A Clear Choice
The folowing is something I came across that puts the nexus of the war and the election in perspective. A guest post by a fellow who calls himself TMJ Utah. He can be contacted at tmjutah@hotmail.com. M.G.Most of the people aligned with Islamofascism seem to be of Arabic or Middle-Eastern descent. Most of them. There are hundreds of millions of humans that are of that persuasion, and most of THEM are engaged in working for a living, attempting to raise families, and surviving. To presume the right to nail one or more to a wall because they LOOKED like the people who attacked my friends was asnine...and contrary to every moral or ethical rule I was taught as a kid in Texas.
We do face a lethal challenge spanning cultures, continents, and centuries. My earnest wish is that we keep the leadership we have and continue to pursue and defeat the individual enemy while at the same time injecting civilization into the mess that they breed in. If we back away now, we just raise the price we'll pay later.
We are fighting a surgical war. No, not because we are temperate or precise in our use of force, but rather because we are applying bandages and medicine even where we have done no harm. Where we have the option, we always limit our weapons to what will have the least effect on surrounding people and structures. What we are involved in now would be what a Marshall Plan following Patton's tanks would have looked like. One drawback to this strategy is that we can't point at a city blown down to bedrock as an example of what could happen when we are attacked...and it seems the enemy has embraced that omission as some sign that it won't happen.
If we do not defeat the enemy using these tactics before they do in fact kill millions of people or cities of ours, we'll have to turn back a page and settle this argument the way it was done the last three times that Islam attempted to take the world: wars of annihalation.
In an age of W88's, genemod viruses, and information warfare, we aren't going to settle for a Poitiers or Lepanto. They may have the ability to write a check for any weapon they want, but they can't manufacture the pen they sign it with. No matter how crushing a blow we deliver on any one battlefield there is no value in backing off until the system and regimes that foster the threat no longer exist. There must be no sanctuary. None.
That's a huge challenge. It's a good thing that Americans have always been up for that kind of thing.
The people in this country who pull the triggers are in fact the people who decide when the trigger will be pulled and who the weapons will be pointed at. Unlike Europe or Canada, our electorate does in fact control our government. Once a certain point is reached all the special interests, political hacks, party apartchiks, and other-wise unemployable suits that dance around our beauracracies and agencies will be shoved aside and we'll wage the war that we are capable of - and it won't be anything like surgical.
What a waste that would be. For everyone concerned...but the kind of scenario that would necessitate that response is avoidable only by confronting the challenge now.
I have to admit that it's refreshing entering an election cycle that presents clear choices. I just wish the stakes weren't so high.