A few good Links

May 26, 2004

Incredibly from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

JIM MARSHALL




Always a good link:

Neal Boortz

Why am I depressed?

5/24/04

I know what is going on in Iraq. I look deep into the news coming out of the area and I see the positive items. I see US troops rebuilding schools. I see large majority of American troops behaving in a correct even politically correct manner, even though it is causing problems for them. I see a country that is not ruled by a dictator that has murdered he own people and others with disdain and impunity. I see a country where most of the economy is becoming solvent.

Unfortunately, I also see a daily pounding of news showing the troops killed. I see the scenes of carnage and destruction. I can hear the country slowly being dragged to the conclusion that the war was a mistake. It's Vietnam, says Kennedy. There was torture in Abu Ghraib prison and we are terrible people and have no moral high ground to take. These comments are as pertinent and true as a group of children taunting each other with "did not" and "did so".

Iraq was invaded primarily as the next step after Afghanistan in the war on terror. Part of the justification was the strong possibility that Hussain had WMD. A nuclear program that was documented by every intelligence agency in the world. A chemical and biological program that was not accepted by the whole world but demonstrated on his own citizens as well as the hapless Iranian soldiers.

Saddam has not been proven to be involved in the 9/11 attack but he has been shown to have connections to the earlier attack on the world trade centers. He has well documented contributions to Hamas as well as other terrorist organizations. To assume that there was no connection to Al-Qaeda is simply absurd. The argument that Hussain was secular and could not work with the strongly religious Al-Qaeda dies in the face of the Arab proverb "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Osama ben Laden could easily put aside his dislike of the secular Saddam to obtain the needed "toys" with which to attack the Great Satan of America.

If we do not complete the task in Iraq, we will surely shift into neutral, as George Bush said, and we will have learned that the mighty US cannot any longer fight a complete war. It is possible that the end of western civilization would result. The science fiction depiction shown on so many poor movies that show society as living from hand to mouth in the shadow of the great cities of the world may be more prophecy than fiction.

It is difficult to understand how the public in this country can expect to continue to exist in the current free and unfettered state if they are too stupid to connect the dots that exist today. Islamic fundamentalism, terror, politically correctness, exporting politics worldwide.

We must again learn that politicos must stop at the shore and we must support whoever is in office while fighting a war. Fight about policies, not objectives. Fight about domestic issues, but not about the will to fight. The enemy of our civilization is listening and taking heart from the wild screeching originating from those who jealously covet the power of the national government. It must stop!

I spoke with a friend this week and he asked me if I thought we were making any progress in the rest of the world in fighting terrorism. I told him that I think that if Bush is reelected, we will make more progress, but right now, with all the rhetoric coming from the left that if the President were to tell some terrorist-supporting leader anything, he would get a laugh in return. What leader in the world is going to make a change in policy based on what the weakened President of the United States says? The proper response would be " ask me again if you get reelected."

President Bush is speaking tonight. I hope to hear that he is resolute. I hope to see the explanations to what the future will be. I need to see some response from the public acknowledging that we are fighting a war and we want to win more than we want to argue with each other.

The Difference between America and Al-Qaeda

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

It's been 3 weeks since the pictures of the abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib appeared. What do we know now that was not immediately obvious? We know that some small number of our young troops are possibly too deeply steeped in the pornographic "free sex" climate of the internet and have lost sight of proper behavior. We know that the problem was not being covered up by the military, but rather that the military was in fact already prosecuting the issue. The investigation started because a brave soldier, Army Spec. Joseph Darby, 24, an Army Reservist and member of the 372nd Military Police Co. reported up the chain of command that this intolerable behavior is not acceptable. It was not CBS that found the problem.

We also now know, via the internet, that Al-Qaeda has a horrible way of expressing the murderous beliefs of their corrupt version of Islam. To them, the hacking off an innocent American head, such as Nicholas Berg, is laudable and something to celebrate. I hope that the American people can now see the abuse in a different light. Even if the major media and press outlets don't agree, I think most of us are able to look at the two events in a reasonable light. Neither is acceptable.

The difference is that in the case of the Americans, we are seeking justice against the persons that acted inappropriately. In the case of the terrorists, there are no serious critics of the action from the Arab world. In fact, a search of the web page for Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) (America's largest Islamic civil liberties group) returns no mention of either Nick Berg, Nicholas Berg or beheading. There has been consistently little or no criticism of the barbaric acts committed by anyone other than the US.

