soaring with Osama

Bob Kuykendall wrote:
Earlier, Rory O'Conor wrote:
See http://www.aii-co.com/en/ava101.asp

The table on that page does show the specs for the AVA101. But the
table that Ole is asking about is this one that compares the AVA101
with a couple of LAK products and the PW6:

http://www.aii-co.com/en/images/AVA.101.jpg

The column and row headers are in english, as are the units, but all
the numbers are in some other characters; perhaps some sort of Arabic?
(Yes, I know that Iranians consider themselves ethnically and
culturally separate from the Arab cultures in the area).

Bob K.
The units will be in Farsi if they are Iranian
George Emsden

Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

Surreal Rules
The difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

By Victor Davis Hanson


Prior to September 11, the general consensus was that conventional
Middle East armies were paper tigers and that their terrorist
alternatives were best dealt with by bombing them from a distance -
as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, etc. - and then
letting them sort out their own rubble.

Then following 9/11, the West adopted a necessary change in strategy
that involved regime change and the need to win "hearts and minds"
to ensure something better was established in place of the deposed
dictator or theocrat. That necessitated close engagements with
terrorists in their favored urban landscape. After the last four years,
we have learned just how difficult that struggle can be, especially in
light of the type of weapons $500 billion in Middle East windfall
petroleum profits can buy, when oil went from $20 a barrel to almost
$80 over the last few years. To best deal with certain difficulties
we've encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United
States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian
or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on
morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way,
images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If
ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful
(inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to
some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes
into play. For the United States to have such power over life and
death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and
victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still
"constructed" as "the other" and thus are seen as suffering -
doctored photos or not - through the grim prism of Western
colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won't tolerate
many losses; it won't tolerate for very long killing the enemy either
- unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian
Europeans of Milosevic's Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically
correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember,
multiculturalism always trumps fascism; the worst homophobe, the
intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic
if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks
most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or
kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately
hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many
reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the
advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the
news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an
affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous.
Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a
well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash
Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the
road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is
always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose
sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that
exaggerates Israeli "war crimes" causes a mini-controversy for a
day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates
Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition - whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean
or an activist such as Cindy Sheehan - ultimately prefers the enemy
to win. In their way of thinking, there is such a reservoir of American
strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us at home and so take
away our Starbucks' lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But being
checked in "optional" wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in
Lebanon, has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are
humiliated; the military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit
more humble; and guilt over living in a prosperous Western suburb is
assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - unlike a Nixon,
Reagan, or Bush - sends helicopters or bombs into the Middle East
desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and so can
be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat
must wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of influence,
abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who helped
to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange
sweetheart oil concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian
and European machine tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo
list; much of the off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was
purchased through European arms merchants. And if they are consistent
in their willingness to do business with any tyrant, the Europeans also
know how to spread enough aid or money around to the Middle East, to
ensure some protection and a prominent role in any postwar conference.
Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum contracts in
Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can
always earn a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must
enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to fight
its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and
obliterated Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where
hundreds of civilians were lost to "collateral damage." Egyptians
gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds; Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians
murdered thousands of men, women, and children in Hama; Jordanians
slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None received much lasting, if
any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus of the world's
attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000
Tibetans. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to
those who can fight them with impunity.

6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are oblivious to criticism
if they wake up in the morning and learn their military has bombed a
Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan - and the war was begun and
then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks -
about the length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war - is the limit of
our patience. After that, Americans become so sensitive to global
criticism that they begin to hate themselves as much as others do.
To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours - but at all
cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are such fanciful rules? Of course - but not as
absurd as the wars now going on in the Middle East.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other, How the
Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution...

Yup. They don't call it an "institution" for nothing.

Who? What? Athenians and Spartans ?
Please, no more with the "cut and paste imperialisism", "bumper
sticker" "what he said" mentality . Think for yourself and leave us
alone or tell us about your last soaring adventure.

Bruce T. wrote:
Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

Surreal Rules
The difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

By Victor Davis Hanson


Prior to September 11, the general consensus was that conventional
Middle East armies were paper tigers and that their terrorist
alternatives were best dealt with by bombing them from a distance -
as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, etc. - and then
letting them sort out their own rubble.

