THE FACES OF DENIAL

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THE FACES OF DENIAL

By RALPH PETERS

October 24, 2004 -- EUROPEANS insist that the United States overreacted to 9/11. Conde scendingly, they observe that they've been dealing with terror ism successfully for three dec ades, that it can be managed, that life goes on.

They're wrong.

What Europeans fail to grasp — what they willfully refuse to face — is that the nature of terrorism has changed.

The alphabet-soup terrorists of the past — the IRA, ETA, PLO, RAF and the rest — were essentially political organizations with political goals. No matter how brutal their actions or unrealistic their hopes, their common intent was to change a system of government, either to gain a people's independence or to force their ideology on society.

The old-school terrorists that Europe survived did not seek death, although they were sometimes willing to die for their causes. None were suicide bombers, although a few committed suicide in prison to make a political statement.

Crucially, their goals were of this earth. All would have preferred to survive to rule in a government that they controlled.

Now we face terrorists who regard death as a promotion — who reject secular ideologies and believe themselves to be instruments of their god's will.

Indeed, they hope to nudge their god along, to convince him through their actions that the final struggle between faith and infidelity is at hand. While they'd like to see certain changes here on earth — the destruction of Israel, of the United States, of the West, of unbelievers and heretics everywhere — their longed-for destination is paradise beyond the grave.

THE new terrorists are vastly more dangerous, more implacable and crueler than the old models. The political terrorists of the 1970s and '80s used bloodshed to gain their goals. Religious terrorists see mass murder as an end in itself, as a purifying act that cleanses the world of infidels. They don't place their bombs for political leverage, but to kill as many innocent human beings as possible. Yesteryear's murderers of European politicians and businessmen by the old crowd seem almost mannerly compared to today's religion-fueled terrorists, who openly rejoice in decapitating their living victims in front of cameras.

 

When political terrorists hijacked airplanes, they hoped to draw attention to their cause. When Islamic terrorists seize passenger jets, they do it to kill as many people as possible.

The old terrorists were sometimes so rabid that they had to be killed or imprisoned. But others became negotiating partners for governments. From Yasser Arafat to Gerry Adams, some gained international respectability. (It even may be argued that Adams became part of the solution, rather than simply remaining part of the problem.)

For today's apocalyptic terrorists, negotiations are no more than a tool to be used in extreme situations, to allow them to live to kill again another day. And no promises made to infidels need be honored.

The Islamic terrorists we now face will never become statesmen. They wish to shed our blood to fortify their faith, to impose their beliefs upon the world, to placate a vengeful god.

That doesn't offer much room for polite diplomacy. Islamic terrorists have reverted to the most primitive of religious practices: human sacrifice. Their brand of Islam is no "religion of peace." They're Aztecs without the art. And it takes a Cortez to deal with them.

Europeans' experience of negotiating with political terrorists has allowed them to deceive themselves into a false sense of security. Forgetting the pain inflicted on their societies by tiny bands of assassins (whether the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Red Brigades or the IRA-Provos), Europeans refuse to imagine what tens of thousands of fanatics bent on destruction might do if not faced down with courage and resolution.

It wasn't the United States that didn't "get" 9/11. It was the Europeans, anxious that their comfortable slumber not be disturbed. They insist that terrorism remains a law-enforcement problem, refusing even to consider that we might face a broad, complex, psychotic threat spawned by a failed civilization.

EUROPE will pay. And the price in the coming years will be much higher than any paid by the United States. Europe, not North America, is the vulnerable continent. Our homeland-security efforts, unfairly derided at home and abroad, are making our country markedly safer. Yes, we will be struck again. But "Old Europe" is going to be hit again, and again, and again.

American Muslims not only become citizens — they become good citizens. Despite the assimilation hurdles that face every new group of immigrants, our Muslims have opportunity and hope. A disaffected few may make headlines, but American Muslims overwhelmingly support their new country and do not wish it harm. They see no contradiction between faith in their god and faith in America. Our worries are their worries, and their dreams are our dreams.

Europe is another, grimmer story. Not a single European state — not even the United Kingdom — has successfully integrated its Muslim minority into mainstream society.

While the United Kingdom has done the best job, countries such as France and Germany have time-bombs in their midst, large, excluded Muslim populations that the native majority regard as hopelessly inferior. If you want to see bigotry alive and well, visit "Old Europe."

It wasn't a random choice on the part of the 9/11 terrorists that led them to do so much of their preparation in Europe. They know that American-Muslim communities won't offer hospitality to terrorists. But Germany, France, Spain and neighboring states contain embittered Islamic communities glad to see any part of the West get the punishment it "deserves."

As the United States becomes ever harder to strike — and as we respond so fiercely to those attacks that succeed — soft Europe, with its proximity to the Muslim world, its indigestible Muslim communities and its moral fecklessness, is likely to become the key Western battleground in the Islamic extremists' war against civilization.

