‘The Surge Won’t Work, But Concentration Camps Might Do The Trick’
History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. In assessing manning needs for Iraq, one would do well to look to prior conflicts of similar nature… one might look especially to the Boer War, in which a fractious, semi-fanatical culture was slowly ground into submission by an occupying force — several years after the seeming success of the initial invasion. If it sounds familiar, it should: and so the means of victory there offer an instructive thought experiment for Iraq today.
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women and children, the rules of engagement were lax. From implementation to victory took under 18 months. To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.
[My emphasis; batshit Nazified desires from the heart of darkness in original.]
And just think, if he wasn’t too crazy for the Army as well as a shitbird boy, he could spearhead the stormtrooper job with his cool lightsaber!
Anyway, great, Tacky: With your latest suggestion, you’ve just equalled Adam “Put them in human-sized microwaves” Yoshida in the great ‘Flagrant Displays of Psychopathy’ contest so many wingnuts have entered.
Bradrocket adds: Hey, but at least he doesn’t use filthy language. That makes him a perfect candidate to be a regular columnist at Time.
Of course he’s made the same suggestion before, but it was when I was away from blogging. IIRC, he then also added the American operation against the Filipinos during the Spanish-American war as a historical model to follow. That bit of depravity, which horrified Mark Twain among many other decent Americans, featured the ‘water torture’ as prefered way of dealing with prisoners, and outright genocide — whole villages were wiped from the earth.
No wonder Hugh Hewitt invited this Nazi bastard Trevino to guest blog.
I suppose this might be one way to convert the last Bush supporters.
“To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.”
Of which I cannot be one of because I have to put new batteries in my remote and then drink some flat Mountain Dew … for the next 10 years.
“I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war.”
Yet despite this, Stalin does not send me Christmas cards from hell.
… to eschew them is folly.
Or to eschew them while talking … the bacon bits and Thousand Islands dressing tend to get stuck in your beard.
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly.
And fly those planes into those God-damned towers pronto, because we must…Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly![excalmation point added for empahsis] In’sallah
Why is it all these cruelty-torture-war loving bastards look like contenders for the Beauty and the Geek show?
Added. His “bio”
…I’m not sure that’s going to work with a billion people over a few million square miles.
Hell, I don’t see how that would work with 6 million people in an area of 200 sq. km.
“exclamation point.”
Praise be my fellow rightwing ulta-conservative, religious genocidal wingnuts. May we all party together in Hell!
Can someone please tell me why the wingnuts are so eager to have America become the reanimated zombie of the British empire? Please? Is there some book somewhere that says that all that empire stuff worked out really great for Britain? Where on earth do they get these crazy ideas from? Is there some holdout of the world where honest-to-God racist imperialism is still considered chic? Like an enclave of historians dressed in white linen suits sporting muttonchops, drinking tea and tut-tutting over the dreadfully lazy nature of the coolies on their tea plantations? When did Gunga Din become a porn flick?
These are the things I wonder about at five in the morning when I haven’t slept well. Please excuse their somewhat incoherent nature.
Is it to early to joke about forgetting me?
Well, generally, if you’re well adjusted and stable you can manage to look well adjusted and stable. Is he offering to do this shit to people personally? I’m not even American, and this guy’s frothing eagerness to finally drown any good reputation the USA has left makes me want to garrotte him. If only there was some bloody logic cut-in in people like this – “would I do what i advocate, and or would I want it, were the roles reversed, done to me/my country/my whoandwhatever else I’m suggesting victimising?” Because that’s just basic humanity, for fuck sake.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
What, Ash Plant? Hah, Tacky’s a Christian — just ask him! Why would you think he’d give a shit about ‘doing unto others..’?
The interests and joys of mass murder always supercedes Christ’s admonishments, for such people.
But you’re right. What I mean is not that Xtians always must be pacifist, but that Tacky’s such a goddamned American Exceptionalist the Manicheanism of the concept has infected him to such a degree that he would — and now has — cheerfully endorsed any depravity on the grounds that it’s not evil and soul-destroying so long as America does it.
Like the wits above demonstrate, Tacky will readily have the United States become morally equivalent to al-qaida and be completely oblivious to that pathetic fact when called on it.
It’s the same logic that says other wicked leaders should be sent to the Hague, but not ours; some countries deserved ajudication by the ICC, but not US.
Murder is murder; genocide is genocide. Applied to people, the very American concept of equal justice ensures that the identity of the murdered has no effect on his punishment. Tacky the fascist doesn’t think this concept should extend to countries because if the war criminal country says its war crimes were done in the name of ‘freedom and democracy’ then it’s not, in fact, commited war crimes at all, whatever its actions! QED!
finally drown any good reputation the USA has left
The US lost any good reputation it had the day it first voted George Bush in.
“”” History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. “”
Yeah… like learning what the word parallel means…
http://www.attytood.com/2007/01/eday_it_was_40_years_ago_today.html
“”” History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. “”
Yeah… like learning what the word parallel means…
Attytood: It was 40 years ago today
Okay, someone remind me again: To what end goal are we striving to achieve in Iraq in which “cruel things in war” are justified?
Okay, someone remind me again: To what end goal are we striving to achieve in Iraq in which “cruel things in war� are justified?
========================
Wank fodder for Chickenshit rat-fucking Bushie bigots.
