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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:03 am Post subject: World War IV? |
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September 06, 2007
World War IV?
By William F. Buckley
Some set the matter aside as being nothing more than verbal play for the benefit of word-men. What term properly designates what we are doing, and what we are enduring, in many parts of the world, the symbolic center of which is the Twin Towers site in Manhattan? Sometimes the words chosen can mean the justification of an additional measure of military power. Always they calibrate the public mood and the public perception of what is going on.
I am informed that French pacifists, ensconced in the French Academy in 1939 and determined to understate Nazi military exercises (even those being done as close by as Czechoslovakia), refused to acknowledge such a creature as a "bombardier." Right, "bombardier" would have meant "bomber pilot." The pacifists were prepared to use the word bombardier, but only as the flying instrument -- an airplane from which one drops bombs. Since no such creature as a pilot who drops bombs from such an airplane was acknowledged to exist, the schoolmen of the academy at first refused to authorize that use of the word.
Norman Podhoretz, a gifted writer and analyst, does not cavil in these matters, and his new book is called "World War IV." By Podhoretz's calculations, World War II ended with the surrender of Berlin and Tokyo. This was followed by another and very serious war, which we termed the Cold War. That pretty well ended when the Soviet Union allowed the gates in Berlin to open and, two years later, abandoned the Soviet flag. But the end of World War III did not augur an end to global warfare. The new enemy is referred to in certain quarters as Islamofascism. And Podhoretz is the chief taxonomist of that awful combine.
He quotes in his book Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum. Pipes is off to a rollicking and reassuring start in what becomes the deadliest paragraph in town. Begin with our military superiority, which would appear to make victory inevitable. "Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the Gulag?"
A thoughtful answer to that question is sobering. The Islamists have:
"-- A potential access to weapons of mass destruction that could devastate Western life.
"-- A religious appeal that provides deeper resonance and greater staying power than the artificial ideologies of fascism or communism.
"-- An impressively conceptualized, funded and organized institutional machinery that successfully builds credibility, goodwill and electoral success.
"-- An ideology capable of appealing to Muslims of every size and shape, from Lumpenproletariat to privileged, from illiterates to Ph.D.s, from the well-adjusted to psychopaths, from Yemenis to Canadians."
Add to the above "a huge number of committed cadres. If Islamists constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the Muslim population worldwide, they number some 125 million to 200 million persons, or a far greater total than all the fascists and communists, combined, who ever lived."
Recognition, then, of the scale of the pretensions of the Islamist enemy has to precede substantial measures against it. In the matter of Iraq, for instance, the ambiguity of our engagement and the enlarging political cry against it would alter dramatically if one accepted the premises of the Fourth World War so ineluctably spelled out in Podhoretz's little volume, which takes time here and there to demolish such arguments as were mounted in protest against President Bush's mention in his 2003 State of the Union address of yellowcake hunting in Niger.
Those critics who insist that it is only a small war-party faction of the Islamists that we have to fear might have been asked a generation ago if it was not merely a small number of Germans and Russians we were properly exercised about. Sixty million people were dead after that misreckoning.
Copyright 2007 Universal Press Syndicate
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/09/world_war_iv.html at September 06, 2007 - 10:22:05 AM CDT |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:08 am Post subject: |
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Its not a war. Its an international police action.
The 10-15% are divided and have not the means to organize quite well. Lets strangle them from money and win through intelligence. Bombing doesn't work so well. Investigative work pays dividends. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:10 am Post subject: |
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It is both a war and a police action. the problem with the international part is that often the US cant' count of much of the international communty in this.
Anything that works is ok.
The threat of bombing would work better if the US had better weapons. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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| The 10-15% are divided and have not the means to organize quite well. |
Exactly. The so-called Islamicists are nowhere near launching an Operation Barbarossa against the west. More like an ongoing, neverending Night Of The Long Knives against themselves, and with no meaningful victories on either side. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:22 am Post subject: |
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they have different means of war.
it is an organzied and incited effort against the US by many.
It is a war different in someways than other wars but it is a war.
Why is it that it a war has to be between two states? |
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safeblad
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 10:45 am Post subject: |
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the safeblad list of world wars
seven years war= world war 1
napoleonic wars =ww2
ww1=ww3
ww2=ww4
the cold war wasnt actually a war so doesnt make my list despite any proxy actions
but as joo asks 'why does war have to be between two state's i might as well have
the war on drugs = ww5
war on terror = ww6
up next the war against obesity |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| safeblad wrote: |
the safeblad list of world wars
seven years war= world war 1
napoleonic wars =ww2
ww1=ww3
ww2=ww4
the cold war wasnt actually a war so doesnt make my list despite any proxy actions
but as joo asks 'why does war have to be between two state's i might as well have
the war on drugs = ww5
war on terror = ww6
up next the war against obesity |
I think the cold war was world war III. War take different forms.
Well if you wanna you could just call it a war on Bathists , Khomeni followers and Al Qadists.
There is another term but it is offensive and hits too many people not involved in the war so it I don't think it is perfect - and I don't really like it but it also covers the enemy.
I won't use it here but part of the term is fascism. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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At any rate the next battlefield in the war is Eritrea.
I expect Ethiopia will come out on top with a large land grab into Eritrea and of course domination of Somalia.
So yes this is a world war with many important players on the sidelines.
I expect China to chum up with Libya on the Sudan issue. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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Fighting what they hope will be never ending wars against an always changing enemy
i betcha Joo even knows this Zionist-shill personally ... 
ISLAMO-FASCIST AWARENESS WEEK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYtB5oLiSt4&feature=dir |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:45 am Post subject: |
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It is undeniable that for decades some people have been hijacking ships and planes, lobbing home-made bombs into bars and pizza restaurants and kidnapping bus-loads of people.
It is a serious problem, but it is only one of many. I believe dealing with the problem should not be the central organizing principle for any country's foreign policy.
Calling it World War IV is hyperbole, designed to sell books, not clarify the issue. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:19 am Post subject: |
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| safeblad wrote: |
the safeblad list of world wars
seven years war= world war 1
napoleonic wars =ww2
ww1=ww3
ww2=ww4
the cold war wasnt actually a war so doesnt make my list despite any proxy actions
but as joo asks 'why does war have to be between two state's i might as well have
the war on drugs = ww5
war on terror = ww6
up next the war against obesity |
excepty that US enemies in the mid east incite violence and teach hate as a tactic.
Safeblad
| Quote: |
| but as joo asks 'why does war have to be between two state's i might as well have |
Anway you wanna see your whole theory go up in smoke? Watch
Is Hizzbollah a state?
What would you call what happened between Israel and Hizzbollah in 2006?
Yep your whole theory/ argument just went up in smoke.
Last edited by Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee on Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:10 am; edited 1 time in total |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| ... excepty that US enemies in the mid east incite violence and teach hate as a tactic. |
How is "HATE" a tactic in itself? |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:24 am Post subject: |
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The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there ?a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.
The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government ?and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen ?got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about. |
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safeblad
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
Anway you wanna see your whole theory go up in smoke? Watch
Is Hizzbollah a state?
What would you call what happened between Israel and Hizzbollah in 2006?
Yep your whole theory/ argument just went up in smoke. |
World War 8? |
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safeblad
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Just for the record I was never denying that a war cannot occur between forces that exist outside of traditional state roles. I just think that people are getting a little overexcited in their labeling of conflicts considering the title of this thread. |
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