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Ralph Peters calling for Ethnic cleansing of the middle east
click on the link so you can see the before (meaning the current middle east) and after (meaning the middle east the neocons want).
Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look
By Ralph Peters
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.
Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.
Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East's "organic" frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.
As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).
Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.
Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.
The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.
The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.
As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.
A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.
A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.
While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.
Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.
What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.
The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.
In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.
Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.
Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.
From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.
If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.
click on the link so you can see the before (meaning the current middle east) and after (meaning the middle east the neocons want).
Blood borders
How a better Middle East would look
By Ralph Peters
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899
hahaha!
I haven't even read it yet and I like it. Why?
Ralph Peters wrote it.
He makes my tail wag!
__________________
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. — Mohandas K. Gandhi, Young India, August 11, 1920 from Fischer, Louis ed.,The Essential Gandhi, 1962
__________________
"Obama doesn't go on television and have crying fits; he isn't discovering his voice at the age of 60." - Air Force Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak (Los Angeles Times, 2/2/08)
YESTERDAY, Israel’s government overruled its generals and refused to expand the ground war in southern Lebanon. Given the difficulties encountered and the casualties suffered, the decision is understandable. And wrong.
In the War on Terror - combating Hezbollah’s definitely part of it - you have to finish what you start. You can’t permit the perception that the terrorists won. But that’s where the current round of fighting is headed.
For the Israelis, the town of Bint Jbeil is an embarrassment, an objective that proved unexpectedly hard to take. But the town’s a tactical issue to the Israeli Defense Force, not a strategic one.
For Hezbollah, it’s Stalingrad, where the Red Army stopped the Germans. And that’s how terrorist propagandists will mythologize it.
Considering only the military facts, the IDF’s view is correct. But the Middle East has little use for facts. Perception is what counts. To the Arab masses, Hezbollah’s resistance appears heroic, triumphant - and inspiring. We don’t have to like it, but it’s true.
So why is defeating Hezbollah such a challenge? Israel smashed one Arab military coalition after another, from 1948 through 1973. Arabs didn’t seem to make good soldiers.
Now we see Arabs fighting tenaciously and effectively. What happened?
The answer’s straightforward: Different cultures fight for different things. Arabs might jump up and down, wailing, “We will die for you Saddam!” But, in the clinch, they don’t - they surrender. Conventional Arab armies fight badly because their conscripts and even the officers feel little loyalty to the states they serve - and even less to self-anointed national leaders.
But Arabs will fight to the bitter end for their religion, their families and the land their clan possesses. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah exploits all three motivations. The Hezbollah guerrilla waiting to ambush an Israeli patrol believes he’s fighting for his faith, his family and the earth beneath his feet. He’ll kill anyone and give his own life to win.
We all need to stop making cartoon figures of such enemies. Hezbollah doesn’t have tanks or jets, but it poses the toughest military problem Israel’s ever faced. And Hezbollah may be the new model for Middle Eastern “armies.”
The IDF’s errors played into Hezbollah’s hands. Initially relying on air power, the IDF ignored the basic military principles of surprise, mass and concentration of effort. Instead of aiming a shocking, concentrated blow at Hezbollah, the IDF dissipated its power by striking targets scattered throughout Lebanon - while failing to strike any of them decisively.
Even now, in the struggle for a handful of border villages, the IDF continues to commit its forces piecemeal - a lieutenant’s mistake. Adding troops in increments allows the enemy to adjust to the increasing pressure - instead of being crushed by one mighty blow.
This is also an expensive fight for Israel in another way: financially. The precision weapons on which the IDF has relied so heavily - and to so little effect - cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to seven figures per round. Israel has expended thousands of such weapons in an effort to spare its ground forces.
Theoretically, that’s smart. But we don’t live in a theoretical world. Such weapons are so expensive that arsenals are small. The United States already has had to replenish Israel’s limited stockpiles - and our own supplies would not support a long war. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, a relatively easy win, we were running low on some specialized munitions within three weeks.
Precision weapons also rely on precision intelligence. It doesn’t matter how accurate the bomb is if you can’t find the target. And Israel’s targeting has been poor. It even appears that Hezbollah managed to feed the IDF phony intelligence, triggering attacks on civilian targets and giving the terrorists a series of media wins.
The precision-weapons cost/benefit trade-offs aren’t impressive, either. Killing a terrorist leader with a million-dollar bomb is a sound investment, but using hundreds of them to attack cheap, antiquated rocket launchers gets expensive fast.
