Melanie Philips: A War Unlike Any Other (An honest-to-God MUST READ!)

BTTT

The "Borg Cube" reference is taken from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It was the artificial planet constructed by the Borg, who were part-computer, and who assimilated, via a mind-meld, every other civilization they encountered.

LM's reference to the Borg Cube of Islam is a comparison of the Borg Planet to that Big Black Cube in Mecca, around which Muslims march and pray as the center of their religion.

...nuke that Borg cube in Mecca...

Why just the cube?

How about the whole dam*ed city?

marking for a later read

I've seen several posts that refer to pre-Islamic times- like that must be almost prehistoric. I have run into a TON of folk who think Islam was the 1st religion and that Jews and Christians are recent arrivals and that is why the Muslims feel they OWN the entire middle East and have a perfect right to slaughter every Jew there and take over Israel.

Facts. Jews were there 6000 years ago give or take a few months. Christians showed up 2000yrs ago and Islam was established by Muhammad who lived from 570AD to 632AD!The Jews lost their "country" when the Romans invaded in 78(?) and got it back after the 2nd WW.

Reading the Qaran gives you a better understanding of Muhammad and how he thought. It was apparent that as he got older he grew less and less tolerant of people who didn't accept him as the one and only GOD. He became bitter and aggressive and I believe many of the passages in the last half of the Qaran are the ones being used my the militant clerics today. Early passages were somewhat tolerant and forgiving of those who did not accept Muhammad as the one and only. Later on there is a much more hostile bent to the passages and towards the end is pretty much "KILL THEM ALL and I'll sort it out later!" It's not hard to see how some of that can be interpreted by the radicals as giving justification for ANY act that promotes Islam, destroys its "enemies" and provides jihadists or shihadists with a glorious martyrdom and the rewards therein.

I found this complilation on another blog somewhere & added my own commentsand have mailed it out to a few dozen friends who believe wringing their hands and playing with cigars is NOT a proper Presidential response to Islamic terrorism.

It really is amazing that Putin and Chirac thought they could suck up to these guys and not have to worry about terrorism at home.

Pres PUTIN, in response to 360 + DEAD children and mothers just declared "NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! We've ignored them long enough and they think we're weak. The weak are always the ones getting beaten."

PUTIN hoped that HELPING countries like Iran and Syria develop nukes and other WMD's it would keep the Islamists out of Russia.

OK then. Here are a few CLUES that Putin ignored and might possibly have indicated that his plan wasn't working all that well.

... and we thought Clinton sat on his hands and twiddled his ceegars .... geeeez!

Don't forget that incidents identical to these might have been happening (and still could) in the USA IF BUSH hadn't taken the war to THEM instead of letting them choose America for their battleground.

Actions outside of Chechnya linked to the conflict.

June 14, 1995
Chechen gunmen take 2,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, near Chechnya. After failed attempts at force, Russia negotiates the hostages' release in exchange for the gunmen's escape. More than 100 die.

Jan. 9, 1996
Chechen militants seize 3,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Kizlyar. Rebels release most, then head for Chechnya with about 100 hostages. Rebels are stopped in a village and attacked by Russian troops. At least 78 die in weeklong fight.

Jan. 16, 1996
Six Turks and three Chechens hold 255 hostages on ferry in Black Sea, threatening to blow up ship if Russia doesn't halt battles in southern Russia. The rebels surrender after three days.

March 9, 1996
Turkish sympathizer hijacks jetliner flying out of Cyprus to draw attention to situation in Chechnya. The sympathizer surrenders after plane lands in Munich, Germany.

Sept. 4, 1999
Bomb destroys a building housing Russian military officers and families in Buinaksk in Russia's Dagestan region. Sixty-four die. Russian officials blame Chechen rebels, but never prove their involvement.

Sept. 9, 1999
Explosion wrecks a nine-story apartment building in southeast Moscow, killing almost 100. Authorities suspect a Chechen bomb, although no evidence is ever provided to support the claim.

Sept. 13, 1999
A bomb destroys an apartment building in southern Moscow, killing 70. Officials blame Chechens, but nobody is ever charged in the attack.

