And now Fareed Zakaria…
…seems to have lost his ability to reason.
The argument he offers in his Newsweek column about 9/11 and the US reaction to it is the equivalent of saying that, since the pneumonia patient recovered after getting the antibiotics, the treatment wasn’t necessary. Has Zakaria ever heard of the principle of cause and effect?
There is no way to prove what would have happened post-9/11 in the absence of the Bush administration’s reaction. Of course, it’s possible that the response had nothing to do with the result: that we would have been completely safe without it, and that al Qaeda, after its enormous political and psychological success in pulling off the largest terrorist attack ever, in the most flamboyant way possible, and on US soil, would have just slunk off and gone quietly into the night, satisfied with the blood and suffering it had extracted.
If Zakaria believes that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell him.
[NOTE: Patterico agrees, with an analogy to a similar brain glitch in the NY Times Seems there’s a lot of that going around.]
That’s right Zakaria doesn’t get. But we do – the Homeland Security Complex. That safe I don’t want to be.
9/11 was more than a blip on the Intelligence Services radar screens. That nobody wanted to make something of it was the problem — not a shortage of domestic spooks.
Do you ever wonder if leftists actually believe their tripe, or are they just being deliberately obtuse to irritate the grownups?
Neo, to suggest an answer to your rhetorical question, yes, I think he does understand cause and effect. However, he is constructing a narrative where THAT cause does not result in the effect feared by many other Americans.
There’s a good, and short, comment on the article at Powerline that I recommend. I think it highlights his blind spot very accurately.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/09/027157.php
Of course the PATRIOT Act and the creation of DHS represented an overreaction to 9/11. What else would you expect from grandstanding politicians and CYA bureaucrats. That’s how they are programmed to behave. Did the media hyperventilate and become hysterical? Yep, that’s what they do, too.
So what? For my part, I’m glad there was some kind of reaction, and I haven’t forgotten. Zakariah’s piece seems intend to repress such memories. I am out of patience with him and people like him–post-national talking heads.
Cause and effect! Blindspot! Zakaria is precisely getting at a larger point that seems to have been swamped by his dismissal of Al Queda. But on this larger point he is right Al Queda is a spent cartridge. And Homeland Security is overkill.
We are trading our freedoms for a false security — false because we allow Muslims into the country wholesale (legally) and retail (illegals by way of a porous border). Those who are bent on 72 virgins will pursue paradise but they will be fewer and far between. Should one of them have even a modicum of success the inevitable result will be Patriot Act II, which will have hardly any effect on Muslims and will be aimed largely at Americans.
For the most part we are fighting the last war, as per usual. Zakaria’s concern is the growing security state just at the time when lethal terrorism is on the wain — not for the brilliant successes of the intelligence communities —though there were some – but because we are entering into Phase II of the Culture War — Soft Jihad.
The real jihad is now soft, well… soft and abounding. By their numbers and agitation Muslims are insinuating Islam into every facet of American life they can and they are marking territory. Zakaria may not see Muslim immigration as the menace I and others do but that only means he’s right for the wrong reasons.
Our best and brightest have created two monsters — a snooping security state and a growing Muslim community now in the first stages of a cold civil war (with Leftists their allies). If our government where anymore on top of the present situation… they’d be building dreadnoughts.
It sure seems like some liberals are cracking up and becoming incoherent. I say keep the pressure on. Their paradigm is collapsing.
It doesn’t take a genius to conjecture where we would be today. Iran would likely be in a similar situation, about to go viably nuclear, with Saddam more belligerant than ever against the limited American policing presence, and with both competing for their Arab/Pali client affections and campaign against Israel; China and Russia, as always, gaming the situation for their own strategic advantages, and the U.N./Euro block doing everything possible, as usual, to avoid taking more than a token stand as American allies.
There have been critically important lessons learned from this last ten years, especially for the American armed forces; too bad that towards the end of Bush’s term, time and position were wasted with the phony Annapolis Israel-Pali negotiations; and now the Democrats are magnifiying the dishonest mistakes associated with that situation, screwing away the hard won strategic advantage which could have facilitated an easier, and more timely removal of the mullah’s regime in Iran, potentially transforming the face of the problems in that arena of the world.
Two comments on Zakaria from Patterico:
“Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat?”