Just as the U.S. military learned painful lessons about technology’s limits in Iraq, the IDF is getting an education now: There’s still no replacement for the infantryman; wars can’t be won nor terrorists defeated from the air; and war is ultimately a contest of wills.
Those of us who support Israel and wish its people well have to be alarmed. Jerusalem’s talking tough - while backing off in the face of Hezbollah’s resistance. Israel’s on-stage in a starring role right now, and it’s too late to call for a re-write.
As a minimum, the IDF has to pull off a hat trick (killing Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, would be nice) in order to prevent the perception of a Hezbollah victory - a perception that would strengthen the forces of terror immeasurably.
If this conflict ends with rockets still falling on Haifa, Israel’s enemies will celebrate Hezbollah as the star of the Terrorist Broadway (Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recent rap videos were an attempt to edge into Hezbollah’s limelight). Israel - and the civilized world - can’t afford that.
Yes, Israel’s casualties are painful and, to the IDF, unexpected. But Hezbollah isn’t counting its casualties - it’s concentrating on fighting. In warfare, that’s the only approach that works.
Israel and its armed forces are rightfully proud of all they have achieved in the last six decades. But they shouldn’t be too proud to learn from their enemies: In warfare, strength of will is the greatest virtue.
Ralph Peters’ new book is “Never Quit the Fight.”
__________________
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. — Mohandas K. Gandhi, Young India, August 11, 1920 from Fischer, Louis ed.,The Essential Gandhi, 1962
this kinda shyt was making PNAC bust a nut in their pants
Sometimes I get the impression the administration or the Pentagon is just waiting for the political winds to shift in a certain direction so they can "organically" unleash some of these methods.
More Ralph Peters from, "When Devils Walk The Earth."
(A MUST READ article on how to deal with Terrorism)
Ralph Peters' book by way of the JPFO ^ | 2004 | Ralph Peters
Posted on 04/27/2004 4:17:57 PM PDT by redrock
Note: Received this from an Army friend.... Pay particular attention to item 13!
========================
HELLO TO ALL:
This essay is extracted from Ralph Peters' new book, "When Devils Walk the Earth." It is a must-read. The man is prescient. If you focus on nothing else, peruse the last point; Number 25. I added the "bold" and red color to points I thought ought to receive major emphasis.......Ed
(Ed is Major General, USA, Ret, Ed Browne)
Chapter III. Fighting Terror: Do's and Don'ts for a Superpower:
1. Be feared!
2. Identify the type of terrorists you face, and know your enemy as well as you possibly can. Although tactics may be similar, strategies for dealing with practical vs. apocalyptic terrorists can differ widely. Practical terrorists may have legitimate grievances that deserve consideration, although their methods cannot be tolerated. Apocalyptic terrorists, no matter their rhetoric, seek your destruction and must be killed to the last man. The apt metaphor is cancer: you cannot hope for success if you only cut out part of the tumor. For the apocalyptic terrorist, evading your efforts can easily be turned into a public triumph. Our bloodiest successes will create far fewer terrorists and sympathizers than our failures.
3. Do not be afraid to be powerful. Cold War-era gambits of proportionate response and dialog may have some utility in dealing with practical terrorists, but they are counter-productive in dealing with apocalyptic terrorists. Our great strengths are wealth and raw power. When we fail to bring those strengths to bear, we contribute to our own defeat. For a superpower to think small, which has been our habit across the last decade, at least, is self-defeating folly. Our responses to terrorist acts should make the world gasp!
4. Speak bluntly. Euphemisms are interpreted as weakness by our enemies and mislead the American people. Speak of killing terrorists and destroying their organizations. Timid speech leads to timid actions. Explain when necessary, but do not apologize. Expressions of regret are never seen as a mark of decency by terrorists or their supporters, but only as a sign that our will is faltering. Blame the terrorists as the root cause whenever operations have unintended negative consequences. Never go on the rhetorical defensive.
5. Concentrate on winning the propaganda war where it is winnable. Focus on keeping or enhancing the support from allies and well-disposed clients, but do not waste an inordinate amount of effort trying to win unwinnable hearts and minds. Convince hostile populations through victory.