Cruel, barbaric behavior is guaranteed to work as a war-time tactic. Look at how NAZI barbarism and countless attrocities broke the will of Soviet citizens and convinced them to lay-down their arms and surrender at Stalingrad!
Cruel, barbaric behavior is guaranteed to work as a war-time tactic. Look at how NAZI barbarism and countless attrocities broke the will of Soviet citizens and convinced them to lay-down their arms and surrender at Stalingrad!
Or indeed the oft-mentioned 11/09/01. OBL even provided a cheat sheet for that one, which moved the Bush administration so much that they publicly apologised to the entire universe and pulled all their soldiers back home.
Okay, someone remind me again: To what end goal are we striving to achieve in Iraq in which “cruel things in war� are justified?
A peaceful, civilized society in Iraq, of course.
But, but, Retardo, to eschew concentration camps is folly!
There has to be a connection between his geeky pomposity and his viciousness.
Steve, I thought the goal was to turn Iraq into Hotbed of Terrorists so we can fight them over there instead of here AND turn Iraq into a peaceful Freedom-loving Democracy?
Okay, someone remind me again: To what end goal are we striving to achieve in Iraq in which “cruel things in war� are justified?
Why, freedom for Iraqis, of course. Only when they’re decomposing are they truly free.
Amusingly, Mr. Trevino doesn’t seem to know much about the aftermath of said Boer war:
“However, public support quickly waned as it became apparent that the war would not be easy and it dragged on, partially contributing to the Conservatives’ spectacular defeat in 1906. There was public outrage at the use of scorched earth tactics — the burning of Boer homesteads, for example — and the conditions in the concentration camps. It also became apparent that there were serious problems with public health: up to 40% of recruits were unfit for military service, suffering from medical problems such as rickets and other poverty-related illnesses. This came at a time of increasing concern for the state of the poor in Britain.”
Amusingly, Mr. Trevino doesn’t seem to know much about the aftermath of said Boer war:
Yes, this was the first thing I thought of too- certainly Trevino’s love of cruelty is rather disgusting, but more to the point, if the Boer War was such a victory for the British Empire, then why aren’t the British in control of South Africa today? I don’t know the history of South Africa at all, but it does appear that the British lost control of it at some point, doesn’t it?
Smokin’ Shorter Dubya. (And Joe Lieberman, for that matter.)
“why aren’t the British in control of South Africa today? I don’t know the history of South Africa at all, but it does appear that the British lost control of it at some point, doesn’t it?”
Ahhh, once the Sa’s stood up, put purple on their fingers to show how much they loved democracy and defeated (you might call it ‘apartheid’d ’em’ guv) the evil native Sa insurgents, we stood down, declared victory and went home. Honest. Cough. Oh yes, and got lots of nice shiney diamonds out of it too, though we didnt invade for that reason, no sireee. -Tea?
I wonder if Tacitus, walking through Sears on his way to the Superhero pajamas bin, doubles back through the oven section.
Tuol Sleng can provide the gentleman with many useful examples, if he will but profit by them.
Does Tacky intend to ENLIST?
Didn’t THINK so!
I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war
Yes, we need to incarcerate, torture and kill the people we’re giving democracy to.
Makes sense to me . . .
What a fucking moron. This kind of stuff makes me angry, but at least it exposes, for all to see, the bankruptcy of a policy that was doomed from the outset.
“Is there some book somewhere that says that all that empire stuff worked out really great for Britain? Where on earth do they get these crazy ideas from? Is there some holdout of the world where honest-to-God racist imperialism is still considered chic? Like an enclave of historians dressed in white linen suits sporting muttonchops, drinking tea and tut-tutting over the dreadfully lazy nature of the coolies on their tea plantations?”
Jillian, I think you want Niall Ferguson’s 2004 EMPIRE. He doesn’t have the muttonchops but it is the hymnal they’re singing from, I think.
Tacitus: you are a huge wet stinking pussy. Far better just to exterminate all the brutes and be done with it. Get some balls you timid little nancy-boy.
Someone might also remind Tacitus that we do not operate in a vaccuum and if we implimented such measures, we would invite the condemnation of the entire world, a significant portion of which would take up arms against us, using any means necessary, including (but not limited to) terrorism.
In other words, it does not even make sense from a cold, calculating, cynical realpolitik perspective.
In the eyes of the world, we would be no different from any warmongering, totalitarian state that preceded us.
And what would we stand for, at that point? Very little. Hell, we stand for very little as it is. Hell let’s do it – Tacitus, you lead from the front . . .
So many psychopaths, so little time.
[…] (hat tip Sadly, No!) EMail This Post […]
I understand Tacky was in the military but when he tried to re-up, they said no because he’s a nut.
Yes, if we only torture and kill enough of them, they’ll love us and embrace our way of life. Brilliant.
I cannot walk and eschew gum at the same time. Therefore, I am cruel.
Hey, help me out — what that bearded Jedi wannabe *really* Trevino?
Wow, 12 hours has passed and Tacky hasn’t shown up to oh-so-subtly threaten someone with identity revelation. He’s getting soft.
Oh, who am I kidding. I’m just jealous because I can’t grow such a magnificent red beard of rugged manliness.
And how did that Tunisia thing work out?
To deny the rebels cover, the French plan to burn off a huge area of scrub forest with napalm over a period of three months. “If so much as a bird flies, it will be shot down,” boasted one French official.
I think I see where this is headed.
