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Good vs. Bad

Back in the Good War, they called them kamikazes. In today’s war, which is Bad, they are called martyrs. Fars:  

Commander Stresses IRGC Readiness to Combat Enemy Troops in PG

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- An Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander underlined preparedness of his troops to fight enemy forces in the Persian Gulf, saying that Iran can stun enemies due to its geographical advantages in the strait of Hormoz.

“Even small operations can produce huge effects in the strategic strait of Hormoz and the Persian Gulf,” lieutenant commander of the IRGC’s naval force said on Monday.

General Ali Fadavi noted IRGC’s various plans for upgrading the combat abilities of the Basiji (volunteer) troops in naval warfare, and said, “The number of Basiji troops is not important in these plans; what matters is their qualitative presence because everyone of them can do a great job.”

He declined to provide any further details on the specific role of the Basiji troops in possible engagement with enemy forces in the Persian Gulf, but said that each of them can play the role of martyr Fahmideh.

Hossein Fahmideh was a 13-year-old volunteer who blew up an enemy tank during a martyrdom-seeking operation in the midst of the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Due to a lack of RPG rockets and the sensitive formation of enemy tanks, Fahmideh wrapped himself in a grenade belt and lied under the tank to blow it up.

The IRGC commander said that the aforementioned plans would be staged once enemies dare to attack the country.

“IRGC and Basij have started tight cooperation and the fruit of these plans will be observed when enemies grow so foolish that they embark on posing a threat to Iran in practice,” he said.

Many, many years ago, nobody believed anyone could be quite so suicidally crazy as they turned out to be. And after they attacked our nation, negotiating with suicidal madmen who wanted to take over the world was considered an absurd idea. People would have looked at you like you were a madman if you suggested it. It was a simpler time. It was a Good War, and it was long, long ago. The suicidal madmen were killed instead, in large numbers.  Many of ours died doing this. Finally, after many of the suicidal madmen had been killed, and the remaining ones still refused to consider surrender, it was necessary to drop two nuclear bombs, killing several hundred thousand people in order to prevent the deaths of millions more in an invasion. It was very bad, even though the war was good.

Today, we are more advanced in our thinking. Our nation has been attacked by suicidal madmen. Others like them say they would like to do the same to us and our friends. But war isn’t good anymore, not like it used to be. Today, war is bad. Today, the suicidal madmen who want to take over the world would like to have nuclear weapons of their own.  But if you were to suggest that we kill the suicidal madmen before they try to kill us, or destroy their bomb stuff before they turn it into bombs, people would look at you like you’re crazy. Our nation is so powerful, it is not possible that anyone could threaten it. Therefore, it is not necessary to act in defense of our nation. In fact, it would be wrong, because war is bad, and acting in defense of our nation actually makes it less powerful. Like I said, we’re more advanced in our thinking. Today, instead of killing suicidal madmen or destroying their stuff, we know to use our words. This is better. It will make the suicidal madmen like us more. 

Gateway has more on the suicidal madmen. Lots more.

Topics: GWOT, Iran

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:26 am on Tuesday, October 30, 2007

9 Responses to “Good vs. Bad”

1. saltydog Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 12:59 am

   Every time I read or hear this kind of stupidity, I consider the actual level of our power and wonder why they would even dare think such things. Then I realize that we’ve told them over and over to ignore our power cuz we won’t use it. It’s just a very expensive show that puts us in greater danger, daring every tin-pot thug to confront us, rather than protecting us.

2. sarah rolph Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 7:38 am

   I think that’s right, salty. We have trained them to consider us weak.

   They’re getting a bit of a mixed message now, which is a good thing, but at best they must be pretty confused. I often wonder what they actually think of things like Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Assad. Did they think this was a serious attempt to reach out to them from part of our government or did they understand it was foolish posturing? (Of course I often wonder the same thing about Pelosi et al.)

   It’s odd how similar the two situations are. The enemy is not stupid, but they haven’t assessed reality properly because they prefer to embrace the illusions that suggest they can get their way. Same with the Democrats….

3. Americaneocon Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 8:43 am

   “But if you were to suggest that we kill the suicidal madmen before they try to kill us, or destroy their bomb stuff before they turn it into bombs, people would look at you like you’re crazy.”

   Especially the Democrats!