6. Do not be drawn into a public dialog with terrorists, especially not with apocalyptic terrorists. You cannot win. You legitimize the terrorists by addressing them even through a third medium, and their extravagant claims will resound more successfully on their own home ground than anything you can say. Ignore absurd accusations, and never let the enemy's claims slow or sidetrack you. The terrorist wants you to react, and your best means of unbalancing him and his plan is to ignore his accusations.
7. Avoid planning creep. Within our vast bureaucratic system, too many voices compete for attention and innumerable agendas, often selfish and personal - intrude on any attempt to act decisively. Focus on the basic mission: the destruction of the terrorists with all the moral, intellectual and practical rigor you can bring to bear. All other issues, from future nation building, to alliance consensus, to humanitarian concerns are secondary.
8. Maintain resolve. Especially in the Middle East and Central Asia, experts and diplomats will always present you with a multitude of good reasons for doing nothing, or for doing too little (or for doing exactly the wrong thing). Fight as hard as you can within the system to prevent diplomats from gaining influence over the strategic campaign. Although their intentions are often good, our diplomats and their obsolete strategic views are the terrorist's unwitting allies and diplomats are extremely jealous of military success and military authority in their region (where their expertise is never as deep or subtle as they believe it to be). Beyond the problem with our diplomats, the broader forces of bureaucratic entropy are an internal threat. The counter-terrorist campaign must be not only resolute, but constantly self-rejuvenating in ideas, techniques, military and inter-agency combinations, and sheer energy. Old hands must be stimulated constantly by new ideas.
9. When in doubt, hit harder than you think necessary. Success will be forgiven. Even the best-intentioned failure will not. When military force is used against terrorist networks, it should be used with such power that it stuns even our allies. We must get over our cowardice in means. While small-scale raids and other knifepoint operations are useful against individual targets, broader operations should be overwhelming. Of course, targeting limitations may inhibit some efforts but whenever possible, maximum force should be used in simultaneous operations at the very beginning of a campaign. Do not hesitate to supplement initial target lists with extensive bombing attacks on nothing if they can increase the initial psychological impact. Demonstrate power whenever you can. Show; don't tell!
10. Whenever legal conditions permit, kill terrorists on the spot (do not give them a chance to surrender, if you can help it). Contrary to academic wisdom, the surest way to make a martyr of a terrorist is to capture, convict and imprison him, leading to endless efforts by sympathizers to stage kidnappings, hijacking and other events intended to liberate the imprisoned terrorist(s). This is war, not law enforcement.
11. Never listen to those who warn that ferocity on our part reduces us to the level of the terrorists. That is the argument of the campus, not of the battlefield, and it insults America's service members and the American people. Historically, we have proven, time after time, that we can do a tough, dirty job for our country without any damage to our nation's moral fabric (Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not interfere with American democracy, values or behavior).
12. Spare and protect innocent civilians whenever possible, but: do not let the prospect of civilian casualties interfere with ultimate mission accomplishment. This is a fight to protect the American people, and we must do so whatever the cost, or the price in American lives may be devastating. In a choice between them, and us the choice is always us.
13. Do not allow the terrorists to hide behind religion. Apocalyptic terrorists cite religion as a justification for attacking us; in turn, we cannot let them hide behind religious holidays, taboos, strictures or even sacred terrain. We must establish a consistent reputation for relentless pursuit and destruction of those who kill our citizens. Until we do this, our hesitation will continue to strengthen our enemy's ranks and his resolve.
14. Do not allow third parties to broker a peace, a truce, or any pause in operations. One of the most difficult challenges in fighting terrorism on a global scale is the drag produced by nervous allies. We must be single-minded. The best thing we can do for our allies in the long-term is to be so resolute and so strong that they value their alliance with us all the more. We must recognize the innate strength of our position and stop allowing regional leaders with counterproductive local agendas to subdue or dilute our efforts.
15. Don't flinch. If an operation goes awry and friendly casualties are unexpectedly high, immediately bolster morale and the military's image by striking back swiftly in a manner that inflicts the maximum possible number of casualties on the enemy and his supporters. Hit back as graphically as possible, to impress upon the local and regional players that you weren't badly hurt or deterred in the least.
16. Do not worry about alienating already-hostile populations. --(ED ADDED, "OR ANTI-WAR SENATORS ASPIRING TO BECOME PRESIDENT OF OUR GREAT NATION.")