Four of the Star Wars films (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) were partly filmed in Tataouine, in the Tunisian Sahara.
But why would a Wookie live on Endor?! It doesn’t make any sense!
Are we supposed to believe the British goals in the Boer War were laudatory or something? This is insanity on top of insanity.
Is there some holdout of the world where honest-to-God racist imperialism is still considered chic?
I know Democrats who hold this viewpoint.
Upthread someone posted his online bio. Did he really serve in the US Army? Or did he do some kind of PR poster? Is there a way to verify whether he actually fulfilled a tour of duty as an enlisted soldier?
I’m not sure why he doesn’t just take this a step further. A really forward thinking person would see this as an opportunity to help relieve prison crowding as well. Who needs a draft? We could just send a few thousand of our most vicious criminals over there to get the job done. Kill two birds (or thousands upon thousands of brown people) with one stone.
Is it to early to joke about forgetting me?
Hey, you can forget Sept. 11th if you like, but forget about me at your peril . . .
The US lost any good reputation it had the day it first voted George Bush in.
I’m still not convinced we ever actually did that.
Comparisons like this illustrate the truth about “conservatives” in America- they never gave a shit about 9/11, and any “lessons” they learned from that debacle revolved around the projection of their own insecurities onto others.
Why are we in Iraq? Why are we engaged in a massive military occupation? In re the Boer War and the Phillipines, the answers to those questions were fairly apparent: the occupying nation had dreams of global empire, and the economic gains of resources were rivalled only by the pride of imperialism as far as motivating factors.
If anything, 9/11 and radical Islam are the end products of an imperialist attitude; radical Islam appeals to the poor and disenfranchised (who else would strap a bomb to themselves?) If we’re just in Iraq to establish an American colony, and fuck all to the methods of getting to that outcome, we’re basically guaranteeing anti-American terrorism, in spades, for the next several generations.
But basically fucktards like Bush and the keyboard kommandos are too dumb to understand the concept that actions have consequences (as they go around spouting lines like “Ideas have consequences” without understanding what that means), and too short-memoried to recall that Iraq was originally, if completely muddily and asininely, supposed to be about preventing another 9/11.
Nice one, jackasses.
Are we supposed to believe the British goals in the Boer War were laudatory or something?
Say what you will about the British tactics in the Boer wars, but the historical record is clear. Those brutal tactics on behalf of the British Empire did end up creating a model of freedom and democracy known as the Union of South Africa.
So take heart, liberals. If Trevino is right, we could be looking at our own similar paradise in Iraq. It’ll take another twenty to thirty years of bloodshed and brutal oppression, but we’ll have a system of Muslim apartheid there eventually.
The comment under my name that appears at January 11, 2007 at 12:45 is someone impersonating me. It should be deleted immediately.
Trevino is a symptom of the confusion resulting from constantly referring to this as a war. It’s not a war, it’s an occupation. He wants to take examples from occupations, but still justifies it as a war.
It’s an occupation because a solid majority of Iraqis don’t want the US there, and a bare majority approve of attacks on the US. No military action will change that for the better, though some will make it worse still. Certainly Trevino’s recommendations would.
As Ehud Barak is said to have told Cheney, you can’t win an occupation. All you can do is adjust the size of your humiliation.
You are plainly unethical if you leave up a comment by an imposter like that. Take it down, now.
To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.
Which, after we “surge” in with another 20K troops, is only 100K more than we have available for the task of pacifying Iraq. So even going totally hardcore, rather than adopting the namby-pamby modern doctrine for dealing with insurgencies (which, as we all know, requires lots of troops), is still well beyond our grasp.
Excellent.
I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war
So he’s got no problem with torture, or concentration camps. But he thinks if you make fun of Jeff Goldstein’s meds you are VILE!
The poster at January 11, 2007 at 18:09 is an imposter, and should be deleted immediately.
The poster name “Idiot” is impersonating me again. Make him stop.
Oh my god, is that really him? I’d always suspected that he blogs with a cape on, but I needed proof. Case closed.
All of these posters are imitating some of me. Delete them!
For some reason I don’t really understand any of this.
It’s very nice to be in Switzerland this time of year.
If we had enough troops to round them all up and put them in concentration camps, we wouldn’t need to round then all up and put them in concentration camps
I would like to force all these wingnuts to read Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery. Not that it would really affect them. They’d absolutely throw the first stone.
Why is this person waving around a florescent light?
Why does ANYONE listen to Lt. Failure Josh Trevino anymore? Seriously.
What a total joke. At least people like Dennis Miller and Orson Scott Card are has-beens with tiny niche outlets for similar-minded nuts to watch/read. This guy is a never-was who can’t write for shit and disguises his idiot musings with flowery, neo-romantic style.
Please just ignore him, and maybe he’ll go manage a Denny’s somewhere.
Wasn’t ‘the Tacitus’ the repository of all knowledge that would save humanity that was the goal of Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun? Aah, irony.
My human rights lawyer friend that Tack y could be hauled before a tribunal for what he’s suggested. seriously he’s advocating war crimes. Conspiracy to commit war crimes etc. He’s a war criminal, especially because he’s made himself into a public figure.
You have to be cruel to be kind. In the right measure…
Yeah because by obliterating the Boers in South Africa, the British really ran the risk of instigating the other billion Boers around the world.
