Jay P. Hailey wrote: > Have you ever seen any other columnist try to understand who we're > fighting > and how they think?
Yup. Usually the other columnists succeed. Partly because they take the time and bother to actually talk to some of the people they are writing about. The few points of "fact" less that 1,000 years old that he tries to cite are wrong. The military is not releasing enemy body counts, much less "touting" them. Most of the people we are "picking off" are non-Iraqis and Sunnis. And the people of Iraq--particularly the Shi'ites" have very definitively expressed their will by voting. All that's left for the naysayers is to speculate that the people and their erstwhile leaders are too dumb to know what happened in Iran and therefore are eager to repeat it. Understanding something means that when you make predictions about something (I just noticed the date is 5 months ago), you don't get it catastrophically wrong. Ah well. Hope for the defeat of the US springs eternal.... Lowell C. Savage It's the freedom, stupid! Gun control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly. > http://www.exile.ru/2004-September-13/war_nerd.html > > SHI'ITE! HOLY SHI'ITE! > By Gary Brecher > > We've been fighting the Shi'ites for months now, and nobody seems to want > to > ask the obvious question: who are these loonies, anyway? > > Well, for starters, there's that embarrassing name, "Shi'ite." I can't > help > it > if it reminds me every time I see it of a certain four-letter word. But > that's > not their fault either. I don't claim to speak Arabic -- my Spanish isn't > even > that good -- but from what I've read, in Arabic, "shiat" means something > like > "party," as in political party, and "Shi'ite" is short for "Shiat Ali," > which > means "the Party of Ali." > > Ali was Muhammad's adopted son. He saved the Prophet's life and became his > favorite. Muhammad even gave Ali his favorite daughter, Fatima. But the > most > important thing to remember about Ali is -- he lost. And Ali's son Husain, > another loser, was killed in battle charging the Caliph's whole army with > a > few > friends -- a couple dozen riders against a horde. > > To us, that's just stupid. To the Shi'ites, it's glorious. That's what's > hardest for Americans to understand about the Shia: they don't think > winning > is > everything. It'd be closer to the truth to say that they think losing is > everything, that losing is a sign of being in the right. > > The point is, they don't think like us. A whole lot of what's gone wrong > in > Iraq comes from thinking that everybody in the world wants to be like us. > That's just plain wrong. Hell, I'm not sure I even want to be like us. And > I > know for certain the Shi'ites don't. > > We believe in winning. Remember the beginning of Patton, when George C. > Scott > stands up in dress uniform and says, "No son-of-a-bitch ever won a war by > dying > for his country -- he won it by making some other poor son-of-a-bitch die > for > HIS country"? That sounds pretty obvious to us, but it's not the only way > you > can think about war. > > In fact I'd say Patton (Patton in the movie, not the real Patton) is > wrong. > You > can kill twenty of the enemy for every guy you lose -- and still lose the > war. > That's what happened to us in Nam. We made a million or so of them die for > their country, vs. 60,000 of us, and still lost. The British killed dozens > of > Kikuyu for every settler or soldier they lost fighting the Mau-Mau, and > they > still got run out of Kenya. Body count is the WORST way to figure out > who's > winning a guerrilla war. > > If the Shi'ites wrote the script for Patton, George C. Scott would get up > and > say something like, "Go ahead and kill us -- you'll be sorry!" We're > talking > about a martyr culture here, where dying makes you stronger. You know, > that > shouldn't be so hard for us to get, because we've got Christ, who won by > losing, by dying. But that was a long time ago, and it's so prettified by > now > that Mel Gibson had to make a whole movie to remind people that martyrdom > actually hurts. [picture] > > The Shi'ites' martyrs are a lot more recent. Their favorite disaster > happened > in 680 AD, at the battle of Karbala. Yup, THAT Karbala -- the same city > where > we've been fighting Shi'ites for the last few months. Karbala means > "anguish." > That should tell you something about the way Shi'ites see the world, that > they > named one of their holiest cities after something we'd call "clinical > depression." They're not smiley-face optimists. If a Shi'ite coached your > kid's > soccer team, he'd start every practice with a video of the team's biggest > defeat: "Yet again we see Jason missing the goal! Truly we AM/PM Minimart > Big > Gulps are out of the playoffs forever and a day!" > > For the Shi'ites, the battle of Karbala is like Christ's crucifixion and > the > Alamo, all rolled into one: a doomed last stand with God on the losers' > side. > Karbala was a fight over leadership, the kind you get when an