Nine years after 12/7 the Japanese weren’t a deadly threat because we went over to Japan and beat their freaking brains out.
Dolt.
Comment by Dave Surls – 9/4/2010 @ 10:15 pm
#
Vicious dog bites man
dog fitted with muzzle no
bites experts puzzled
Comment by ColonelHaiku – 9/5/2010 @ 8:06 am
Since Zakaria went to both Harvard and Yale my opinion of both those school as less institutions for learning than as cries for help is confirmed.
Of course they slinked away in the middle of the night.
George Pal: Good points.
After reading the article one gets the impression Zakaria was trying to see how many fallacious arguments he could squeeze into a single paragraph. He mentions the soviet threat was overblown even though that state fell apart because Gorbachev was not Stalin enough to keep it alive (and only that). His discussion of Saddam’s WMD program overlooks that it was not ended, it was in stasis until the sanctions were removed. His generalization about the intelligence bureaucracy sums up in one paragraph something that cannot be summed in one paragraph. The collection of information, its progressing into information and its distribution to the appropriate authorities is probably beyond the understanding of someone who works for Newsweek. I also wonder if the 230,000 who work for DHS which he passes off as proof as extravagance includes the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service, Border Patrol, etc.?
One of the curiosities of our time is that water cooler discussions are now passed off as insights by pundits who obviously have only superficial knowledge at best of the subjects which they are discussing. I recently saw a gaggle of pundits on CNN talking about the Israeli-Palestinian talks as though they could seriously lead to peace. And they are probably getting good money for this rot!
In my above comment I neglected to specifically address the more narrow topic of “al Qaeda” terrorism specifically; as though that’s where our real problems end? It’s not for no reason that the left and the Obama/Pelosi/Clinton Democrats can only be seen as dishonest incompetents; when Hezbollah is commonly known as the A-Team (or some such). We live in a world in which the majority of muslims are idealistically considered to be (relatively) benign, and sharing our common values. The problem is ostensibly only that 1% who support al Qaeda (or Hezbollah), or whatever “brand” of jihadi, and who have a pool of population resources to draw from to the tune of somewhere well in excess of (1%?) 10,000,000 plus to aid and abet the jihad; while the so-called “moderates” are conspicuously silent and taking no responsibility for their “minority” radical brethern about 99.99% of the time.
Is it just me, or does it seem the contemporary Middle East has mostly produced minds that are — in essence, often beneath a worldly and erudite veneer — chauvinist, provincial, obtuse and shallow? Even the highly praised Tariq Ramadan does not seem to do much besides put a clever gloss over the salafism of his father & grandfather.
Obviously Newsweek was overpriced at a buck.
You’re still doing it, Neo, checking in with the likes of Fareed?
zhombre, it is not just you.
What most of the fuzzy thinkers fail to see is that Muslims are used to being ruled by the strongest meanest guy on the block. So if we do manage to wack Bin Laden back into a cave, someone else will start beating his chest and proclaiming himself to be the next great warrrior king. I can imagine Saddam welcoming our killing of AQ leaders so that he could step forward as the new strongman who had outfoxed the satanic west into eliminating sanctions. This war will go on and new leaders will continue to trying to win new recruits by spectacular acts of terrorism.
Perhaps DHS is oversized and inefficient. Fixing it is not the same as eliminating it. I don’t think most people realize how much Bush managed to coordinate anti-terror efforts throughout the world. I do know that several German ministers responsible for security have praised his efforts.
Zakaria is a total fool.
zhombre,
You forgot arrogant. The list could go on and on.
And now Fareed Zakaria…
…seems to have lost his ability to reason.
He had that ability?
We did overreact.
Not militarily, we didn’t overreact militarily, just all that nation-building, purple finger, peace garbage.
Immediately after 9/11 we should have gone into Afghanistan, as we did, and shoot and capture every single person affiliated with al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership that supported them.
We should have then lined all the captives up, 3 or 4 thousand of them on the Iranian border – each standing on his own custom-built scaffold.
Then, before the Sean Penn could say “what the” drop the hatch.
Then leave.
And, if a new group of idiots thinks they can start organizing for another attack on the U.S. we should go right in and and do the same thing again.
Repeat as necessary.
I call it “The No-Rebuild Policy”.