As much as I’d like to criticize Tacitus for advocating war crimes, I’m not really in a position to do that — since I’ve long since come to believe that he and millions of his fellow wing nuts should be gassed to death like the rabid dogs that they are.
I’m not into moral superiority any more, I’m into fantasizing about watching these people die.
‘ I don’t know the history of South Africa at all, but it does appear that the British lost control of it at some point, doesn’t it?’
-athiest
Well, it led to the rise of the National Party and the Apartheid State in SA and made SA a fifth column for Germany in WWII. So in the long run, not so cool. A short term solution that cost the Conservatives and the Liberal Imperialists a lot in terms of elections. It also deeply destabilized relations between Germany and the UK.
Zorastrian notes that:
“Yeah because by obliterating the Boers in South Africa, the British really ran the risk of instigating the other billion Boers around the world.”
While not perfectly analagous, it is indeed true that the Kaiser and many German elites saw the Boer War as a break point in the Anglo-Saxon Imperial system that had divided up the Continent and the World since the end of the Napoleonic Wars nearly 100 years earlier. The Kaiser considered assisting the Boers, and Boer fighters did find aid and comfort in those German colonies bordering SA.
All in all, a disasterous war of choice that was one of the sparks that kept the ‘long fuse’ to WWI burning.
The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die.
This just makes me nauseous and shivery. I think this cretin is lacking in certain experiences. Like crouching in a hole on a perimeter at night under the crazy swaying, sputtering illum rounds, with a couple kids gutshot in the wire, screaming their hearts out in pain and terror. And having to try to ignore that and watch for more sappers with the moving shadows, flashing tracers, the sudden outbreak of fire half a klick east, a grenade going off in front…
No. Humans cannot still, at this point in history, be recomending the horror of industrial scale killing. To listen to this barbarism from someone who claims to believe in the christian god does make one thing clear. There are people in the world who are evil, who are the enemy of civilization, who need to be endlessly warred upon, for whom no quarter and no mercy should ever be offered…
mikey
This is not degenerate art!
I love how plover recently examined the Boer war at Three Bulls! and came to the 100% precisely exact opposite position as Tacitus. It is wonderful how wares of massive escalation and atrocity provide different talking points for the rational and the insane. I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which.
What’s with the Wingnuts With Beards theme today? I suspect that wingers use them to hide the babyfat that still clings to their cheeks, even into middle age. The bright red of Ticky Tack’s seems to be enhanced by Cheetos orange, a popular color choice amongst flaming fascists.
Out of all the hardcore conservative guys I knew in high school, I don’t think one of them ever went on a date.
Those previous posters are both imposters – I demand you take down their comments immediately. Or else. Or something. Because as you can see, the only real September 11th is the one with “the” and “th”. And don’t you forget it. Or me.
I’m the only one that had my own Commission which everybody ignored.
All of that self-indulgent wallowing in psychosexual torture fantasies disguised as an erudite historical analysis of South Africa and he didn’t even mention oppressing dark people. What a wasted opportunity.
Wait–he wants to “win” the “war” using barbed wire? Stretched between blockhouses?
Has anyone told Halliburton/Bechtel/etc. this? Because seriously–where’s the money in manufacturing *wire*?
Doesn’t this clown know how the world actually works?
Operation Iraqi Freedom!
The sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow.
He also said,
“Man, you’re gonna hate it down here Trevino. It’s hot as Hell.”
“No. Humans cannot still, at this point in history, be recomending the horror of industrial scale killing.”
I thought that, too, and I thought it about Abu Ghraib, kidnapping and torturing innocent people suspected of terrorism (or the guilty come to think of it), killing thousands of Iraqi civilians. But I keep thinking it, every time. Has it gotten to the point where merely having a soul is equivalent to naivete?
Actually, it’s one of his Red State buds who really spells it out: http://www.redstate.com/stories/foreign_affairs/broadly_speaking
is it just me or would this guy and the Bullshit Moose make a perfect couple?
Note that the three fraudulent 9/11 posters above did not even mention which year they come from. Reasonable people may choose to disagree on whether they are indeed 9/11s from some other year but plainly I have demonstrated that I am the true 9/11/01.
That’s not Josh’s lightsaber. It was built by a died-in-the-wool lefty, namely me. Josh is an old and very close friend of my wife’s, and I brought that saber to his wedding after-party because we share an appreciation of the films (at least the original trilogy). He and I don’t agree on a lot, but there are at least two things we do agree on: we both married well and the lightsaber is one of the neatest artifacts ever to be conceived.
I’m not going to blunt the point of this comment by engaging on the topic at hand, except to acknowledge that his ideas are fair game for criticism, of course. But that photo is personal, and is not germane to this discussion. Please be decent and remove it.
You may not agree with what Josh says, but I think it’s important to note at this point that I sewed those khaki pants. During a national holiday where I only had to work sixteen hours and was allowed TWO drinks of water. I think it’s fair to say that he and I share an appreciation for fine khaki pants.
Look, I don’t understand politics because I’m only thirteen and have never been to school. But I’m sure his ideas are fair game for criticism. But the pants are personal. Please remove them…
Oooopppss, gotta get back to work…
Hey, this is sort of unrelated but sort of not: for a vivid representation of approximately what these warblogger freaks want to do to Iraq, check out the satellite photos of Grozny on Google Maps. The center of town is pounded to shit, a large percentage of the houses are gutted, outside of town the refineries are dead and there are dozens of collapsed oil storage tanks. There are very few cars.