Then following 9/11, the West adopted a necessary change in strategy
that involved regime change and the need to win "hearts and minds"
to ensure something better was established in place of the deposed
dictator or theocrat. That necessitated close engagements with
terrorists in their favored urban landscape. After the last four years,
we have learned just how difficult that struggle can be, especially in
light of the type of weapons $500 billion in Middle East windfall
petroleum profits can buy, when oil went from $20 a barrel to almost
$80 over the last few years. To best deal with certain difficulties
we've encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United
States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian
or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on
morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way,
images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If
ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful
(inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to
some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes
into play. For the United States to have such power over life and
death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and
victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still
"constructed" as "the other" and thus are seen as suffering -
doctored photos or not - through the grim prism of Western
colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won't tolerate
many losses; it won't tolerate for very long killing the enemy either
- unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian
Europeans of Milosevic's Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically
correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember,
multiculturalism always trumps fascism; the worst homophobe, the
intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic
if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks
most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or
kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately
hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many
reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the
advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the
news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an
affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous.
Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a
well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash
Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the
road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is
always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose
sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that
exaggerates Israeli "war crimes" causes a mini-controversy for a
day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates
Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition - whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean
or an activist such as Cindy Sheehan - ultimately prefers the enemy
to win. In their way of thinking, there is such a reservoir of American
strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us at home and so take
away our Starbucks' lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But being
checked in "optional" wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in
Lebanon, has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are
humiliated; the military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit
more humble; and guilt over living in a prosperous Western suburb is
assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - unlike a Nixon,
Reagan, or Bush - sends helicopters or bombs into the Middle East
desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and so can
be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat
must wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of influence,
abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who helped
to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange
sweetheart oil concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian
and European machine tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo
list; much of the off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was
purchased through European arms merchants. And if they are consistent
in their willingness to do business with any tyrant, the Europeans also
know how to spread enough aid or money around to the Middle East, to
ensure some protection and a prominent role in any postwar conference.
Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum contracts in
Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can
always earn a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must
enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to fight
its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and
obliterated Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where
hundreds of civilians were lost to "collateral damage." Egyptians
gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds; Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians
murdered thousands of men, women, and children in Hama; Jordanians
slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None received much lasting, if
any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus of the world's
attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000
Tibetans. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to
those who can fight them with impunity.

6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are oblivious to criticism
if they wake up in the morning and learn their military has bombed a
Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan - and the war was begun and
then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks -
about the length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war - is the limit of
our patience. After that, Americans become so sensitive to global
criticism that they begin to hate themselves as much as others do.
To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours - but at all
cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are such fanciful rules? Of course - but not as
absurd as the wars now going on in the Middle East.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other, How the
Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

okay, I'll tell you about a recent flight. Saturday I flew for over 4
hours back in the mountains Saturday. Not terribly far back into the
Cascades, but far enough that staying at cloudbase and reading the
clouds correctly was the only way to make it back out to the LZ. Saw a
mature mountain goat and what appeared to be a juvenile goat perched
upon a rock spine......simply amazing, the places I've seen these
creatures.

Zipped back and forth for about 2.5 hours polishing the rocks and
snapping pictures, generally having a great time and realizing how
fortunate we are to be able to enjoy this wonderful sport.

Tell us your flying stories ok? If you have any...................

Brad
199AK


st4s03 wrote:
Who? What? Athenians and Spartans ?
Please, no more with the "cut and paste imperialisism", "bumper
sticker" "what he said" mentality . Think for yourself and leave us
alone or tell us about your last soaring adventure.

Bruce T. wrote:
Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

Surreal Rules
The difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

By Victor Davis Hanson


Prior to September 11, the general consensus was that conventional
Middle East armies were paper tigers and that their terrorist
alternatives were best dealt with by bombing them from a distance -
as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, etc. - and then
letting them sort out their own rubble.