Think I can copywrite it?
Include Sean Penn in the three or four thousand, and I’m with you 100%.
Right. We didn’t need to fight WWII, because Hitler was going to commit suicide in 1945
Occam,
I kind of feel sorry for the guy. He’s had brain damage ever since that scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
I see you are still peddling the “other” over here. I see you still do so with the same twisted responses. And the beat goes on. Enjoy the feast.
laura,
I did a site search and read some of your earlier posts. I sincerely hope your son is doing well. We’re all proud of him.
I’m a 22 year retired Air Force MSgt, spent 11 months on Stop Loss – retired 2004.
7 assignments, 22 deployments, 2 1/2 years of my career in a hostile fire zone, 3 years apart from wife and family. I’ve called holes in the ground home, showered in my helmet and been without hot chow for weeks on end.
I currently work with Joint Forces Army, Navy, AF and Marines – most in their mid-20’s. Almost all have been to either Afghanistan or Iraq – many, like your son, multiple times.
And while everyone is an individual, and deals with their experience in an individual way I can assure you most (not all) would not be offended in the least, by neo’s commentary or the responses here.
I wish you and your family well.
Asst. Village Idiot, you need to apply for a job at New-weak. You’ve got the formula down.
Always remember Muslim’s favorite deceptive tactics of Takiyya and Kitman, to be used in all dealings with “unbelievers,” if it will protect or advance the cause of an individual Muslim or of Islam; an Islam whose ultimate goal is the conquest and subjugation of all of the World and its nations and peoples under Islam and its Shari’a law.
It seems to me that the possibility/likelihood of the use of such religiously sanctioned deceptive tactics renders anything a Muslim might say suspect in the extreme. Takiyya and Kitman–“Holy deception,” I might add, that extends to a Muslim denying the he is a Muslim and exhibiting the outward signs of being a Christian, even to the extent of denouncing Islam, if that it what it will take to advance a Muslim’s cause or the cause of Islam.
Neo, you’re distorting Zakaria’s position when you imply that Zakaria said the US shouldn’t have reacted .
Zakaria isn’t saying that the US shouldn’t have reacted . He’s saying that the US over-reacted . That’s very different from what you claim he is saying.
He may still be wrong, of course. But he is not saying what yu claim he is saying.
For a man who knows what police state actually is, this fuss about domestic security overreach looks absurdly exagerated.
Given a couple of the plots uncovered, the Ft. Dix Six, for example, and several which went through, the Ft. Hood shooter and the Trolley Square Mall shooting, the level of damage and death from successful terr ops could be substantial.
What would be the proper level of reaction to domestic problems?
Do you ever wonder if leftists actually believe their tripe, or are they just being deliberately obtuse to irritate the grownups?
Yes. People have an amazing ability to believe what they want to believe, despite a barrel load of contrary evidence. Especially when its what all their friends believe, as the owner of this blog has pointed out…
Sergey,
I’ll not argue against your experiences only comment on the infrastructure that made up that police state.
The structure of that police state depended a great deal on the ‘Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter’ (unofficial employee — term officially, I think, used by the STASI). They were the watchers and informers. That structure also depended on hard copy records.
What they’re building in Washington under Homeland Security is a monstrosity made all the more dangerous and chilling for the technological ability it has to gather, collate, store, analyze, and extrapolate most all of a person’s life. The information will have been gotten without anyone’s knowledge or consent, and will be instantly accessible and easily disseminated. As bureaucracies go, this is by far the most dangerous ever created. As the national political and cultural schism becomes daily more truculent, as we see each other, and as those in power increasingly see us, in terms such as racist, whatever-phobic, Nazis, Commies, haters, the danger of a Superspook organization does not bode well — and this is not a concern for the distant or even near future; it’s a concern for now.
George Pal–The fact of the matter is that in our current electronic/computer age the government, via the NSA, has pretty much–barring extraordinary and informed efforts on the part of individuals–been able to gather all the information it wants on each and every one of us (and probably has in some cases) for quite some time now.
A knife or a gun is just a tool, it is the mind and motive directing and employing these tools that is important. I don’t like this intrusion but, here’s the thing. Isn’t it a good thing that these techniques have been developed and can be used (when they aren’t thwarted by the State, and Justice Departments, and other entities and powers within our bureaucracy, who are pursuing their own agendas, and foreign and domestic policies), very intensively against various nations, terrorist groups and terrorists?