17. Whenever possible, humiliate your enemy in the eyes of his own people. Do not try to use reasonable arguments against him. Shame him publicly, in any way you can. Create doubt where you cannot excite support. Most apocalyptic terrorists, especially, come from cultures of male vanity. Disgrace them at every opportunity. Done successfully, this both degrades them in the eyes of their followers and supporters, and provokes the terrorist to respond, increasing his vulnerability.
18. If the terrorists hide, strike what they hold dear, using clandestine means and, whenever possible, foreign agents to provoke them to break cover and react. Do not be squeamish. Your enemy is not. Subtlety is not superpower strength but the raw power to do that, which is necessary, is our great advantage. We forget that, while the world may happily chide or accuse us-or complain of our inhumanity-no one can stop us if we maintain our strength of will. Much of the world will complain no matter what we do. Hatred of America is the default position of failed individuals and failing states around the world, in every civilization, and there is nothing we can do to change their minds. We refuse to understand how much of humanity will find excuses for evil, so long as the evil strikes those who are more successful than the apologists themselves. This is as true of American academics, whose eagerness to declare our military efforts a failure is unflagging, or European clerics, who still cannot forgive America's magnanimity at the end of World War II, as it is of unemployed Egyptians or Pakistanis. The psychologically marginalized are at least as dangerous as the physically deprived.
19. Do not allow the terrorists sanctuary in any country, at any time, under any circumstances. Counter-terrorist operations must, above all, be relentless. This does not necessarily mean that military operations will be constantly underway sometimes it will be surveillance efforts, or deception plans, or operations by other agencies. But the overall effort must never pause for breath. We must be faster, more resolute, more resourceful and, ultimately, even more uncompromising than our enemies.
20. Never declare victory. Announce successes and milestones. But never give the terrorists a chance to embarrass you after a public pronouncement that the war is over.
21. Impress upon the minds of terrorists and potential terrorists everywhere, and upon the populations and governments inclined to support them, that American retaliation will be powerful and uncompromising. You will never deter fanatics, but you can frighten those who might support, harbor or attempt to use terrorists for their own ends. Our basic task in the world today is to restore a sense of American power, capabilities and resolve. We must be hard, or we will be struck wherever we are soft. It is folly for charity to precede victory. First win, then unclench your fist.
22. Do everything possible to make terrorists and their active supporters live in terror themselves. Turn the tide psychologically and practically. While this will not deter hard-core apocalyptic terrorists, it will dissipate their energies as they try to defend themselves and fear will deter many less-committed supporters of terror. Do not be distracted by the baggage of the term assassination. This is a war. The enemy, whether a hijacker or a financier, violates the laws of war by his refusal to wear a uniform and by purposely targeting civilians. He is by definition a war criminal. On our soil, he is either a spy or a saboteur, and not entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution. Those who abet terrorists must grow afraid to turn out the lights to go to sleep.
23. Never accept the consensus of the Washington intelligentsia, which looks backward to past failures, not forward to future successes.
24. In dealing with Islamic apocalyptic terrorists, remember that their most cherished symbols are fewer and far more vulnerable than are the West's. Ultimately, no potential target can be regarded as off-limits when the United States is threatened with mass casualties. Worry less about offending foreign sensibilities and more about protecting Americans.
25. Do not look for answers in recent history, which is still unclear and subject to personal emotion. Begin with the study of the classical world, specifically Rome, which is the nearest model to the present-day United States. Mild with subject peoples, to whom they brought the rule of ethical law, the Romans in their rise and at their apogee were implacable with their enemies. The utter destruction of Carthage brought centuries of local peace, while the later empire's attempts to appease barbarians consistently failed!
__________________
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. — Mohandas K. Gandhi, Young India, August 11, 1920 from Fischer, Louis ed.,The Essential Gandhi, 1962
click on the link so you can see the before (meaning the current middle east) and after (meaning the middle east the neocons want).
that you think that Peter is a "neo-con," or committed to furthing the "neo-con" *wish-list* confrms certain opinions about you.
Peters is prone towards hyperbole, but I'll be the first to admit that in 40 years, most serious thinking people will consider him on the *important thinkers* of the late 20th-early 21st century.
His "Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States"
Reppin': Bronx,NY donde Solo los Fuertes Sobreviven
Posts: 5,215
Quote:
Originally Posted by apps
that you think that Peter is a "neo-con," or committed to furthing the "neo-con" *wish-list* confrms certain opinions about you.