Sept. 16, 1999
Bombs shear off the front of a nine-story apartment building in Volgodonsk, 500 miles south of Moscow. Nearly 20 are killed. Authorities again blame Chechens rebels, but nobody is charged.

March 16, 2001
Three Chechens hijack a Russian airliner leaving Istanbul and divert it to Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces storm plane, killing one hijacker and two hostages.

April 22, 2001
Some 20 gunmen hold about 120 people for 12 hours at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest Russian actions in Chechnya. The rebels later surrender to police and release the hostages.

May 4, 2002
Lone gunman holds 13 people hostage at a hotel in Istanbul to protest situation in Chechnya. The gunman surrenders after an hour.

Oct. 24, 2002
Chechen rebels seize 800 people in a Moscow theater. After a three-day standoff, Russian authorities launch a rescue attempt in which all 41 attackers are killed along with 127 hostages who succumb to a knockout gas used to incapacitate the assailants.

July 5, 2003
Double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert kills the female attackers and 15 other people.

July 10, 2003
A Russian security agent dies in Moscow while trying to defuse a bomb a woman had tried to carry into a cafe on central Moscow’s main street.

Aug. 1, 2003
50 people are killed in Mozdok, North Ossetia, when a truck bomb smashes through the gates of a hospital where Russian soldiers injured in Chechnya are treated.

Sept. 16, 2003
Two suicide bombers drive a truck laden with explosives into a government security services building near Chechnya, killing three people and injuring 25.

Dec. 5, 2003
Suicide bombing on commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns attack as bid to destabilize the country two days before parliamentary elections. Six people were killed in two blasts on the same railway line in September.

Dec. 9, 2003
Female suicide bomber blows herself up outside Moscow’s National Hotel, across from the Kremlin and Red Square, killing five bystanders.

Feb. 6, 2004
An explosion rips through a subway car in the Moscow metro during rush hour, killing 41 people.

June 21- 22, 2004
Chechen rebels kill at least 92 people, mostly law-enforcement officers and officials, while setting fire to police and government buildings around Nazran, the main city of the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

Aug. 25, 2004
Female Chechen suicide bombers blamed for explosions that rip apart two Russian planes in flight killing all 90+ people on board.

Sept 3,4,5, (The "straw" that broke the camel's back as it were....as in THAT'S ENUF!!)
Chechen and Arab terrorists hold 1200 children and mothers hostage for three days without food or water or ventilation. Reports of children as young as 10 being bayonetted for crying well before full scale attack. Unknown events precipitate full scale battle around children. Suicide bomb belts and automatic gunfire kill 360+ with more expected to die soon as bomb belts exploding ruptured eyeballs, lungs, eardrums on many of the youngest hostages. Many terrorists would have escaped in the ensuing panic if not for ARMED fathers of hostages shooting everybody who wasn't a local parent!

Bump and thanks!

It would have meant that his foreign policy was failing, and to respond in a meaningful sense would have taken money--goodbye 'balanced' budget. It also would have meant that he could not solely blame the VRWC extremists for Oklahoma City, but would have had to find the missing 'John Does'.

Instead, blame for that bombing was used to muzzle domestic political opponents, especially ones who back the RKBA.

The reaction to Waco was also silenced, by and large, by the onus of the bombing, as much of the objection to the slaughter there was from the right.

Admitting the possibility of ongoing terrorist attack instead of a couple of crackpots would have placed the entire Clintoon 'feelgood' image in peril, and it would have forced America to rethink having a genuine draft-dodger counterculture type as POTUS.

Good read.

from the article...

"Unless the west wakes up from its trance and starts realising who are its true allies and who its true enemies, the scenes of anguish in Russia will be merely the prelude to an unthinkable defeat."

Yep...but what are the criteria for choosing allies?

Not merely the economic allies but the kind of allies that you know would be side by side with you till the bitter end.

The article is a good read but it goes deeper than simply a hatred for the west and in particular America.It is America's support of Israel.Israel is hated for hundreds of so-called reasons.In reality it is because of who they remind the world of.

History shows that most wars are winable,even those that didn't end up with a decisive victor probably could have were it not due to mistakes,supply etc(something 'fixable'),I expect a war against a religion is winable but is a war against 'terror' really winable other than in individuals?

Especially when most seem very emotionally tied to their "trance"

God bless