Do or should terrorists get to be read their “Miranda Rights,” or get a trial in a civilian court, or any trial at all for that matter? I’m for using whatever technology, whatever tool, whatever weapons we have against our enemies, whether they are another nation, a drug cartel, or terrorists. I don’t really see how we can win against totally unscrupulous enemies who want to kill us, if we fight with one hand tied behind our backs.
Right now, I’m not so much worried about the frightening reach and efficiency of Homeland Security, as about its startling inefficiency, blindness, lack of coordination and laxity toward real, actual threats to our nation (and not the many men in three piece suits or bib overalls, the pot bellied old duffers, arthritic grannies, and mothers pushing strollers of the Tea Parties).
Richard Aubrey asks: “What would be the proper level of reaction to domestic problems?”
I would say that the proper level of reaction to domestic incidents of this nature, is the kind of reaction that the nation had to the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. There was a (necessary) crackdown on the militia types, but there was no curtailment made on the freedoms of the populace at large.
A few observations on the Zakaria article (sorry about the length):
This is a moronic statement. Their was no correlation throughout all of the Reagan years between the Soviet Union’s economic situation and their ability to expand power and influence.
Look at el Salvadore, NIcaragua, Grenada, and Afghanistan. Look at the brutally efficient Soviet spy network. The Walker family, Richard Ames, Robert Hanssen cost us enormously. Because of John and Michale Walker alone if nuclear war had broken with the Soviets the effect to our sea-borne nuclear deterent would have been catastrophic.
Zakaria is an idiot. The Soviet Union had NEVER been deadlier than in the 1980’s.
Not one intelligence analyst thought Saddam had a “nuclear arsenal”. All were concerned that Saddam had a bio-chemical capability – UN inspections confirm that until 1995 these concerns were well founded.
After 1995 our intelligence on the matter did break down. Why? Partially blow-back from Iran-Contra; the Intelligence Community (IC) became increasingly undermined by a Democratic congress and administration.
The real concern in Iraq was a solid one. By 1995, Military analysts were concerned that with the impending loss of Saudi bases it would be impossible for the UN to provide a credible military capability in the south and continue inspections. Saddam’s deadly programs would be reconstuted. Without the invasion Saddam would have succeeded: Saddam would have worn us down.
Now we get to the heart of the article. This isn’t Zakaria’s own inspired analysis. This is coat tailing off of the Dana Priest and William Arkin highly flawed article. Priest/Arkin’s conflation of Top Secret clearances and the number of intelligence personnel draws open laughter from members of the IC.
Zakaria only adds his own poor analysis:
As if the Homeland Security “workforce of 230,000 people” can’t read 50,000 reports a year.
At this point one would think Zakaria couldn’t top himself with moronic statements. Major Hasan’s “strange threats” were well documented and his communications with al-Awlaki had been intercepted and analyzed.
However, two FBI task forces, in Washington and San Diego, received the intercepted messages, but deemed them innocent.
It was the “deadly p.c. mindset” of career minded bureaucrats that prevented Hasan from being stopped NOT the IC.
God!!!
Why does anyone even bother to read this garbage?
Mutant Turtle Says:
September 6th, 2010 at 10:30 am
And likewise, after 9/11, the proper response would have been to increase surveillance of Muslims and mosques, and leave the rest of Americans alone.
Instead, we got a reshuffling of the Federal bureaucracy and the federalization of airport security. We got the Department of Homeland Security (an Orwellian name if I’ve ever heard one), as well as a brand-new agency, the Transportation Security Administration, which increased the number of government employees.
Now the TSA makes children take off their shoes, and confiscates Granny’s shampoo bottle. Heaven forbid we should do anything that might offend or inconvenience Muslims. That would be discrimination, the worst sin imaginable in the PC world.
A more free-market approach would have been to let airlines handle their own security privately, including the right to deny service to anyone they choose (e.g., Muslims).
Mr. Aubrey and Mutant Turtle,
The Fort Dix Six were inspired by al Qaeda recruiting videos, Major Hasan was facilitated by Anwar al-Alwaki, who in turn has been facitated by al Qaeda.
