I watched parts of the controversial docudrama "Path to 9/11" on ABC-TV (I taped most of it as I was involved with a rather extensive project and couldn't give it my full attention), and can see why President Clinton would get his tampon all misaligned. I watched the show (part I only as part II was being locally pre-empted by a incredibly stupid San Diego Chargers/Oakland Raiders football game -- who gives a shit) parking my political ideologies and beliefs in a parking spot as far as I could from the proverbial exit door. My conclusion: it is the over-and-over failed foreign policies of the U.S. which have been pursued by both Presidents Clinton and Bush during their tenure.
While the Muslim maniacs (no different from the right wing Bible-banging maniacs we have here in the United States) have declared a full-blown war -- or
jihad -- we have been pursuing these terrorist threats starting with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center with both arms and legs tied up while our head is turned the other way. There are those who will argue that freedom and constitutional democracy as we know it is being threatened by new surveillance technologies and policies. There are those who argue that we need to do peace conferences and negotiations; these people say that by engaging in retaliatory warfare that we are only inflaming the Muslim fanatic guerillas. The truth is this, folks: peace and freedom are items
which cannot be negotiated. You can only negotiate with people who are negotiable and have the same core values. We are dealing with fanatics who have no problem on bearing children for the sole purpose of being suicide bombers all "for the greater glory of Allah." It comes down to the fact that the Muslims have a right to their beliefs, but we in the western world also have a right to our beliefs. Muslims treat women like shit, while we embrace a philosophy of equality between the sexes.
Warfare by itself sickens me. I end up being a puddle of tears when I see the names and ages of military people killed in action being broadcast on the nightly 10 o'clock news. By the same token I end up being a puddle of tears when I see and think about the three thousand Americans who innocently went to work 1,825 days ago whose families can only relive their being in scorched memories.
I don't care whether there was or wasn't any purported direct link between Al-Queda and Saddam Hussein. While a Chamberlainesque "it's so nice to be nice" Europe struts around with pretty white gloved hands eating cucumber sandwiches and sipping tea, the U.S. and participating allies are doing the dirty work of trying to vanquish the forces of evil which want to change our way of living through terrorism, not much different from Hitler's forces of evil. It was comedian/political humorist Dennis who aptly put it that when Osama Bin Ladin/the radical Muslim world bombed the World Trade Center it was a bit like a game of chess, when the Muslims said "check" -- the western world said "mate."
A bit too often you see cars and people with imbecilic bumper stickers that say "Impeach Bush" based on the latest hegemony spouted by the political opportunists of the left -- do these people really want Dick Cheney as President? My armchair criticism of President Bush is that he has not allowed the military to go after the fanatic Muslims with full fire power. The West has toys WAY bigger with incredible firepower, than their put-put makeshift IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) or booby traps and should be allowed to use them as they see fit. It is no secret that we brought World War II to a screeching halt when we bombed the shit out of Japan with our big toys...and we brought Nazi Germany to its knees and crushed that evil empire with our firepower.
Saddam Hussein and the rest of his Muslim were enslaving of the Middle East. Just as Eastern Europe was able to throw off the chains of the enslaving Communist Russians so they have been able to experience freedoms (and experienced the unintended consequences of a democracy), the Iraqi people deserve the opportunity to experience democracy. Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq denied the will of the people and in so doing demonstrated to the world how their military power could also be used to intimidate.
In the words of President Reagan, "If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today the marks of our terrible dilemma--predictions of doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in which the West must, for its own protection, be an unwilling participant. At the same time we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil? While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections. The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means."
Is there anything wrong with that?
It's up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day. - President Ronald Reagan, March 23, 1983 address to the nation.