Then following 9/11, the West adopted a necessary change in strategy
that involved regime change and the need to win "hearts and minds"
to ensure something better was established in place of the deposed
dictator or theocrat. That necessitated close engagements with
terrorists in their favored urban landscape. After the last four years,
we have learned just how difficult that struggle can be, especially in
light of the type of weapons $500 billion in Middle East windfall
petroleum profits can buy, when oil went from $20 a barrel to almost
$80 over the last few years. To best deal with certain difficulties
we've encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United
States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian
or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on
morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way,
images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If
ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful
(inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to
some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes
into play. For the United States to have such power over life and
death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and
victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still
"constructed" as "the other" and thus are seen as suffering -
doctored photos or not - through the grim prism of Western
colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won't tolerate
many losses; it won't tolerate for very long killing the enemy either
- unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian
Europeans of Milosevic's Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically
correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember,
multiculturalism always trumps fascism; the worst homophobe, the
intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic
if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks
most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or
kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately
hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many
reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the
advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the
news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an
affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous.
Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a
well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash
Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the
road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is
always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose
sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that
exaggerates Israeli "war crimes" causes a mini-controversy for a
day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates
Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition - whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean
or an activist such as Cindy Sheehan - ultimately prefers the enemy
to win. In their way of thinking, there is such a reservoir of American
strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us at home and so take
away our Starbucks' lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But being
checked in "optional" wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in
Lebanon, has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are
humiliated; the military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit
more humble; and guilt over living in a prosperous Western suburb is
assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - unlike a Nixon,
Reagan, or Bush - sends helicopters or bombs into the Middle East
desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and so can
be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat
must wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of influence,
abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who helped
to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange
sweetheart oil concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian
and European machine tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo
list; much of the off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was
purchased through European arms merchants. And if they are consistent
in their willingness to do business with any tyrant, the Europeans also
know how to spread enough aid or money around to the Middle East, to
ensure some protection and a prominent role in any postwar conference.
Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum contracts in
Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can
always earn a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must
enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to fight
its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and
obliterated Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where
hundreds of civilians were lost to "collateral damage." Egyptians
gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds; Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians
murdered thousands of men, women, and children in Hama; Jordanians
slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None received much lasting, if
any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus of the world's
attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000
Tibetans. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to
those who can fight them with impunity.

6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are oblivious to criticism
if they wake up in the morning and learn their military has bombed a
Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan - and the war was begun and
then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks -
about the length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war - is the limit of
our patience. After that, Americans become so sensitive to global
criticism that they begin to hate themselves as much as others do.
To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours - but at all
cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are such fanciful rules? Of course - but not as
absurd as the wars now going on in the Middle East.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other, How the
Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

if you read the post, it was not a Dem or a Rep polemic, but as far as
an Institution, yes, the world is now a mental instition.

Make gliders, not war!

Brad


Bob Kuykendall wrote:
- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution...

Yup. They don't call it an "institution" for nothing.

st4s03 wrote:
Who? What? Athenians and Spartans ?
Please, no more with the "cut and paste imperialisism", "bumper
sticker" "what he said" mentality . Think for yourself and leave us
alone or tell us about your last soaring adventure.


Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

August 13, 2006
No Resolution At All
Why the U.N. can't solve the problem of Hezbollah.
by Bruce Thornton

The U.N. resolution that supposedly will solve the problem of Hezbollah
is a perfect example of the delusions inhibiting the West in its fight
against jihadist terror. According to the resolution, the current
impotent U.N. force - the same one that blithely sat by for years as
Hezbollah prepared its attack on Israel - will be beefed up and given
permission actually to stop Hezbollah with force. But don't worry:
the U.N. will be supported by the fearsome Lebanese army, which up to
now has shown no ability or inclination to prevent an armed gang from
high jacking Lebanon 's foreign policy and unilaterally plunging the
country into ruin.

Delusional is too weak a word to describe this resolution. Does anyone
really believe that U.N. troops, no matter where the soldiers come
from, are going to use force against Hezbollah? I won't even bother
asking that question about the Lebanese army because the answer is too
obvious, given the high level of support for Hezbollah among the Shia
rank and file. But don't bet on troops from France or any European
country killing jihadists who are admired and supported by European
Muslims. The French couldn't even stand up to punk teenagers
protesting a perfectly reasonable law intended to loosen up a sclerotic
economy. I can't see the same government standing up to Muslim
rioters angry over the government's participation in a
Zionist-Crusader plot to kill the warriors of Allah.