These (like the Brooklyn Bridge bomber, the underwear bomber, the Arkansas Recruiter shooting, 9/11, the USS Cole, London’s 7/7 bombings, Madrid’s subway bombing, U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania, Keny, and Yemen, and current foreign terrorist operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia) are not “domestic problems”. They are part and parcel of the trans-national terrorist organization we call al Qaeda.
Comparing this to McVeigh and his two cohorts and recommending the same type of solution that yielded the catastrophic federal responses at Ruby Ridge and Waco is absurd.
Wolla Dalbo,
If the NSA were sufficient for what the government has in mind there would have been no need for Homeland.
The ‘tool’ being built (HS) is indeed just a tool but the motivations for the use of that tool will never be benign, judicious, or efficacious. In a more perfect union, with a united people, in a united ‘States’, such technological abilities might be useful if monitored carefully but we don’t live there anymore.
Don’t take me as soft, or naé¯ve on terrorism. I would deal more harshly with terrorists than most and would not suffer those would use the rights and freedoms of this country to pursue their dreams of importing their malevolent and maladaptive cultures into this one. In a previous comment on this thread I gave my opinion that outright terrorism is on the wane and is being supplanted by soft jihad — immigration jihad. That I believe is a greater danger now.
As long as PC rules the rules of domestic surveillance and diligence (see Vieux Charles’ comment just above) and as long as this country is divided to the point we find ourselves in a cold civil war, Homeland Security, at least that to which it aspires, is an abomination.
Vieux Charles writes: “Major Hasan was facilitated by Anwar al-Alwaki.”
As far as I recall, he didn’t have direct contact with al-Awlaki, but felt motivated/inspired by the latter’s preachings. Arguably, McVeigh was likely motivated/inspired by the general sheen of anti-government vituperation that was current in the militia movement at the time, even though his actual (physical) collaborators were only two or three in number.
So, I think there’s considerable similarity between the two situations.
George Pal:
I haven’t read the Zakaria article, but I’m largely in agreement with your comments on this thread.
I commented just a few days ago at American Digest that I said in an e-mail shortly after 9/11 that I could foresee the government treating all Americans as potential terrorists rather than concentrating on Muslims. It gives me no pleasure to have been proven correct.
Islam itself is the threat, not the lack of surveillance of Americans.
My Dear Mutant Turtle,
The two links I provide well known and well documented proof that Hasan was in constant communication with al-Awlaki.
A little advice: let facts formulate your ideology – not the other way around.
I suppose that Google knows about you much more than HS, and nobody monitors Google. All knowledge and information gathering is toothless if it can not be used in a court of law, as Alinsky and O.B.Simpson had a chance to celebrate. I would begin worry about all these databases only when just one person became jailed on the basis of this information without proper review of its legal admissability.
Mutant Turtle,
For your edification:
abcnews: Major Hasan’s E-Mail: ‘I Can’t Wait to Join You’ in Afterlife
Michelle Malkin:P.C. in the U.S.A.: A deadly, bipartisan infection
which provides a link to:
abcnews: More Hasan Ties to People Under Investigation by FBI
Sergey,
Google has neither the power nor the resources of the Federal government.
And jail is one of only a hundred ways to make a person’s life miserable and the threat of all of them is enough to make more than a few people acquiesce.
Vieux Charles.
McVeigh was after Ruby Ridge and Waco. Indeed, part of his gripe was that nobody seemed to give a bleep regarding the fibbies’ massacre of the Branch Davidians.
I don’t recall any news of a crackdown on militia types. Maybe there was. If anything happened, it might have been decent guys deciding to separate themselves from the movement.
I knew of a bunch of kids in my high school who tried to prepare for domestic tyranny. In the early sixties. Could have been militia, although the ones I’ve tracked are not. But they had guns.
That the aggression is trans-national is true, but the problem is that we are required to treat it differently in this country than elsewhere. No dronezaps.
Zakaria has been reasonable so far. You think he believes this stuff, or is he cutting his own credibility for a reason?
Mr. Aubrey,
I’m aware of this and I worded my response purposely in a way as to not contradict the fact, but those are the only notable “crackdown on militia types” that come to mind.
The results were disasterous.
But let me tell you something brother.
I take umbrage with any general negative connotation of the term “militia types”.