It takes a couple minutes of groping around to find, since Google doesn’t provide any actual map info for Chechnya, but it’s very educational.
I am, indeed, a world-class shitter.
Why should anyone be decent to this barbaric git?
He’s proudly proclaimed himself to be a fucking savage. If he cannot deal with the consequences of the ideas he advocates, he should shut the fuck up.
Permanently.
the are some other parallels here. The Empire lost the first Boer war, in 1881 – they quit because the stakes weren’t high enough. Once gold was discovered in 1885, Rhodes attempted a coup d’etat which failed. After that a variety of pretexts were found to manufacture the case for war, the second Boer war. The second Boer war was partly about Empire but mostly about gold (oil): the war was one of aggression and choice.
Afrikaners today still bitterly loathe and hate the English for the concentration camps. That worked out really well, too.
Excuse me? EVERYTHING CHANGED AFTER ME!!!!!!!!!
I don’t need to give no frickin’ year, beeotch. Now quit impersonating me, or I’ll sic my Commission on you (they’ve obviously got nothing to do).
Why should anyone be decent to this barbaric git?
I haven’t asked anyone to be decent to him. Using what are basically wedding photos with no political content per se in the service of making a political point is intrinsically indecent. You don’t have to feel one ounce of compassion for the man himself to know this is true. You simply have to have a conscience.
I should have said “knowingly using” above. I don’t know how the author came by these photos, or what he knew of the context.
I guess Gromit has answered my question. And au contraire, seeing what a dweeb JT is in real life is certainly relevant. He tries to sound much more Special-Forces-looking.
#
Ann AlpHouse said,
January 11, 2007 at 18:44
It’s very nice to be in Switzerland this time of year.
Stop being unethically dressed for winter.
Stop being unethically dressed for winter.
That parka makes your boobies stick out.
Anderson: And au contraire, seeing what a dweeb JT is in real life is certainly relevant. He tries to sound much more Special-Forces-looking.
Your strained rationalizations notwithstanding, the reality is that this is tantamount to dragging his family and his friends into your dispute with him. Which, given the extremity of the ideas involved is COMPLETELY GRATUITOUS.
Please take some pointers about character from Hilzoy, who is no big fan of Tacitus, and who is equally horrified by his suggestion, but who apparently doesn’t need to use this kind of cheap crap to make her point.
Apprentice; lest ye become him. No matter how evil, sick and inhumanly, skullfuckingly filthy someone’s viewpoint, normal people still have a duty to continue to be decent to them in return – to turn the other cheek if you subscribe to that sort of thing – to prove that they are normal. On the other hand, sorry Gromit, there’s nothing particularly indecent about using that photo. And everything has a political content, the man being inseparable from his views.
I do not mind football fans as long as they are not obnoxious about it. But I am struck by how much they believe.
Look! Tools!
Nonsense. It’s no more that than a photo of Mel Gibson on the street ‘dragging in’ all the other people who might get caught in the photo into his Jew-bashing. Concern trolling is all well and good, but I’ve gotten out of the habit of paying Shrek.
Gromit,
Calm down. It’s just a silly picture. It’s not like he’s naked or drunk.
The wingnuts can never make up their minds about why we’re in Iraq. One minute we’re there to bring them freedom, democracy, and lattes for everyone. The next minute we’re there to grind them under our bootheels as part of establishment of the 1000-year Reich. The minute after that victory can only be achieved by turning the Middle East into a radioactive wasteland (with a sanctuary carved out for Israel, of course).
Sheesh! You’d think they were unstable, or something.
History never offers exact parallels
I’m with Tacitus on this one. The 2nd Boer war offers many helpful parallels… for instance, the staggering incompetence of the occupying Brits.
“I’d say the pressure has finally gotten to him, but what pressure?”
TB: Here’s the URL for Grozny on Google Maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=43.316667,45.683333&spn=0.1,0.1&t=h&q=43.316667,45.683333
Big Worm: It’s just a silly picture.
Then what’s the big deal about taking it down when asked nicely? I’ve gotten nothing but smart-assed comments and casuistry for my trouble. None of it from the original poster, of course, who I haven’t heard from yet.
Nobody Special: Concern trolling is all well and good, but I’ve gotten out of the habit of paying Shrek.
Do you even know what a concern troll is, or did you just think using it makes you sound blog-savvy? For starters, concern trolls don’t offer full disclosure from the get-go.
Since when do Jedis wear pleated dockers?
Gromit,
Because it’s amusing and fits the nerd-boy warblogger stereotype. Since posting it does no harm, and provides entertainment, I see no reason to take it down.
Yeah – I see gromit’s point… up to a point. I don’t need to see his wedding photos to know he’s quasi-intellectual reductionist blowhard, and they are personal photos, I guess.
Still, he is a public figure, after all…
Besides, it ruins the picture I have of him in my head: about twice the size, with a bookshelf stuffed with editions of Jane’s military and potted classics digests.
Funnily enough, the lightsaber is not anomalous.
Tacitus and his ilk are moving ever closer to: “Kill them all, God will know his own.”
I feel ill.
Since posting it does no harm, and provides entertainment, I see no reason to take it down.
That’s where you are wrong. It does harm, and not because of its content (Josh has been pretty open about his tastes in popular culture, in my experience) but because his wedding photos aren’t just his wedding photos. That anyone would argue that entertainment value overrides such considerations floors me.
