Rant Mk 1

It has been quite some time since I posted. The London Bombings happened and I’ve been doing a lot of reading of blogs and books. Unfortunately I don’t have the literary gifts of Cassandra or Smash, but I’ll do my best to boil it down to the basics. I will try and edit in all the links I should, my apologies for the many I am missing.
1) We’re in a war (Hat tip http://www.michellemalkin.com/), we were attacked first. To some of you this may be a no brainer, but I think some people are really missing the picture. Politics as usual in a time of unusual events.
2) In a war you fight to win. The only rules to impose are those we set to keep our humanity. Empathizing with enemy is treason. Empathize with them after they have lost, not during the fight (unless it gives you insight to kill more)
3) You fight until you win, failure is not an option. For people who say we have lost, you are committing treason. I’ve been trying to come up with a less inflammatory word, but none fit. It’s treason.
4) Anyone who thinks this war was wrong ought to take a look at life under Saddam. We should have done this much earlier with fewer and flimsier reasons. To think otherwise is to have no compassion for your fellow human beings.
5) How many lives do we loose before it’s not worth it? If it is worth loosing 1 life, it is worth a million or more.
6) Why us? Why not France or Germany or some of the Arab nations in the area. As my math teacher used to say, this is left for an exercise for the student.
7) In time, the Islamofacists will loose, even if we do nothing. They have really only given us pin pricks. Enough to make us jump in our seat and get the adrenalin going, but to no real effect unless we decide to pee ourselves and hide in a corner, even then they will still loose. By fighting the war we will keep fewer of our citizens and other innocent people in the world from dying or living in a country like Afghanistan under the Taliban. (They have let us know their ultimate goal) We will accelerate the time to the end of the war. It will last at least a generation (30 years).
8) If we walk away from Iraq before the job is done (a stable, strong, self sustaining Iraqi government) then get set for Afghanistan II. Add at least 1 generation to the war. For the second time, where is your compassion?
9) We can’t reason with these people. Please feel free to go to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, or the Netherlands and prove me wrong.
10) People in the service are serving the country as a whole, doing things most civilians can’t fathom. I stopped telling most of my submarine stories, most people acted like they thought I was lying outright. It is called THE SERVICE for a reason – The reason is sacrifice.
11) It would be nice if the sacrifices weren’t necessary, and if we all lived happily ever after. Please note you got off the bus on planet Earth. There are bad people here, and then there are EVIL people here. Thank a hero (military, cops, firemen, paramedics, doctors, nurses, the list goes on)
12) Some say war is wrong for any reason; tell it to the patients in this hospital. No invaders here, just civilians.
13) Unless you know someone in the service, or unless you fly a lot, not a lot has changed for Joe Average since 9/11 with respect to our living standard. This is far different from WWII. I think this has caused a lot of people to be disassociated from the war. Given the reporting of on-going deaths and no reported successes, it’s easy to justify quitting. Our MSM really only has 2 goals. 1-bring down any political figure you can (Become another Bob Woodward) or 2-If it bleeds, it leads. Good news is not news. The newspapers are not there to educate adults by researching and presenting historical perspectives. There are days I doubt newspapers have a liberal slant, that would be giving them too much credit. They just want as much controversy to sell as much copy as possible. The word for this is Greed. It implies a lack of morals and ethics.
14) We have made mistakes, we will make others. This is the definition of a human being. Mistakes do not negate the worthiness of the goal. They don’t even mean you should loose your job. Another word for mistakes is experience.
15) Afghanistan and Iraq are not sit coms. We can’t fix them in 30 minutes, 3 months or even 3 years if things go perfectly, but we make mistakes. Talk to an Afghan about how the country was gutted when the Russians invaded. The Taliban just finished the job. Educated people gone, infrastructure gone.
16) Congress has let us down. We are a nation of law, and they are the lawmaking body. Where are the laws on terrorists? What is a terrorist (under the law)? What is torture (pulling out fingernails, panties on the head, a woman invading your personal space?). How about a resolution on governments who harbor and abet terrorists (I want an official Shit List of the US-SLOUS) By leaving it all to the President this allows every nitwit who can criticize to say they can do better, but they don’t have to give how or why (Kerry during his campaign). Politics as usual, see #1.
17) The UN is not our friend, and if it was we should be worried. Take a look at the condition of many of the countries in the UN. Letting the UN decide our policy is like letting convicted felons vote that no police are necessary, or better yet let them take care of the theft problem. I’ll worry about what Britain and Australia think.
18) Police from one state can pursue a felon into a neighboring state. I don’t know the legal name, but I learned this watching COPS. Same thing for terrorists, no safe haven. You can either help us, or you are an accomplice. If you’re on the SLOUS we should not respect your boarders. I realize this is a potentially huge inflammatory statement. But otherwise, we allow the enemy sanctuary. We ought to go clean up a rats nest when and where we find it.
19) Sad to say, the US and the anti-terror coalition can address only 1-2 countries at a time given the resources we are presently willing to commit. We can’t supply all the troops or all the money to solve all the problems in the world. We have to prioritize. How much Arab Oil Money is being invested in helping the people of Afghanistan?
20) To the Muslims that think everything wrong is a Jewish plot, GROW UP! An adult takes responsibility for their life. Insh Allah is a way of denying all responsibility. I think the number of Jews world wide is 12 million, only 5 million in Israel (Along with 1 million Moslems and Christians). The Moslem population worldwide is around a billion. If you can’t out perform Israel with a 20:1 ratio and all that oil money; what does that say about you?

There’s a lot of people out there trying to wussify the US. No risk is acceptable, no soldier’s death is acceptable. This is incredibly shortsighted. The most shocking to me is much of this is internal; we are our own worst enemy. One punch fights are very rare, typically antagonists trade blows. The Islamofacists started the fight. We punched back in Afghanistan and Iraq. They punch back in Madrid and London. Oh wait, I got hurt, I should quit. I guarantee you Mohammad Ali never said that, and neither should we. It’s going to be a long bloody fight. Gird thy loins. The fight stops with a broken bleeding and unconscious body on the floor. To translate the analogy, all the terrorists dead and a change of government for those countries that support terrorism. This is our only choice, fast or slow, more innocent dead or less.

I get the sense that if any Democrat was elected, they would pull us out of Iraq to avoid another Vietnam and thus make a self-fulfilling prophesy. I still think of myself as an independent voter, but other than Zell Miller I can’t think of a Democrat worth supporting.