Once again the diplomatic dance of the seven veils is performed by the
West to create the illusion of consummating a solution to the crisis
when the whole time no one has enough testosterone actually to do so. I
know why the Europeans engage in this charade: they've convinced
themselves that as long as the jihadists have Israel and the U.S. to
hate, they'll leave Europe in peace. Sound familiar? Just give Hitler
the Sudetenland and he'll be satisfied and we'll have peace in our
time. Europe is so addled by prosperity and multicultural fantasies,
all subsidized by American military power, that until the ticking
jihadist bomb blows up in its face - and maybe not even then, if
Spain is any indication - it's not going to do anything that gets
in the way of afternoon adultery and café philosophizing about
unsophisticated cowboy Americans.

But why are we Americans going along with this farce? I'd like to
think there's some clever tactical ploy we don't know about, but
the answer seems to be that we still buy into all the lies endlessly
recycled by the self-loathing media and intellectuals. You know the
CNN/New York Times/Middle East Studies Association mantra: most Muslims
are moderates who just want to get along, but a failure to resolve the
Palestinian issue, the on-going war in Iraq, America's other
imperialist depredations, the lack of political freedom and economic
opportunity, and post-colonial hangovers have all rendered them
vulnerable to extremists who have high-jacked the faith and distorted
it to justify murder.

Of course very little evidence supports this fantasy, and mountains of
evidence refute it, but it still serves a purpose: camouflaging the
moral degeneracy of many in the West who, no longer believing in
anything other than pleasure and comfort, have no basis for calling
evil by its proper name. It's much easier to indulge the "all
cultures are equally wonderful" lie, or sadly invoke the "cycle of
violence" canard, or fall back on "moral equivalence" to avoid
making a judgment that might hurt the feelings of those exotic little
brown people so beloved by jaded Westerners.

And since we don't believe there is anything worth killing or dying
for, we turn this moral nihilism into a virtue by chanting that
"force solves nothing," and that talk, talk, talk will get at the
"root causes" and solve the problem. Except we've been talking
and talking and talking for fifty years - remember Oslo and Camp
David ? - and the jihadists and their millions of supporters still
want to destroy Israel and the West, and are perfectly happy to murder
innocents to do so. The net result is the current U.N. resolution that
treats a terrorist gang like a state actor whose agreement to the terms
of the resolution is required. Does no one else see the abject folly of
this behavior? But why should we be surprised, when for years we've
been treating terrorists (e.g. the PLO, now retooled as the Palestinian
Authority) like legitimate state functionaries?

And then we have the gall to proclaim, "Terrorism won't work."
Who are we kidding? It's been working for decades. How else explain
the speed with which the U.N. and the media have fastened on to this
conflict, while millions elsewhere ( Sudan , Rwanda , Congo , Tibet )
have suffered and died while the rest of the world basically yawned?
How else explain the obsession with the Palestinian Arabs and Israel
's legitimate attempts to ward off an enemy that wants to destroy it?
Anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, imperial and colonial guilt are all
factors, but the pervasive threat of terrorist violence is the key
element in the West's selective concern with one small group of
aggressors while ignoring countless other victims of genuine tyranny
and oppression. And, of course, the jihadists take our fear as an
encouraging sign that we deserve to die unless we embrace a spiritually
superior Islam.

The U.N. resolution will not solve the problem of Hezbollah. It will
simply postpone the solution. Meanwhile Hezbollah will regroup and
rearm, Syria and Iran will continue to make mischief, and the same old
useful idiots in the West will peddle the same old excuses for Islamic
dysfunction and Western appeasement.

©2006 Bruce Thornton

Bruce T. wrote:
August 13, 2006
No Resolution At All
Why the U.N. can't solve the problem of Hezbollah.
by Bruce Thornton

I don't know where you're digging up these fanastical writers, but they
are well out of touch with reality. They might be believable to somebody
who, like themselves, has been brought up on Time, Newsweek and domestic
US news, but not to anybody else.

You should get out more.


If today was flyable I would have ignored that rant, but its not and the
forecast is bad. Back to soaring and mode S.....

Bob Kuykendall wrote:
The column and row headers are in english, as are the units, but all
the numbers are in some other characters; perhaps some sort of Arabic?
(Yes, I know that Iranians consider themselves ethnically and
culturally separate from the Arab cultures in the area).