Tacitus might indeed be moving closer to that attitude, but then he is part of a discredited fringe minority, isn’t he.
Up to a point, who cares how he pontificates?
Gromit —
No. And here’s why:
I got this pic from someone who posted a link to it in comments to some or other entry here a while back — I didn’t go looking for it. But through that link I saw that the source had been freely linked to by Tacky himself on his website. IOW, this isn’t private, something Tacky is trying to hide; rather, he was deliberately showing the pic off. It’s fair game.
Also mitigating: Tacky’s a stalker. For all his snooping to destroy other people’s anonymity (and ‘Online Integrity’ hypocrisy all the while), I’ll be damned if I’ll worry about the propriety of posting a pic he himself has posted publicly and linked to on his site.
Sorry.
And besides, I’M the dweeb here. I built a working lightsaber replica out of an original Graflex 3-cell flashgun handle and single-electrode neon tube. Either you appreciate this sort of thing or you don’t, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with genocidal tendencies, of which I have none.
Since no one else is identifiable in the photograph, and there is nothing to indicate the context of a wedding (although I’m not sure what that might have to do with anything), I see no reason why the photo cannot be ‘displayed’.
Great post, and I HIGHLY recommend reading the post at three bulls, including the further link to wikipedia re: “Breaker” Morant.
Yeah, as noted above, the Boer War (1&2) was a real loser for the Empire.
Their horrible tactics as occupiers pissed the Boers off so much that they still hate the “English”; within two years of the “Peace”, they started their Party to bring them back to power in the area and proclaim a Republic. They achieved the former in 1948 and the latter in 1960. The British had at the start of the war absolutely no experience of fighting a guerilla war in territory where the civilians were backing the militia – marching through the veld in formation and redcoats while the Boers hid on the hills in dirty khaki etc.
He’s right – there are parallels.
Besides which, who would’ve known it was a wedding picture (& not from some SF con?) had Gromit not told us all?
“You don’t know this, but that’s a WEDDING PICTURE, and now that you know this, you are violating JT’s privacy, you bad person!”
Unless JT got married in Massachusetts recently, it’s not like there’s even any terribly Significant Other in the pic. Or does Gromit wants to tell us just who they are, so that we can protect their privacy?
Shee-yit, people!
Either you appreciate this sort of thing or you don’t, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with genocidal tendencies, of which I have none
I’m sure you don’t – and you’ve been quite reasonable in your tone and arguments.
I was sympathetic to your arguments, but now I find Retardo’s point convincing.
Sorry – sounds like public domain to me.
I built a working lightsaber replica out of an original Graflex 3-cell flashgun handle and single-electrode neon tube.
“Impressive … most impressive.” This qualifies Gromit for Jedi knighthood, or replica knighthood, I suppose.
including the further link to wikipedia re: “Breaker� Morant.
Now there’s an Australian I’m happy to claim as such.
“Shoot straight, you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it!”
Gromit, leaving aside light sabers and wedding photos, if you know this guy then tell us what the fuck is wrong with him. Please.
Yes, floopmeister, great line, wasn’t it? (And may even be historically accurate!) Having read the wikipedia treatment of his story (I’ll admit to cultural illiteracy – I’ve never seen the movie; was aware of it, but didn’t really know what it was about), I’m going with the theory that he WAS a “scapegoat for the empire”, and further, a certain bigotry against Aussies by the Brit military bigwigs played a significant role in his fate. (Full disclosure – I’m not Aussie.)
Retardo Montalban: I got this pic from someone who posted a link to it in comments to some or other entry here a while back — I didn’t go looking for it. But through that link I saw that the source had been freely linked to by Tacky himself on his website. IOW, this isn’t private, something Tacky is trying to hide; rather, we was deliberately showing the pic off. It’s fair game.
Not private. Personal. And I’m glad to know that you aren’t the one who went digging for dirt in his online wedding album.
Let me put this in another light. Would you do me, not Josh, but me, the personal favor of removing the photo? I know you don’t know me, but regular readers of comments on Obsidian Wings probably have some dim knowledge of my occasional contributions, and can vouch for the fact that I’m not trying to provide a smokescreen against criticism of his policy prescriptions. So, please do me the favor or removing the photo. The whole event was a lovely, apolitical memory for my wife (who played a prominent role in the wedding on a couple of fronts) and for me, and it distresses me to see it used in this fashion.
You know why tacky really wants to separate the women and children—for rape. Without the men around, he can more easily pry the young girls from their mothers and rape them. He may even speak in faux latin to them as well.
It gets even stupider. You know what the end result was, after the Boer War and the British use of concentration camps and *everything*? An independent South Africa run by the Boers. All that abuse was a total waste of effort.
“Tacitus” isn’t just a fascist, he’s a fascist who refuses to learn the lessons of history.
Beg to differ with Gromit, but if the soi-disant “Tacitus” wished to keep this (or any other photograph) private, he should not have posted it on the Internet (with or without copywrite blocks).
Unless copying is electronically blocked (thereby showing that the poster does not want the image copied), posting a photograph on the Internet is not unlike tossing it out the window.
Regarding the British Empire; James Morrison’s “Pax Britannica” trilogy is a sympathetic treatment of the Empire – and it still doesn’t come out looking very good.
