Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
December 27, 2004
Moral Cowardice

Moral Cowardice Prevents Winning the War
Thursday December 23, 2004

Mosul, Iraq–The blame for the murder of 15 Iraqis in Mosul yesterday lies not only with the American occupation forces who initiated the attack, but also with the Iraqi resistance’ suicidal policies, said Mullah Ya Ibn Rand, supervising teacher ot the Mosul Philosphical Accademy. "The American would have been crushed long ago, and yesterday’s attacks averted, were it not for Iraqi’s altruistic policy of placing the lives of American civilians on American soil above its own self-defense.

"Iraq must competely destroy the American social structures if we are to implement a non-threatening government in America," said Mullah Ya Ibn Rand. "This can be done, but to do so we must make the American government’s complicit civilian population–those who harbor and support these structures–pay for the violence that they abet. We must enforce their complete surrender to our will.

"Shamefully, the Iraqi resistance has been unwilling to make hostile American civilians pay for their crimes," said Mullah Ya Ibn Rand. "Time and again, it has treated Amercan lives on American soil as sacrosanct and Iraq’s security and resistance fighters as dispensable. It is in the name of sparing civilians that our fighters have been ordered to follow crippling rules of fighting only in Iraq that have cost hundreds of their lives. …

"To win this war," concluded Mullah Ya Ibn Rand, "we need a fundamental shift in our moral priorities. We need to see the resistance place the lives of Iraqis–including Iraqi fighters–above the lives of civilians in America. To those who insist that we continue to sacrifice for the sake of American civilians, I say that the death of 15 Iraqis yesterday, and the many more to come, are on your heads."

Adopted from: Link

Comments

We are in dire need of an intellectual renaissance. How in god’s name a cretin like Yaron Brook acquired a PhD is anybody’s guess.
Only in America …?

Posted by: DM | Dec 27 2004 12:18 utc | 1

Nice one b,
I have to agree with DM, the moron Brook should slowly burn in hell. Saddest part is that about 50% of ‘muricans agree with him.
I am already bummed by what has happened in SEA and am desperately searching for news on “my” beloved Maldives. This tremendous tragedy which was caused by plates shifting far underground is somehow not as bad as what we as Americans are willfully and purposefully causing to the people of Iraq.

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 27 2004 12:41 utc | 2

It seem like the post make more sense than the link.
You’ve given me a headache, and it’s only 900AM here.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 27 2004 14:26 utc | 3

@B:
Why don’t you arrange to interview the good doctor–He wants to spread his message to the world.
I’ll bring the popcorn for the occasion.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 27 2004 14:39 utc | 4

is ayn rand all that weird ? i didnt understand crap of the logic of that piece. sounds like the usual garbage which some US general would barf at the audience during a press conference.
BTW it would not be mullah as there is no feminine form for mullah. it would be Sheikha ya Bint Rand.

Posted by: name | Dec 27 2004 17:32 utc | 5

Sheikha ya Bint Rand
Wouldn’t want to pick that one up at the baggage wagon, that’s for sure, Name.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 27 2004 17:57 utc | 6

I don’t see how this guy got overlooked by the Bush Administration, folks with this kind of acumen are gettin’ harder and harder to find.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 27 2004 19:37 utc | 7

I’m with FlashHarry on this one.
headache

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 27 2004 19:41 utc | 8

Damn, what a waste of ink. Let me edit and revise. To wit:
Since any one American life is always worth more than any number of Iraqi lives the only moral course of action for this war is to pull all American ground troops out of Iraq and bomb Iraq until Iraqi society can no longer exist. Turn the territory formerly know as Iraq over to Israel. Arm with nukes.
Voila! Ayn Rand Cliff Notes. No need to thank me.

Posted by: stoy | Dec 28 2004 5:04 utc | 9

Slightly OT but
Juan Cole’s comments
on the
latest Bin Laden video is well worth a read. For those of us who think that Bin Laden might be no more than a useful tool and media prop for the prosecution of an agenda that “dare not speak its name”, it will require a bit of time to
(mis)understand what is going on. I’m sure that other “Moon-beams” will help to illuminate what remains obscure.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 28 2004 7:30 utc | 10

HKOL
I think Cole is being particularily dense on this issue of OBL.
This “audio” tape is playing right into the Neocon agenda.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 28 2004 9:12 utc | 11

“It is time for many Japanese to wake up and realize what is out there and that action needs to be taken…”
War Propaganda at Rock Concert