   From a post over at The Countervailing Force:

   “The truth is that most Democrats oppose the war in Iraq because they oppose anything and everything we might do to defeat our Islamofascist enemies.”

   http://pcrevolt.blogspot.com/2007/10/blast-from-past.html

4. RebeccaH Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 10:40 am

   America has always had a pacifist streak, which is probably not a bad thing, but never has it been so dangerously pervasive. We were always willing to defend ourselves before, and now it seems we’re less and less willing. And because we’re not willing, we pretend that there is no danger.

   I sum this attitude up in a lady who said to me, after the Amish school shootings, that it was a bad idea to teach children self-defense, because that was just “teaching them to fight”. How do you overcome such blind stupidity?

5. tanstaafl Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 10:43 am

   Khoumeini created in Basiji in 1979., a movement based in “…belief in the virtues of violent self-sacrifice…”

   Of children.

   Ahmadinejhad is a great proponent of the concept.

   During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September, 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as 12 years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

   …According to Khomeini, life is worthless and death is the beginning of genuine existence. “The natural world, ” he explained in October 1980 , “is the lowest element, the scum of creation. “What is decisive is the beyond: The “divine world, that is eternal.” This latter world is accessible to martyrs: Their death is no death, but merely the transition from this world to the world beyond, where they will live on eternally and in splendor. Military victories are secondary…the Basiji must “understand that he is a ’soldier of God’ for whom it is not so much the outcome of the conflict as the mere participation in it that provides fulfillment and gratification.”

6. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 10:54 am

   Alas, Western Civilization. I knew it well…

7. saltydog Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

   That we would subjugate Western Civilization to accommodate the evil that the quote tanstaafl provides, buggers belief. That anyone could make a statement that displays that kind of savage primitivism, and not just get away with it, but is given the sanction and prestige by the so-called civilized countries, evidences a sickness within our civilization that is terminal if not treated aggressively–and soon.

8. steve Says:
   October 30th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

   Writer Matthias Küntzel believes Ahmadinejad was a
   “special educator” for the Basiji (child suicide)

   [ ]What exactly did he do during the war? These are questions for which we have no definite answers. His presidential website says simply that he was “on active service as a Basij volunteer up to the end of the holy defense [the war against Iraq] and served as a combat engineer in different spheres of duty.” [ ]

   As a normal father would look with pride on his child performing well amongst his/her peers in an athletic event, Ahmadinejad would smile similarly upon the deaths of children he put in motion.

   “Ahmadinejad’s Demons”

   A Child of the Revolution Takes Over · By Matthias Küntzel

   …All told, some 100,000 men and boys are said to have been killed during Basiji operations. Why did the Basiji volunteer for such duty?

   Most of them were recruited by members of the Revolutionary Guards, which commanded the Basiji. These “special educators” would visit schools and handpick their martyrs from the paramilitary exercises in which all Iranian youth were required to participate.

   “One day, some unknown imams turned up in the village. They called the whole population to the plaza in front of the police station, and they announced that they came with good news from Imam Khomeini: The Islamic Army of Iran had been chosen to liberate the holy city Al Quds –Jerusalem – from the infidels. … The local mullah had decided that every family with children would have to furnish one soldier of God. Because Hossein was the most easily expendable for his family, and because, in light of his illness, he could in any case not expect much happiness in this life, he was chosen by his father to represent the family in the struggle against the infidel devils.”

   At the beginning of the war, Iran’s ruling mullahs did not send human beings into the minefields, but rather animals: donkeys, horses, and dogs. But the tactic proved useless: Photo by Gamma Presse/Newscom”After a few donkeys had been blown up, the rest ran off in terror,” Mostafa Arki reports in his book Eight Years of War in the Middle East. The donkeys reacted normally—fear of death is natural. The Basiji, on the other hand, marched fearlessly and without complaint to their deaths. The curious slogans that they chanted while entering the battlefields are of note: “Against the Yazid of our time!”; “Hussein’s caravan is moving on!”; “A new Karbala awaits us!”

   Yazid, Hussein, Karbala – these are all references to the founding myth of Shia Islam.

9. Texas Bob Says:
   October 31st, 2007 at 6:47 am

   Fear certainly can make apparently intelligent people say and do the dumbest things. Fear can cause people to blind themselves to reality and attempt hide inside a fantasy world that doesn’t exist. A childish viewpoint of if you ignore them, they’ll go away, or that ‘they’ don’t even exist. Too many are so overcome with fear that they lash out at those who’d protect them. To do otherwise would force them to face reality. Unfortunately, reality has a way of crushing your skull and I really do hope that more death and destruction isn’t what it will take to knock some sense back into these dimwits. God help us all.

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