President Bush needs to steel himself to continue the necessary processes in Iraq. He needs to be a lot less sensitive to the complaints about our troops and actions from political opponents or unreasonable pundits or even the Iraqi Governing Council. His support would surely improve if he were to show the resolute George Bush we all saw after 9/11. The country needs to remember the reason we need to prevail in this war--World War III or IV (depends on weather you count the cold war as WWIII). The alternative is unthinkable.

Are we willing to win the war?

5/7/04.

(Note: An edited, shortened version of this was published in the Marietta Daily Journal Newspaper, Letters to the Editor, under the title of: "We can win the war on terror, but do we really want to win?" 5/16/04.

We all have been watching the truly terrible pictures coming out of Iraq. The events pictured are not so much torture as humiliation. But to the Islamic peoples of the area, this humiliation at the hands of the hated Americans and especially American WOMEN is as bad if not worse than the real torture that existed under Saddam.

We are all going to have to pay a price for the excessive behavior of a few non-representative soldiers in the wrong place at the wrong time. The commanding general, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski has shown the "proper"(read: Politically Correct) response for someone in a position of leadership today--It's not my fault--I didn't know it was happening- without seeming to understand that it is indeed her responsibility. She was in a position to influence the troops under her command and played ostrich instead. If she didn't have enough information about what was going on durring her watch, then she should have. This is inexcusable and should be punished with at least discharge. That is not the end of the problem by a long shot. The perpetrators need to be tried and if found guilty of this inhumanity, punished. The sentences need to be severe and public. The infamous Abu Ghraib prison should be loudly and visibly destroyed--possibly even with a public tank display.

That said, however, we must also know that we cannot allow ourselves to fall into a breast beating orgy of self hatred. The incredibly large majority of our troops represent us in a manner that any rational American would be proud to observe. Their self restraint and reasoned response to the most intense provocation is impressive to say the least.

There are many events occurring in Iraq that are of concern to me. I am not happy to be turning over the creation of the governing body of Iraq to U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. He has already demonstrated his biases publicly to be very anti-American and by extension anti democratic.
I am not happy with the change in the de-Baathification of Iraq. I am not happy with the handling of the siege of Fallujah. The president's "bring them on" comment should have applied here if anywhere. The military commanders should have allowed the resisters to "bring it on" and then take them out. Fully.

The most damaging thing I have seen is the joy with which the press and the Democrats (sometims redundant) have used these pictures to attempt to destroy the president and his party. If someone had behaved this way in World War II, they would have been recognized as the anti-patriots they were.

I think that the problem now is that people do not yet understand the threat involved with the Islamicists. There has been an attack on America. It was a terrible attack, but in terms of what could happen, not as bad as it could be. Most of this country has not yet truly realized that we are really in a war--not just rhetorically but in reality. The people that are our enemies have not yet convinced enough people in this country that this war is truly an imminent issue.

In World War II, people awakened to the danger when a large enough attack was launched. In terms of the modern world, that point has not yet been reached.

I think that the Jihadists will, in the long run find that they have awakened a sleeping giant. It will be a battle to the death and only one of the fighters will survive. If we lose this war, not just American civilization will end but Western Civilization as a whole will slowly but surely vanish.

And yet, how could it be otherwise? If the Islamicist win (and if Americans do not wake up they surly will), we will be thrown into an abyss of 12th century Islam that will destroy any of the vaunted freedoms of women and non believers in Islam. Islam does not allow competitors. I shudder to think of what this world would look like. No major obstacle to the advance of darkness will exist. I use the term darkness because I see the American civilization as a breath of fresh air and brightness shining on the world.

If you doubt the above, ask yourself if you have heard many if any of the practitioners of the "Religion of Peace" even criticizing the excessive violence shown by the Jihadists worldwide. Terror cannot and mustnot be met by silence.

I hope the price of the awakening of America is not too high. I know we can win this battle we did not start but we must, at somepoint, truly begin to fight. This includes any politically incorrect measures we need to take, such as profiling. It probably includes many steps we have not yet considered.

I will spend some time today watching the U.S. Navy Blue Angles performing. I will watch with pride and understanding that these pilots represent the best and the brightest of the best and brightest military in the world. I know we can win this war but I only question if we want to win this war. Yet.