It is a 2nd Amendment right for persons, be they Arizona “Minutemen” or Chicago “Black Panthers” to lawfully arm themselves for the purpose of protecting themselves or their community.
In dealing with these militia types the federal government grossly overstepped its authority at Ruby Ridge, and showed horrific judgement at Waco.
Vieux Charles.
I don’t have a problem with militias. But the term morphed to include practically anybody including neo-Nazis and ZOG types.
Strictly, or not strictly speaking, neither Randy Weaver nor the Branch Davidians were militias. Both were inner-directed and had no apparent plans to take over anything, or to be prepared to oppose a domestic tyranny except, as with the Branch Davidians, the expected outside assault usually visited on the Elect–said their interpretation of their Bibles.
But, as I said, I knew some guys like this going on fifty years ago and the point is those guys agreed on some things and not on others, working together on those where they agreed.
And groups are like that. There is, I expect, a spectrum from something like the Oathkeepers to the ZOG types and somwhere in there some decent guys decided they’d chosen their friends wrongly.
Funny thing. After getting hammered for being, what else, racist, the Michigan Militia sent a delegation to Detroit’s inner city to teach firearms safety and defense against criminals and were, according to reports, welcomed.
You’re correct, Weaver was not in a militia, though he associated with a white supremicist militia. The Branch Davidians weren’t a militia by charter, but for all practical purposes they behaved as a militia. Indeed they were armed more heavily than most militias.
I think most NRA-types have a deep appreciation for the challenges honest inner-city people have – as evidenced by the massive support from the NRA for recent 2nd Amendment Supreme Court cases in Chicago and D.C.
Militias are a good thing for people in communities that need to stick together for security where the police have failed.
As far as I’m concerned, the government can have all my phone records and financial records and everybody else’s, if it keeps one American from being killed — no, one American from getting a scratch on his nose — from Islamic terrorists.
As rickl and several others said, I’m much more concerned about the PC idiots in our government, up to and including Barry O, who run around after each incident saying, “This is not a terrorist incident! And if it were a terrorist incident, it would have nothing to do with Islam.”
Vieux Charles.
I watched the congressional hearings on Weaver and Waco.
What the feds stipulated to, in order to get it out of the way, was beyond the imaginings of the paranoid survivalist types.
I don’t think Weaver was associated. He went to a meeting, didn’t like it, went home.
The feds tried to entrap him into informing on a member of a militia group–himself and informant for another agency–and Weaver refused, hence the whole thing.
The Branch Davidians were well armed, but that doesn’t make you a militia. IMO, a militia has to think of itself as actively moving against a domestic tyranny, not just being prepared for an attack by….somebody as the Apocalyptic writings assured them. Correctly, as it turned out. But not necessarily a government.
Once the present has become the past, the present can be manipulated.
its metaphysics… if you dont get it, you waste a lot of time on bs…
does the past exist? not at all…
you live a moment after now (there is a lag or delay)
you anticipate potential futures
you remember pasts
the second something has happened, you can then change it, which is easier than changing the actual event!!! its pragmatically easier to change the memory than it is to change reality.
so this is nothing but applying process. a process that after two years, we are still trying to fathom its operations as we demand things make sense.
why?
when confusion in the hands of someone is a better weapon than predictability. unpredictability, and what seems crazy, freezes your opponents, while changing what is problematic to prevent…
the reading level used to be a lot higher, and with it our reasoning ability, which included metaphysical reality… and such games.
the battle is being fought in your head… the no mans land is your cerebrum. the collateral damage is your ability to function
Unfortunately for you, definitions are not a matter of opinion, but of concensus.
MILITIA.
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service.
Vieux.
Which leaves out Weaver who was a loner.
It also leaves out the Davidians who were prepared to defend only themselves. AFAIK, the “defense” spoken of in your definition is the common defense.
Ditto later the Montana Fremen and the Republic of Texas wackos. Both of whom were successfully overcome by waiting. The feds had been handicapped by what they called, probably wistfully, “Weaver fever.”
These clowns called themselves militia in part, imo, because they didn’t know any better and in part because the militia is honorable.
Not so much hin the public consciousness any longer. Thanks a lot guys.
Come to think of it, who called them militia?
Probably not them.
Hmmm.