AFAIK, the Persian and Arabic cultures are entirely different, same is
true for the languages. This is not something the "Iranians consider
themselves" but a historical fact.

Wikipedia has some good overview articles if you're interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language

Regards
-Gerhard
--
Gerhard Wesp / Holderenweg 2 / CH-8134 Adliswil
+41 (0)76 505 1149 (mobile) / +41 (0)44 668 1878 (office)
+41 (0)44 668 1818 (fax)
http://gwesp.tx0.org/

Brad, thanks for the post. It sounds like you had a great weekend and
are fortunate enough to live in an area that allows you to have
terrific soaring adventures. I have been flying gliders for about 25
years but have never owned a ship and have never been more that 25
miles from the landing strip so I guess my flights would be rather
mundane for review. It's always wonderful to read about flights and
pilots that make it all seem so effortless.
I have been reading this forum for about 15 years and find it, for the
most part, full of great information brought by intelligent experienced
people. There are so many sources, these days, for political commentary
and dissent. It's always refreshing to log onto a sight where people
from all regions and backgrounds can have common ground. I guess I get
a little afraid that this will be diluted by posts from individuals
that cannot find a more appropriate source for establishing a political
dialogue or promoting a non soaring related agenda.

Brad wrote:
okay, I'll tell you about a recent flight. Saturday I flew for over 4
hours back in the mountains Saturday. Not terribly far back into the
Cascades, but far enough that staying at cloudbase and reading the
clouds correctly was the only way to make it back out to the LZ. Saw a
mature mountain goat and what appeared to be a juvenile goat perched
upon a rock spine......simply amazing, the places I've seen these
creatures.

Zipped back and forth for about 2.5 hours polishing the rocks and
snapping pictures, generally having a great time and realizing how
fortunate we are to be able to enjoy this wonderful sport.

Tell us your flying stories ok? If you have any...................

Brad
199AK


st4s03 wrote:
Who? What? Athenians and Spartans ?
Please, no more with the "cut and paste imperialisism", "bumper
sticker" "what he said" mentality . Think for yourself and leave us
alone or tell us about your last soaring adventure.

Bruce T. wrote:
Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

Surreal Rules
The difficulties of fighting in an absurdly complicated region.

By Victor Davis Hanson


Prior to September 11, the general consensus was that conventional
Middle East armies were paper tigers and that their terrorist
alternatives were best dealt with by bombing them from a distance -
as in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, east Africa, etc. - and then
letting them sort out their own rubble.

Then following 9/11, the West adopted a necessary change in strategy
that involved regime change and the need to win "hearts and minds"
to ensure something better was established in place of the deposed
dictator or theocrat. That necessitated close engagements with
terrorists in their favored urban landscape. After the last four years,
we have learned just how difficult that struggle can be, especially in
light of the type of weapons $500 billion in Middle East windfall
petroleum profits can buy, when oil went from $20 a barrel to almost
$80 over the last few years. To best deal with certain difficulties
we've encountered in these battles thus far, perhaps the United
States should adopt the following set of surreal rules of war.

1. Any death - enemy or friendly, accidental or deliberate, civilian
or soldier - favors the terrorists. The Islamists have no claim on
morality; Westerners do and show it hourly. So, in a strange way,
images of the dead and dying are attributed only to our failing. If
ours are killed, it is because those in power were not careful
(inadequate body armor, unarmored humvees, etc), most likely due to
some supposed conspiracy (Halliburton profiteering, blood for oil, wars
for Israel, etc.). When Muslim enemies are killed, whether by intent or
accidentally, the whole arsenal of Western postmodern thought comes
into play. For the United States to have such power over life and
death, the enemy appears to the world as weak, sympathetic, and
victimized; we as strong and oppressive. Terrorists are still
"constructed" as "the other" and thus are seen as suffering -
doctored photos or not - through the grim prism of Western
colonialism, racism, and imperialism.

In short, it is not just that Western public opinion won't tolerate
many losses; it won't tolerate for very long killing the enemy either
- unless the belligerents are something akin to the white, Christian
Europeans of Milosevic's Serbia, who, fortunately for NATO war
planners in the Balkans, could not seek refuge behind any politically
correct paradigm and so were bombed with impunity. Remember,
multiculturalism always trumps fascism; the worst homophobe, the
intolerant theocrat, and the woman-hating bigot is always sympathetic
if he wears some third-world garb, mouths anti-Americanism, and looks
most un-European. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or
kill.

