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The Middle Finger to History: Ignoring The Islamic State


Geee

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the-middle-finger-to-history-ignoring-the-islamic-stateThe Federalist:

The years between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, became known as the “Holiday from History,” a period in which America thought it could withdraw from the burdens of engagement with the world and focus on the pursuit of domestic prosperity and other really important issues like Bill Clinton’s sex life.

 

It was foolish, of course, as we discovered one Tuesday morning when the world came crashing back into our lives.

 

Which makes what we’re doing right now that much worse. America is engaged in a similar but even more stubborn and blinkered withdrawal. The Holiday from History at least had some plausibility, even if it seems like a fantasy in hindsight. We really had driven the Soviet Union into the ground. Free markets, individual rights, and representative government really were gaining wider acceptance as an international consensus for the best way to organize a society. We simply got carried away and underestimated the coming backlash from Islamic obscurantists and resentful Russian nationalists, as well as the tenacity of regimes like China which were building a new model for post-Communist dictatorship.

Today, there are no grounds for such an illusion. We are withdrawing from the world, throwing up our hands and declaring it outside our concern, even as one disaster after another screams out for our attention.

This isn’t a Holiday from History. This is a Middle Finger to History. It’s a petulant, willful refusal to take the world seriously.


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Why the U.S. Should Take Seriously This Terrorist Group’s Threats

 

The United States should pay attention to the threats from Somalia-based terror group al-Shabaab.

 

On Jan. 31, al-Shabaab lost high level commander Yusef Dheeq and 45 other al-Shabaab militants in a drone strike. Less than a month later, on Feb. 21, the group released a propaganda video calling for western-based extremists to “target the disbelievers wherever they are.”

 

The British-accented spokesman proposed hypothetical attacks on some of the largest malls and shopping areas in the west, highlighting the late September 2013 attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya as an example. The list of al-Shabaab targets includes the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, Oxford High Street in London, any of the Jewish-owned Westfield malls and even the Mall of America in Minnesota.

 

This latest provocation by al-Shabaab indicates the Islamist extremist group still poses a threat to the United States and its interests.Scissors-32x32.png

 

http://dailysignal.com/2015/02/27/u-s-take-seriously-terrorist-groups-threats/

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@Geee

 

 

On the right, it comes in the form of a desire to use military force to deal with the Islamic State, through a more vigorous campaign of air strikes and even through the use of special forces on the ground. But having destroyed them militarily, we should return home and warn our enemies not to do it again.

 

This is becoming the standard post-Iraq-War position on the right: they’re hawkish and all in favor of using military force—but on a swift, clean, in-and-out, one-time basis. Nothing long and messy.

 

 

Not all of us! Some of us understand it's 14 hours flying time from Kabul to Knoxville. That the world is a very small interconnected place, and getting more so all the time.

 

Also I think to many people see WWII as the model we should use in this war...this leads to a fundamental misunderstanding of just what kind of war this is, and how to fight it.

 

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
by John A. Nagl, Peter J. Schoomaker (Foreword)

 

 

Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice
John A. Nagl

 

The Savage Wars Of Peace: Small Wars And The Rise Of American Power
Max Boot

 

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One
David Kilcullen

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