empire based > on > one man has to deal with that man's death. Muhammad's armies blasted out > of > the > desert in the early seventh century and ended up in control of most of the > Middle East. When he died, he left a power vacuum like a black hole > centered > on > Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic world. The winner would become > "Caliph" -- > a pretty cushy job, sort of like Pope and Emperor rolled into one, with > total > control over everything, religion and government both. > > With that kind of power at stake, the feuding got pretty intense. Ali got > himself assassinated, which was a tradition for Caliphs -- life insurance > salesmen ran from Caliphs like they were motocross riders. His killers, a > rich, > mean clan called the Umayyads grabbed the Caliphate. This is the key > moment > for > the Shi'ites. The Umayyads won, Ali's family lost. It's time to face > facts, > right? You can't argue with success, right? > > Wrong. The whole Shia psychology is that you CAN argue with success, and > you > DON'T have to face facts. Ali's son, Husain, stayed calm when the Umayyad > killed his dad; he even accepted the first Umayyad Caliph. But when that > Caliph > died and the Caliphate went to another Umayyad, Husain realized he had to > take > back the Caliphate or die trying. Husain was riding to a rendezvous with > some > rebels with only about 30 men guarding him when he found himself facing > the > Caliph's whole army near Karbala. > > Victory was impossible. Escape was impossible. So Husain did what any > red-blooded boy would do: he charged. And naturally, the Caliph's soldiers > did > a Benihana on Husain and his men. > > That's the key moment for Shi'ites. The way they see, everything that > happened > after Husain's martyrdom is sleazy, dirty, worthless. The real world is > trash; > the only good people are the martyrs. In Shia culture, you ain't nobody > till > you're dead. The world won't be worth living in until the return of the > "Mahdi," the messiah. (You may remember that Sadr's posse is called the > "Mahdi > Army.") The Shia are the Travis Bickles of Islam: "someday a real rain > will > come, to wash the scum off the streets," and if they can help it along > with > a > car bomb or two, so much the better. > > They have a huge death wish, so naturally their holiest places are tombs. > That's why Shi'ites make that pilgrimage to Karbala, to visit the tomb of > Husain. Shi'ites commemorate Husain getting himself sliced and diced for > ten > days every year, slashing themselves with knives and bashing themselves > with > chains to celebrate that glorious defeat. Ayatollah Khomeini, the biggest > Shi'ite hero of the 20th century, used to preach "Every day is the > anniversary > of the battle, and every place is Karbala." The inspirational message was: > wherever you are, go get yourself massacred. What are you doing sitting > around > breathing? Why ain't you out there getting slaughtered, you lazy godless > bum? > > And these are the people we're picking off one by one, then bragging about > body > counts. Still wonder why the war's going so badly? > > At the moment, Sadr and the Mahdi-ettes are withdrawing, and Bush's PR > guys > are > claiming Sadr's going into politics to play nice. You have to wonder if > they > really believe that. I hope not; I hope they're not really that dumb. > > Any guerrilla war has lulls, slowdowns, little coffee breaks that last a > week, > a month, sometimes years. It doesn't mean the war's over. The VC used to > go > home when it was time to harvest the rice crop; every time they did, the > Saigon > PR office would declare that the insurgency was beaten. Sadr and his boys > are > going to work us the way you work a can lid: back and forth, over and > over, > sheer metal fatigue. They've got a whole new crop of martyrs to worship, > and > all they have to do is wait for another policy mistake to outrage all > their > followers. One thing you can be sure of, if you're an Iraqi Shiite: > outrages > are like buses, there'll always be another one coming along. When it > arrives, > they'll get on board, fight us again, lose again, win the propaganda > battle > again, and come back a little stronger, with more of the Shi'ite poor on > their > side. After a half dozen lost battles, they'll be so strong we'll be glad > to > catch the last chopper out of Najaf and let'em martyr each other, instead > of > paying hundreds of billions of my tax money to be their Santa-Claus > bogeyman. > > > -- > Jay P Hailey ~Meow!~ > MSNIM - jayphailey ; > AIM -jayphailey03; > ICQ - 37959005 > HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com > > "That's awful! That's terrible! I'm impressed!"--Tom > > > > _______________________________________________ > Libnw mailing list > [email protected] > List info and subscriber options: > http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw > Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [email protected] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