2. All media coverage of fighting in the Middle East is ultimately
hostile - and for a variety of reasons. Since the 1960s too many
reporters have seen their mission as more than disinterested news
gathering, but rather as near missionary: they seek to counter the
advantages of the Western capitalist power structure by preparing the
news in such a way as to show us the victims of profit-making and an
affluent elite. Second, most fighting is far from home and dangerous.
Trash the U.S. military and you might suffer a bad look at a
well-stocked PX as the downside for winning the Pulitzer; trash
Hezbollah or Hamas, and you might end up headless on the side of the
road. Third, while in a southern Lebanon or the Green Zone, it is
always safer to outsource a story and photos to local stringers, whose
sympathies are usually with the enemy. A doctored photo that
exaggerates Israeli "war crimes" causes a mini-controversy for a
day or two back in the States; a doctored photo that exaggerates
Hezbollah atrocities wins an RPG in your hotel window. To win
these wars, there must be no news of them.

3. The opposition - whether an establishment figure like Howard Dean
or an activist such as Cindy Sheehan - ultimately prefers the enemy
to win. In their way of thinking, there is such a reservoir of American
strength that no enemy can ever really defeat us at home and so take
away our Starbucks' lattes, iPods, Reeboks, or 401Ks. But being
checked in "optional" wars in Iraq, or seeing Israel falter in
Lebanon, has its advantages: a George Bush and his conservatives are
humiliated; the military-industrial complex learns to be a little bit
more humble; and guilt over living in a prosperous Western suburb is
assuaged. When a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton - unlike a Nixon,
Reagan, or Bush - sends helicopters or bombs into the Middle East
desert, it is always as a last resort and with reluctance, and so can
be grudgingly supported. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat
must wage them.

4. Europeans have shown little morality, but plenty of influence,
abroad and here at home during Middle East wars. Europeans, who helped
to bomb Belgrade, now easily condemn Israel in the skies over Beirut.
They sold Saddam his bunkers and reactor, and won in exchange
sweetheart oil concessions. Iran could not build a bomb without Russian
and European machine tools. Iran is not on any serious European embargo
list; much of the off-the-shelf weaponry so critical to Hezbollah was
purchased through European arms merchants. And if they are consistent
in their willingness to do business with any tyrant, the Europeans also
know how to spread enough aid or money around to the Middle East, to
ensure some protection and a prominent role in any postwar conference.
Had we allowed eager Europeans to get in on the postbellum contracts in
Iraq, they would have muted their criticism considerably. To
win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can
always earn a profit.

5. To fight in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must
enlist China, Russia, Europe, or any nation in the Arab world to fight
its wars. China has killed tens of thousands in Tibet in a ruthless war
leading to occupation and annexation. Russia leveled Grozny and
obliterated Chechnyans. Europeans helped to bomb Belgrade, where
hundreds of civilians were lost to "collateral damage." Egyptians
gassed Yemenis; Iraqis gassed Kurds; Iraqis gassed Iranians; Syrians
murdered thousands of men, women, and children in Hama; Jordanians
slaughtered thousands of Palestinians. None received much lasting, if
any, global condemnation. In the sick moral calculus of the world's
attention span, a terrorist who commits suicide in Guantanamo Bay
always merits at least 500 dead Kurds, 1,000 Chechnyans, or 10,000
Tibetans. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to
those who can fight them with impunity.

6. Time is always an enemy. Most Westerners are oblivious to criticism
if they wake up in the morning and learn their military has bombed a
Saddam or sent a missile into Afghanistan - and the war was begun and
then ended all while they were sleeping. In contrast, 6-8 weeks -
about the length of the Balkan or Afghanistan war - is the limit of
our patience. After that, Americans become so sensitive to global
criticism that they begin to hate themselves as much as others do.
To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours - but at all
cost no more than 8 weeks.

Silly, you say, are such fanciful rules? Of course - but not as
absurd as the wars now going on in the Middle East.

- Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is the author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other, How the
Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."