Europeans don't want it to be so. But they are not going to get a choice.

Europeans are simply in denial. They've lived so well for so long that they don't want the siesta from reality to end. One of the many reasons that continental Europeans reacted so angrily to our liberation of Iraq was that it made it harder than ever for them to sustain their myth of a benign world in which peace could be purchased and the government welfare checks would never stop coming.

America's crime was to acknowledge reality. It will be a long time before Europeans forgive us.

IN many ways, the civilizations of North America and Europe are diverging. Eu rope has a crisis of values behind its failure of will. Their anxiety to tell everyone else what to do reflects their own uncertainty. Corrupt, selfish and cowardly, old Europe has fallen to moral lows not seen since 1945.

The one factor that will finally bring us closer again is terrorism.

In this horrid election year, we've heard endless complaints that Washington needs allies. Of course, we already have many allies. The old-thinkers just mean France and Germany. But the truth is that France and Germany — weak, blind, duplicitous and inept — will need us far more than we could ever need them.

The nature of terrorism has changed profoundly. It's no longer about ideology, but about slaughter for its own sake. Nothing we could do would placate these terrorists. They must be fought and destroyed, no matter how many decades that requires. For Europe to pretend otherwise harms the general counter-terror effort. But, above all, it sets Europe up for calamity.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32491.htm

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The Face of Denial

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19620/

The Billion-dollar Corporate Expense Account

Halliburton has been the biggest beneficiary of the CPA and Pentagon's liberal spending policies – the company alone got $3.9 billion last year to repair oil fields and provide food, laundry, sanitation and transportation services to the military.

Where did the money go? Whistle-blowers from the company have sent testimony to Congress detailing the many wasteful practices: paying $100 for a bag of laundry; abandoning $85,000 trucks for the lack of a spare tire. Meanwhile, other companies like Science Applications International Corporation of San Diego were shipping armored Humvees for company executives on specially chartered jets and paying themselves $200 an hour to run a U.S. propaganda television station that no one was watching.

An internal Pentagon audit completed two weeks ago and reported in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month found that Halliburton failed to adequately account for "more than $1.8 billion" it has received so far for providing logistical support to troops in Iraq and Kuwait.

When challenged by military auditors to account for its missing equipment and receipts, the Houston-based Halliburton told the Pentagon that it did not have enough staff to keep track of the $400 million it was spending in Iraq – an explanation that the Defense Department was surprisingly quick to accept. Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for the Army Materiel Command, told reporters, "It was the pace. It was the magnitude of this contract."

In statements to the press, on the other hand, Halliburton flatly denies any problems with its accounting procedures. Randy Harl, president of Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that conducts the work in Iraq, said, "In general, we have found that the subcontractors are properly billing on the basis provided in the subcontracts. We are operating in a remote, hostile and ever-changing environment in Iraq. In such an environment, there are bound to be challenges. Any issues related to billings will not only be resolved quickly and responsibly, but also resolved in such a way that it will not affect any services provided to our soldiers."

But in written testimony submitted to Congress, Halliburton's own auditor, Marie de Young, revealed that the company's internal auditors (nicknamed the "Tiger Team") were not doing their job properly. De Young, who was hired in December 2003 to help oversee Operation Iraqi Freedom contracts, told Congress:

When the Tiger Team examined a subcontract, they just checked to make sure that all the forms were in the file. ... They didn't assess the reasonableness of the price or consult with site managers. The team's sole purpose was to close as many subcontracts as possible, under the mistaken assumption that everything that was closed prior to the arrival of the government audit team would be exempt from further scrutiny.

De Young also made clear the company's intentions: "I had been advised by subcontract administrators who quit the company that employees get moved around when they get too close to the truth. ... Ironically, other previous managers who tolerated bad practices were promoted to better paying jobs in Iraq or Houston or Jordan."

The final touch of irony: Halliburton housed the Tiger Team at the five-star Kempinski Hotel in Kuwait, paying each of them a whopping $10,000 per month for their troubles. At the time, U.S. soldiers were required to live in tents at a cost of $1.39 a day. When the military asked Halliburton employees to move into the tents, they refused.

[AURaptor 1,125]

Halliburton is getting paid to do what a) needs to be done and B ) no one else can do. Geee..that sounds SOOOOOOOO evil! That folks get paid for doing work! Horrors!

[DKW 86 7,433]

We really should be asking the libs about Global Crossing. But then again, everything done by a Clinton Crony is absolutley perfect and totally above board.

Yeah, right

You will never get BF nor anyone from the Left to honestly address Global Crossing and the raping their shareholders took. No, Not ever

[Bottomfeeder 244]

We really should be asking the libs about Global Crossing. But then again, everything done by a Clinton Crony is absolutley perfect and totally above board.

Yeah, right

You will never get BF nor anyone from the Left to honestly address Global Crossing and the raping their shareholders took. No, Not ever

114372[/snapback]

Hey,

I'm open-minded and hate theft just like the next guy. Heck, convince me why I should vote for Bush, because in reality I'm still undecided.