That’s where you are wrong. It does harm, and not because of its content (Josh has been pretty open about his tastes in popular culture, in my experience) but because his wedding photos aren’t just his wedding photos.
Whose are they? Does every person who attends a private event have a claim on all pictures taken at that event, in perpetuity? What right of yours do you think has been violated by posting this picture?
Oh, come on, Retardo, you’ve been asked nicely, so be nice. What’s a little niceness cost?
Leave behaving like an arsehole coz it’s a “matter of principle” to amoral dweebs like Incitatus.
“Foto” is Swahili for “penis”
What a Hut!
Groom-It,
given that nobody would have known or could ever have discerned that the photo of Mr. Dachau was taken at a “wedding” — your complaint fails under its own terms. Why not just say,”I was standing near him, but completely off camera, so it’s not fair to me for you to post a photo that I’m not in, but could have, if they moved the camera somewhat.”
Can someone please tell me why the wingnuts are so eager to have America become the reanimated zombie of the British empire? Please?
C’mon, Jillian, you know the answer already: The Reichtards have convinced themselves that the British Empire was the Golden Era for pasty-skinned, near-sighted upper-middle-class males with ‘classical’ educations and a taste for abusing the Lesser Orders. Ever since Sandhurst lost its international cachet, it’s all been downhill socially for their tiny little subset of the human race. A tragedy that can truly chafe their Underoos, unlike all the stuff they see on the nightly news.
I for one hope that S,N! shows the same solicitude for Trevino’s “personal” moments that Trevino showed for Ashley Judd’s.
Only a true fascist would wear khaki pants to a wedding.
Wasn’t that the horse that Caligula appointed to the senate?
Wasn’t that the horse that Caligula appointed to the senate?
No, it was how Harry got into Cho’s pants.
“The whole event was a lovely, apolitical memory for my wife (who played a prominent role in the wedding on a couple of fronts) and for me, and it distresses me to see it used in this fashion. ”
Oh, well isn’t that just so nice. A lovely memory spoiled; by the photo or the fact that your pal is a shit-eating fascist?
The Specials AKA put it well years back: If you have a racist friend now is the time for your friendship to end.
It was all just a thought experiment. He was just thinking concentration camps and genocides would work. He wasn’t implying that is what the US should do.
X is the only that works but I don’t really support X – why does Trevino hate America?
Let me put this in another light. Would you do me, not Josh, but me, the personal favor of removing the photo? I know you don’t know me, but regular readers of comments on Obsidian Wings probably have some dim knowledge of my occasional contributions, and can vouch for the fact that I’m not trying to provide a smokescreen against criticism of his policy prescriptions. So, please do me the favor or removing the photo.
Gromit, I don’t doubt you’re a decent guy, but, I’m sorry, no I will not. For the reasons I’ve already given and also for the reasons Anderson, I think it was, stated.
No one is identifiable in the pic except Trevino. No one knows it’s a wedding form the photo, or you & your wife’s connection to it.
I would have never posted it had it come from a public source Trevino tried to keep separate from his career as fascist pundit. IOW, if this had come from a myspace or facebook or yahoo profile or whatever, it’d be off limits. But as I said, Trevino himself, on his political site, linked to the photo album, and someone linked to that particular silly pic in comments. It’s fair game. I’m sorry. Again, I really don’t mean to cause you grief, but the picture stays unless you have a better argument for me to consider.
As far as the reader is concerned, this pic impugns Tacky’s geekiness and could have been taken at some dread Sci Fi convention or in his mother’s basement. Only you knew the context. No one besides you sees the pic as offending to anyone else but Tacky, which is why most other commenters by far want it to stay as I do.
Say, I think I have a solution to this photo problem. (See this space tomorrow.)
I don’t know the ins and outs of the photo (where posted, etc., etc.), but as to this:
“I know you don’t know me, but regular readers of comments on Obsidian Wings probably have some dim knowledge of my occasional contributions, and can vouch for the fact that I’m not trying to provide a smokescreen against criticism of his policy prescriptions.”
consider Gromit vouched for.
This is ridiculous. I cannot see how anyone can possibly be distressed over this photo. No one is recognisable except the fascist wielding the lightsaber. It doesn’t suggest a wedding picture in the least – in fact, if that’s how people dress at weddings now, I’m shocked. The wedding was not made sport of in any way, and only someone who either wishes to protect Ticky Tack, or is so hypersensitive that the pictures should NEVER have posted publically by TT himself would react this way. Gromit, do you care about the issues involved here, or is this silly picture more important than the fact that one of your friends is a racist fascist who loves eliminationist rhetoric? If someone I was friends with wished me dead or in a concentration camp just for my views, I would not protect that friend or any memory of him. Of course my disgust with you is enhanced by the fact that you and your ilk have destroyed almost all the Graflex flash handles in existence, but I leave that to one side for now.
As far as the reader is concerned, this pic impugns Tacky’s geekiness and could have been taken at some dread Sci Fi convention or in his mother’s basement. Only you knew the context.
Uh-oh, I think I understand now – this has to do with the famous spatchela of redemption that Jesus’ General is always going on about.
You wanna celebrate victory, or not? Stuff happens, y’know?
The Romans used effective techniques to keep conquests submissive. Kill a Roman soldier & reprisals were stiff–and local leaders were likely to be part of it, including providing family members as hostages. After a few samples of Roman justice local leaders would turn over malcontents before active insurrection got very far. Worked for hundreds of years, most places–even in Palestine–and the Romans did not need massive numbers of troops to keep provinces under control.
