October 02, 2004

Time to decide who we want to be

In the cool early light of the morning after, there's a question American voters must ask themselves, a question more important than any posed last night to George W. Bush and John F. Kerry.
   
 Who are we? Who have we become? What kind of people do we want to be? These are questions for the debate that counts.
   
 The extrusions of that vile species (erectus porcinus) who murdered 35 of their own children yesterday in the streets of Baghdad in the name of a malignant theology of an eighth-century religion, imagine that we're no tougher, no more resilient, no more courageous than the French, who can never even defend themselves; the Germans, who can't push themselves away from a plate of sausages long enough to recognize peril; or the Spanish, who demonstrated in the aftermath of the Madrid railway bombing that when the going gets tough it's time to cut and run.
[Not only did the suicide bombing of that crowd of children killed in Baghdad remind us of the Beslan horror, but what's worse, I think that the IslamoNazis did it to "help" Kerry, being fully aware that the debates were to be held that night and that one of Kerry's main talking points is that the current situation in Iraq is a violent "mess."--Jen]

The cowardly ingratitude of "old Europe," though depressing, is nevertheless old stuff. What's scary is that similar voices are raised in our own midst, that a serious, credible candidate for president of the United States encourages these voices of fear with articulate nuances, subtleties, modulations, explanations, variations, distinctions, innuendos and pious evasions. He imagines that an American president, in a world of evil run amok, must demonstrate leadership by submitting the security of Americans to something he calls a "global test," showing the practiced deference that a French poodle might show the rich widow taking him out for a stroll on the avenue.

Smug and vain,
[Oh, yeah!
What added to the smugness last night was that I'm virtually certain that Lehrer/PBS gave Kerry the debate questions beforehand so that he could prepare and rehearse the answers.--J.T.]
John Kerry presents himself as the John Paul Jones of the Mekong, the war hero who fears no foe. Maybe he doesn't. But he can't reconcile himself to the harsh and unforgiving fact that we're at war again, and this time against an enemy more vile, more depraved and more wicked than any America has faced before. Maybe he knows that. Whatever he may think, or feel in the marrow of his bones, he cannot jettison the dead weight of the leftmost elements of his party, either now, when his candidacy falters, or later, in the unlikely event he becomes the 44th president. He must be the cut-and-run candidate, just as he would have to be the cut-and-run president.
[Make no mistake, no matter what Kerry says now, he'd pull our troops out of Iraq in unconditional surrender (and of course, the Coalition would collapse without the U.S. leading it), just as he urged the U.S. do in Vietnam and which he helped to bring about with his Vietnam Vets Against the War.]

John Kerry must, to keep his candidacy afloat, pander not only to the prejudices of the dominating anti-war element — prospective voters who detest all wars fought in defense of the interests of America — and as well to the terrors of those, many well meaning, who keep counsel only with paralyzing fear.
[I am convinced that there are quite a few Americans in the "Bush haters" group who are simply too terrified by 9/11 and the Islamic killers to face the reality of fighting them in this war. Hence, they protest and oppose Bush who has faced this reality and who does want to do something about it.]

Monsieur Kerry exploits the revulsion of all civilized men at the gruesome tortures of Islamist "holy" men, and argues that al Qaeda affiliates operating in Baghdad are cutting off the heads of innocents only because the president ordered the invasion of Iraq — the devil made them do it, and George W. Bush is the devil. Monsieur Kerry knows this is not so. Abu Musab Zarqawi was killing Americans for years before the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq, deposed Saddam Hussein and cleared his killing fields. The United States asked Saddam in early 2003 to extradite Zarqawi for killing an American diplomat on the streets of Amman. Saddam declined, as expected, because even then Zarqawi was setting up his terrorist organization in Baghdad.
[Please note that Zarqawi was far from the lone upper level Al Queda henchman in Iraq or the only instance of Islamist terror activity before the liberation; there is an Everest of a mountain of evidence that Saddam had numerous ties and links to AQ and jihadi murderers and even though Kerry likes to state that the 9/11 Commission said that there were "no ties" between Saddam's Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, there were indeed.]
    
No doubt there are terrified Americans who see or read about the video beheadings of Americans in Iraq, or quail before the grim photographs of dead children in Baghdad, and imagine that if civilized men just give it up, tuck tail and come home, the erectus porcinus, men who walk like men and behave like pigs, will show us mercy.
[Ah, yes. The old "hoping the crocodile will eat one last" game. Very sad.]

During the early months of World War II, when many felt the nation's war machine was running on empty and anxiety hovered over the land of the free, Life magazine published a cover photograph of a Japanese officer with a scimitar raised to behead a kneeling American flier with a cut that was no less gruesome for its swiftness. The photograph haunted the nation for weeks. There was sadness and anger, but no rebukes of FDR, no cries of despair, no mocking of American soldiers that they were fighting "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." The cruelty of the savagery enraged the grown-ups and fortified the fury that redoubled determination to win the war. We must determine again to show our enemies just who we can be, and passing a "global test" of approval be damned.

Precisely, Mr. Pruden!
And of course, he's taking his lead from President Bush.
The story of that Life Magazine cover is very telling and makes me wonder what it was like to be alive during WWII when the Media supported America's war effort and not served as the Enemy's virtual enabler and excuser!
Now, they won't show anything that hints of the beheadings of Americans, they won't show the footage of 9/11 and their latest ploy is to interview the family members of soldiers killed in Iraq who "blame" President Bush personally for their deaths.
Can you imagine a KIA soldier's mother or wife blaming President Roosevelt for their death in enemy action during WWII?
Maybe, in the end, this election will be a very good thing for a lot of reasons, but in the present case, I'm thinking it may have a kind of cathartic or purgative effect on many of us if we can get "clear" about where we stand on the war and why.
We can only hope and pray that it will strengthen our resolve to win through to complete and total victory and to do so with determination and purpose and even with--dare I say it?--a glad heart because America is basically good and fights a war "well" (if I can use that expression, too) and for good reason--to stop evil men and to help make democracy and human rights a reality for all men and women on earth.