BF

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

You should vote for Bush because his heart is in the right place and he is genuine. Yes he has made some mistakes and I don't agree blindly with him. If I thought Kerry would be the real Pres. if elected it would be one thing. But I believe with all my heart that if Kerry is elected then Teresa will be the real Pres. and we will see a major push toward socialism. JMHO.

-------------------------------------

We really should be asking the libs about Global Crossing. But then again, everything done by a Clinton Crony is absolutley perfect and totally above board.

Yeah, right

You will never get BF nor anyone from the Left to honestly address Global Crossing and the raping their shareholders took. No, Not ever

114372[/snapback]

Hey,

I'm open-minded and hate theft just like the next guy. Heck, convince me why I should vote for Bush, because in reality I'm still undecided.

BF

114400[/snapback]

[DKW 86 7,433]

We really should be asking the libs about Global Crossing. But then again, everything done by a Clinton Crony is absolutley perfect and totally above board.

Yeah, right

You will never get BF nor anyone from the Left to honestly address Global Crossing and the raping their shareholders took. No, Not ever

114372[/snapback]

Hey,

I'm open-minded and hate theft just like the next guy. Heck, convince me why I should vote for Bush, because in reality I'm still undecided.

BF

114400[/snapback]

Thank you for proving my point. If you, Mr. Information Overkill here, will not even acknowledge that Clinton and McAulliffe raped several million investors by bankrupting an American Internet company in China. Where do you think McAulliffe got all his millions? He now basically owns the Democratic Party. After bankrupting a company worth in the hundreds of billions it was sold off to China for about $.10 on the dollar, well below anyone's estimate of its worth.

Yes folks, BF just outed himself as very much a Liberal and a closed minded one at that.

[Bottomfeeder 244]

We really should be asking the libs about Global Crossing. But then again, everything done by a Clinton Crony is absolutley perfect and totally above board.

Yeah, right

You will never get BF nor anyone from the Left to honestly address Global Crossing and the raping their shareholders took. No, Not ever

114372[/snapback]

Hey,

I'm open-minded and hate theft just like the next guy. Heck, convince me why I should vote for Bush, because in reality I'm still undecided.

BF

114400[/snapback]

Thank you for proving my point. If you, Mr. Information Overkill here, will not even acknowledge that Clinton and McAulliffe raped several million investors by bankrupting an American Internet company in China. Where do you think McAulliffe got all his millions? He now basically owns the Democratic Party. After bankrupting a company worth in the hundreds of billions it was sold off to China for about $.10 on the dollar, well below anyone's estimate of its worth.

Yes folks, BF just outed himself as very much a Liberal and a closed minded one at that.

114553[/snapback]

Sure I believe that McAullife is corrupt along with most every politician in D.C. with the exception of Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.). He is the only true blue American in D.C. I'm sorry you still believe I am too close-minded to accept properly documented information related to backing Bush. If bush were really running the country instead of Cheney, the, perhaps, things would be different. Possibly, there would notm exist a blood stain on our White House door. MAybe, Bush adn Co. could have stood down on attacking Iraq and killing thousands of innocent people in the process of fulfilling prophecy, or so they think.

We, as a nation under capitalism, have managed to plunder the natural resources of many countries perpetuating their poverty and enriching stockholders and CEOs. No wonder the rest of the world hates us, we steal. By militray force we take what we want in excess of what we need. Call it the spoils of war or whatever, I call it militaristic capitalism, I mean, facism.

Give the Free Market a Chance? Never Mind!

Facist State of America

Until George Bush issues an executive order abolishing the income tax and the Federal Reserve, he is part of the SOCIO-capitalist problem we face in America. Corporations love to take our tax dollars in the form of "tax breaks," which puts the tax burden more on the individaul, and "bailouts" which perpetautes poor management practices both in and out of government. It's seems both sides of the isle are guilty of this endeavor, just different in their approaches. While less government control would be the holygrail of liberty, we still have the "communist manifesto" as the mantra for our current system. Of the two, G.W.B. seems to be the greater of the two evils, while Bush has no earthly idea where he stands because he is so clueless. For someone who graduated from Yale, he sure seems stupid, don't ya think? "Internets," so plainly put. I mean, he said with his heart, like it was a real word. What an idiot.

What is 'Libertarian'[

How much liberty is good for the individual?

How much government do we need?

The libertarian, or "classical liberal," perspective is that individual well-being, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by "as much liberty as possible" and "as little government as necessary."

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Possibly, there would notm exist a blood stain on our White House door. MAybe, Bush adn Co. could have stood down on attacking Iraq and killing thousands of innocent people in the process of fulfilling prophecy, or so they think.

Where is the evidence of that Democrat lie above. Let's see some documentation.

Properly documented information? Give me a break you spout off your BS nonstop and then want to call anyone out for properly documented information, unbelievable.