Peters is prone towards hyperbole, but I'll be the first to admit that in 40 years, most serious thinking people will consider him on the *important thinkers* of the late 20th-early 21st century.
His "Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States" http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/P...ing/peters.htm
written in '97-98, still holds up.
He isn't a prophet, and he isn't the most important thinker of his era, but he's among the tops, and always worth reading..
is not so much that he's a neocon, but that he's a mouthpiece for the arms merchants in need of perpetual war to keep their bank accounts growing. As we all know, the arms merchants and the neocons are in bed with each other (if you cant see that the lockheed martins of this world, the upper brass at the pentagon, the carlyles and PNACs of this world are all bedfellows with one common goal then you must be in complete denial).
As for Peters: I used to read his columns on the NY Post (at least three times per week). For you to say that he's one of the most important thinkers of the 20th or 21st century is preposterous. Again, most of the time he's just promoting american aggression and imperialism over the poor people's of this earth. Perhaps, that's probably why you consider him one of the tops thinkers.
is not so much that he's a neocon, but that he's a mouthpiece for the arms merchants in need of perpetual war to keep their bank accounts growing. As we all know, the arms merchants and the neocons are in bed with each other (if you cant see that the lockheed martins of this world, the upper brass at the pentagon, the carlyles and PNACs of this world are all bedfellows with one common goal then you must be in complete denial).
As for Peters: I used to read his columns on the NY Post (at least three times per week). For you to say that he's one of the most important thinkers of the 20th or 21st century is preposterous. Again, most of the time he's just promoting american aggression and imperialism over the poor people's of this earth. Perhaps, that's probably why you consider him one of the tops thinkers.
When it comes to the subject of national defense or war I wouldn't want to have to fight him and I'm glad he's on OUR side.
Anyone who opposes America could read his works to better understand how to beat us.
is not so much that he's a neocon, but that he's a mouthpiece for the arms merchants in need of perpetual war to keep their bank accounts growing. As we all know, the arms merchants and the neocons are in bed with each other (if you cant see that the lockheed martins of this world, the upper brass at the pentagon, the carlyles and PNACs of this world are all bedfellows with one common goal then you must be in complete denial).
As for Peters: I used to read his columns on the NY Post (at least three times per week). For you to say that he's one of the most important thinkers of the 20th or 21st century is preposterous. Again, most of the time he's just promoting american aggression and imperialism over the poor people's of this earth. Perhaps, that's probably why you consider him one of the tops thinkers.
So because he is the counterpart of what you stand for he is not a great thinker?
Sometimes I get the impression the administration or the Pentagon is just waiting for the political winds to shift in a certain direction so they can "organically" unleash some of these methods.
More Ralph Peters from, "When Devils Walk The Earth."
yeah that dude is crazy; look at 31, he's basically saying that we should threaten the destruction of mecca.
anyways, this kind of thinking is exactly what has led us into stalemate in iraq. he's only perpetuating the kind of attitude about american "power", whether perceived or true, that has led the rest of the world to sit idly by and not offer us any help. look, right after 9/11; the world would probably have reluctantly accepted most of the things he listed. we had a chance to basically go anywhere at anytime, and probably receive the cooperation of whatever foreign governments were necessary. but we lost all of that credibility and sympathy after Iraq. even though the US is the biggest and baddest, our ability to fight this "war on terror" is severely compromised by people projecting peters' types of assumptions about US power.
Reppin': Bronx,NY donde Solo los Fuertes Sobreviven
Posts: 5,215
Quote:
Originally Posted by admiral
When it comes to the subject of national defense or war I wouldn't want to have to fight him and I'm glad he's on OUR side.
Anyone who opposes America could read his works to better understand how to beat us.
So you're glad he's on "our" side? What's this? The cowboys against the redskins? What role does peters play? Is he your offensive cordinator?
Anyone who opposes america? Do you realize that most of the world's population could care less about america? do you also realize that if america wasnt stealing other country's resources, destroying their economies, imposing its way on them and the like, people wouldnt hate us? Do you also realize that through the CIA (its covert groups), the big corporations and economic policies, America's the biggest force of destabilization in the world? from Nigeria, to Venezuela, to Saudi Arabia, to Iraq, to Colombia, to Afghanistan, Liberia, Haiti, Argentina, Palestine and the list could go on and on and on.
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Ralph Peters calling for Ethnic cleansing of the middle east
...Mexico?