Others have tried the same tactics with less effective results, but there are many examples of other successes throughout history. A key to the technique is that it requires the occupying forces to forgo the luxury of thinking of themselves as the good guys; the idea is that fear, and not love, respect, justice, ethics or morality is what produces success, at least initially. If the U.S. goal is to establish control (the “monopoly on violence” that was a topic a year or so ago) then this technique may be the only way left.
Hey Gromit, your “friend” is advocating CONCENTRATION CAMPS, and you’re whining about a fucking picture of him that was publically posted?
“Hey, Hitler’s my buddy — stop clowning on him!”
Fuck you.
Retardo:
Why not just take the picture down? Gromit was asking politely, not making a huge scene. The picture is funny, to be sure, but it’s not like some huge coup against the wingnuts or something. Why not just take it down?
Is that better?
*Nothing* I did was improper. *Everything* the picture’s subject has done is wicked and stupid and as such, deserves to be humiliated in an ethical way. But there was one objection, which was politely and logically rebutted and still…
Heaven forbid that Jenna or the old man shed public tears if Dubya is ever impeached or prosecuted; how many will say, ‘aww, let him off for their sake’?
Say, I think I have a solution to this photo problem. (See this space tomorrow.)
Ah, now *that’s* a solution.
Cruel, perhaps, but to eschew cruelty in blogging is folly.
Is that better?
Haw!
Actually, I even like this version better, thanks Retardo.
OK, Gromit?
Awesome! It looks like some freaky terrorist web broadcast where Trevino is about to behead the hostage Rick Moranis.
Well, it looks like I have completely failed in conveying why I find the use of the photo upsetting. I’m not the least bit bothered by any of your reactions to it, but rather by the reactions of those who were actually connected to the event, particularly since, but for my bringing along that prop replica, the photo never would not have held the slightest interest in the first place.
To those of you who replied that the photo was not readily identifiable, or that “no one” could possibly know the context, I’ll just say that not everything is about you.
So, in that sense, the new image doesn’t help in the least, but I can see I’m not making any headway here, so I’ll give up.
Thanks to those of you who spoke up in support of me, though. That was kind, and I won’t soon forget it. And thanks to Retardo for at least giving the matter some thought, even if the result isn’t the one I would have preferred.
“But why would a Wookie live on Endor?! It doesn’t make any sense! ”
Maybe said Wookie has a loli thing for Ewoks?
I’ll stop there…
They Might Be Giants covered the Gromit/Ticky Tack thing years ago:
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
It was the loveliest party that Ive ever attended
If anything was broken Im sure it could be mended
My head cant tolerate this bobbing and pretending
Listen to some bullet-head and the madness that hes saying
Out from the kitchen to the bedroom to the hallway
Your friend apologizes, he could see it my way
He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking
Cant shake the devils hand and say youre only kidding
This is where the party ends
I cant stand here listening to you
And your racist friend
I know politics bore you
But I feel like a hypocrite talking to you
And your racist friend
I’m not responsible for the lack of ‘ and such in the TMBG lyrics I pasted.
I still haven’t gotten used to the reappearance of the Preview button.
The Romans used effective techniques to keep conquests submissive. Kill a Roman soldier & reprisals were stiff–and local leaders were likely to be part of it, including providing family members as hostages. After a few samples of Roman justice local leaders would turn over malcontents before active insurrection got very far. Worked for hundreds of years, most places–even in Palestine–and the Romans did not need massive numbers of troops to keep provinces under control.
The Romans were explicit in trying to establish an Empire. They wanted to conquer the known world so they could extract loot and slaves from it, and made no bones about that fact.
They didn’t, for example, pretend to be bringing democracy and freedom to those whose lands they occupied and resources they stole…
[…] Also, Sadly, No! quotes/ pillories some exceptionally chilling right-winger crap in ‘The Surge Won’t Work, But Concentration Camps Might Do The Trick’. […]
The Romans used effective techniques to keep conquests submissive. Kill a Roman soldier & reprisals were stiff–and local leaders were likely to be part of it, including providing family members as hostages. After a few samples of Roman justice local leaders would turn over malcontents before active insurrection got very far. Worked for hundreds of years, most places–even in Palestine–and the Romans did not need massive numbers of troops to keep provinces under control.
See, the problem here is there was this great big war like sixty years ago. Some goddam cocky nation won that conflict, and in the city of Nuremburg created a set of rules that have since been adopted by the rest of the world. The rules described behaviors that they called “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. The aggressive invasion and occupation of another nation with whom you are at peace, for example, was a “crime against humanity”. Collective punishment, as described by the thug and quoted above, is a war crime. Now lemme think here, who was that meddling nation that came up with all this obstructionist crap?
mikey
don’t kids who write words like this get sent to counselling and has thier name put in the book marked “psychotics”.
[…] Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.” They make no bones about the fact that they “endorse doing cruel things in war,” and that success in Iraq might require taking similar actions as those taken in the Boer […]
[…] well, well. Look who’s back! It’s Tacky Skystalker, Dark Lord of the Pith Helmet, and this time he’s not here to advocate concentration camps (that’s so, like, months […]
Very good site. Thank you.
shitty bastard
map_all_freegorahe.com4.txt;15;20