actually be that deep or insightful. They’re cliche opinions of a leftist in the 90s and a neocon in the 2000s. His knowledge of religion is just like the kind most atheists have: good in the details, but missing in understanding why some people enjoy religion. I much prefer reading Christopher Hedges talk about the soul of religion than hearing Hitchens parrot on about how religion is destroying everything. He’s the kind of public intellectual who lowers discourse.
(All of this prompted by reading his atrocious 9/11 piece and this.)
There are certainly people with genuine power who understand exactly how this process works and are conscious of the propaganda it entails, and there are many ordinary citizens, paying only casual attention to political matters, who blindly ingest it. But it is the high-ranking Inner Party members — the D.C. cadre of think tank “scholars,” government and academic functionaries, and journalists and pundits who fancy themselves sophisticated political junkies and insiders — who are the True Believers. They cling to institutions of political power and officialdom, plant their careers, self-esteem, self-importance and social circles in its belly, and are thus the most incentivized to believe in its Rightness and Goodness and the least able to critically assess it. Intoxicated with supreme loyalty to the organs of political power and societal institutions which support it, they become its most ardent, faithful evangelizers. The more they gather together in their insular royal court realm, the more they reinforce each other’s trite convictions.
These pseudo-sophisticated, pseudo-intellectual nationalists may “know that this or that item of war news is untruthful” or may even know that the entire ”war is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones.” But no matter: they are Washington’s most loyal denizens and thus “never waver for an instant in their mystical belief that the war is real” or in the propaganda that sustains it. At the heart of this propaganda — and of their worldview — is the unquestioning conviction about the unmitigated evil of the State’s designated Enemies, and of their own Good. Observe how WikiLekas is now discussed, and especially observe the waves of self-praising moralizing over this next several days, to see this dynamic in all its glory.
I think I already blogged this, but reblogging because it is so true. This is by far one of the best things that Greenwald has ever written. It hits upon an issue that I’ve noticed a lot recently while reading interviews and books by terrorism scholars. They’re people who talk about how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were bad ideas, but then go to the Pentagon to give lectures on how to better kill “insurgents.” They talk about understanding the cultures of the Middle East is so important, but then declare Egyptians storming the Israeli embassy as being unready for democracy. These are the same people who spent all of yesterday slamming Krugman for being insensitive to Americans with his editorial while they urge more funding to the military by cutting soldiers’ benefits.
I’m not sure what the takeaway from all of this is. Honestly, it’s the area I want to do my master’s in, so there’s a lot of research I need to do. However, I think Greenwald’s article and the reaction to Krugaman’s editorial together reveal something very ugly about the America we now live in.
I once read (on this site I think) someone complaining about how he wouldn’t mind Muslims if “they could atleast apologize”. You know what, fuck you. Why should we apologize for something that we’re not responsible for? Islam doesn’t sanction terrorism and majority of Muslims…
YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID AND FUCKING WRONG. ASK ANY GOD DAMN AMERICAN.
Jesus Christ I am so sick and tired of hearing this BS argument. I really, really am. I don’t care if it’s racist. I don’t care if it’s wrong. I’m a fucking democrat and I’m saying I don’t want these people here. It’s not Islamophobia. It’s fucking hate. That’s what happens after a country loses 3,000 of its citizens. Ten years later, it still fucking hurts. Period.Well look at that. This right here is the stupidest post on Tumblr.
So when does America apologize to Iraq? They’re waiting, asshole.