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 28 2004 9:23 utc | 12

CP & HKOL
It’s a pretty hard call to knock Juan Cole. A respected professor, Arabist, Iraqi expert…
However, only those with very short memories will accept anything – from any source – without a large dose of salt.
Before putting too much weight on Professor Cole’s analysis of Bin Laden’s hamfisted and clumsy intervention in Iraq – first I need be convinced that Bin Laden is more than a CIA contrivance.
Don’t ask me to “disprove” the CIA or Juan Cole – but after the litany of lying shite from Bush, Blair, the CIA and every other bastard– it’s gonna take a bit more than “Al Jazerra” to convince me of anything. I will believe nothing without multiple independent coroborration. They have another tape from “Bin Laden”? Prove it. Let’s have Bin Laden front and center.
Three years, billions of dollars, 2 countries occupied, 100,000 dead Iraqis, 150,000 US troops in Iraq, thousands in Afghanistan, spy satellites – more spooks than you can count – and this guy is still making videos for TV broadcast !
Either the CIA are the dumbest fucks in the world – or they think I am.

Posted by: DM | Dec 28 2004 9:57 utc | 13

DM
Ah well, we are now fighting AQ in Iraq.
Bin Laden anoints Zarqawi as Iraq chief

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 28 2004 10:11 utc | 14

Dead Osama Gives Mythical al-Zarqawi a Promotion

Posted by: DM | Dec 28 2004 10:35 utc | 15

@ Cloned & DM
It may not be a coincidence that
I today received an “intelligence report” from Gordon Thomas, who will punish me severely for revealing his
“top secret” (dis)information, that MI6 has concluded that the Al Qaeda videos were done by expert video technicians. According to Thomas, MI6 believes that the wicked director of these scenes an Egyptian, Ayam al-Shawarhi, a behavioural psychologist and founding member of al Qaeda.
Why do I have the feeling that
the spooks realize that we realize what they’re up to, and so they must try “realize” another level of the
hoax? In “right thinking environments” my point of view would be laughed at, but I suspect that at MOA I’ll find
some kindred (paranoid) spirits. Why in God’s name does the two-pronged disinformation campaign seem so obvious? Could it be that the Mossad is taking a double turn at the Mighty Wurlitzer? Or maybe I really am paranoid.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 28 2004 10:53 utc | 16

Make that “…of these scenes
is an Egyptian …”

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 28 2004 10:56 utc | 17

Hannah O: In “right thinking environments” my point of view would be laughed at, but I suspect that at MOA I’ll find some kindred (paranoid) spirits. Why in God’s name does the two-pronged disinformation campaign seem so obvious?
This tickles me to pieces, Hannah. 😉 LOL. Thanks for my first smile of the day. Ha ha, “right thinking environments”, indeed.
Of course the answer to the obvious disinformation question is: because it is obviously disinformation. No?

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Dec 28 2004 11:37 utc | 18

The tape was released hours after the main Sunni group announced it was withdrawing from the elections.
It seems like a nice way to smear the Sunni’s as terrorists and Bin Laden supporters.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 28 2004 12:20 utc | 19

@ Cloned
As usual you have an illuminating comment. Meanwhile
can someone tell me if
“Ayam al-Shawarhi” and “Ayman al-Zawahiri” are one and the
same person. The latter was, if
memory serves, jailed in connection with Sadat’s assassination, and is now Osama’s right hand man. Since
Thomas calls “Ayam al-Shawarhi”
the second most wanted man in the world I assume that the identification is correct. Frankly I have trouble imagining him as a media wizard, since my only memories of him are an unforgettable service showing him behind bars in Cairo shouting “We are Moslems”, and the Italian satiric TV show “Blob” which regularly shows the film of him with Bin Laden in the Afghan mountains while the theme from “Heidi” plays in the background. Americans, I assume,
miss out on such scandalous tidbits of humor about “serious matters”.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 28 2004 12:42 utc | 20

HKOL, they are not the same persons, I think.
911 etc xymphora has an interesting take why Rumsfeld made the gaffe about shooting down flight 93 here

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Dec 28 2004 13:29 utc | 21

Thanks for the link CP.
That take on Rummy’s gaffe is credible from the perspective of a typical Rumfeldesque insertion of a factoid into a riddle. The warning, “see what I can do when pushed toward the precipice?”
This is getting interesting. Or maybe it was just a gaffe. Still interesting either way.

Posted by: rapt | Dec 28 2004 16:57 utc | 22