February 10, 2004

Valinor & Iraq (mostly Valinor)
Everett

After what has to be one of my longest posts, I'm going to try to be a bit more brief.

First of all, I'd like to express my agreement with the notion that Sauron, if he had managed to achieve control of Middle Earth, would not have attacked Valinor. He has no hope of conquering it. Indeed, not even Morgoth attempts such a thing. His only attack upon Valinor is the sneak attack he launches with Ungoliant while the Valar and Eldar are engaged in festival, and then he does not endeavor to conquer it, only to destroy the trees, steal the Silmarils, and further mar the work of the Valar. Furthermore, before his capture by the Valar, he is more than willing to remain within his fortress at Utumno, knowing that there is no way he can overcome the Valar in combat, even with hosts of Balrogs and fell creatures. His aim, much like that of Satan*, is not victory because victory is not attainable, and he knows it. Rather, he seeks to pervert and destroy as much of it as possible. His most successful attempt at this is his corruption of the Noldor and the events which follow from it, culminating in the destruction of the trees; the theft of the SIlmarils; the Noldor leaving Valinor to wage war against him; the slaughter of the Teleri; and the subsequent wars of the First Age.

Sauron learns from Morgoth. Thus, he seeks dominion over Middle Earth to mar and pervert it further (I can see Annatar formulating his repsonse now.). What's more, he will not endanger his reign on Middle Earth by directly assailing Valinor. The closest he comes to attempting this is when he persuades Ar-Pharazon to launch his own invasion of Valinor, and he does not even go himself, knowing that to go would be the defeat and imprisonment of him, while the Valar would be hesitant to attack the Numenoreans because they are the Children of Iluvatar.

Back to politics, briefly.

In my last post, I made the assertion that things were going better in Iraq than had been indicated by the mainstream news media. Here are a couple of looks into the horse's mouth: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/international/middleeast/09INTE.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200402100835.asp.

That is all.