Duck hunts posts in the past have shown him to have a problem with our nation drawing a line in the sand and saying "no more!", and then, doing something about it. He also seems to lend moral equivalancy to those who use murder and terror to further their cause, justifying their acts because their stone age, tribalistic, religious zealotry needs to be accomodated. Oh, why can't we all just get along? Everybody's opinion must be respected, eh? Bull! You can have an opinion, but I never, ever have to always respect it. Tolerate it? Sure, to a point. But always respect it? Mmmmm, nope. Political correctness and sutuational ethics are a derivative of this concept of "everybody's opinion has value". Where has that gotten us except a fantasyland of anything goes and we have to accept it.
History shows The West to be reactive to bad things. Bad people have shown themselves to be proacative in disseminating despicable acts. I guess history is just a fairy tale.
Duck hunt is entitled to his opinion. His naivete' is also amusing. I enjoy his posts for that reason. His opinion, shared by some, is necessary. It has value. We never know sweetness without sampling bitter. We never know right unless we are confronted with wrong. The yin and yang of life is not only preferred, it is necessary.
This is not an ad hominum attack on him. I'm using his opinion as an example, a benchmark of how far left some Western thought has gone.
I have a question. Why don't we just stop getting involved in anything that might in any way be construed to be in our national interest, or in the interest of Western Civilization. Just withdraw into our TV's, Tivo's, internet chatrooms, 4 wheel driving, fishin' and huntin, target shootin', rock n roll concerts and drive through burger heavens and ignore the obvious...might makes right. Always has, always will.
The test is the motivation behind that might. I take us. Ya'll can have them.
I believe Duck Hunt is a her. She can make her own responce to your claims. I just have something to say about your line of thinking.
If someone hits us, we need to hit them back. That's the way it is. Unfortunately, we don't do that.
When the Marine Barracks (I might add that the guards didn't have ammo) was blown up in Beirut, we pulled out and then invaded Grenada. When the Iranians took hostages, Carter did try a military rescue mission that unfortunately failed. Reagan did some deals of selling arms to attempt to get Iran to release hostages, with the profits going to finance the Contras in Nicaragua. It failed, and the entire matter became the Iran-Contra Affair.
A bunch of Saudis based out of Afghanistan hit us on 9/11. We sorta declared war on terrorism. We invaded Afghanistan and rather quickly took it over. Good. If someone attacks us, we need to find out who did it and then hit them hard. We initially did a very good job of this. The Taliban faded from view. (A good number of them were indeed killed, but a large number of lesser minions just faded into the woodwork and a lot of the brass escaped.) The Northern Alliance is a bunch of petty warlords and big time drug lords. We have had around 10,000 troops there. Afghanistan is indeed getting a lot better, but we still have a large number of drug lords in power. Eventually, that will become an issue. (Can we say General Noregia?)
Then the invasion of Iraq. Sigh. The reasons for launching that war have been gone over to death. There were very few operational links between Saddam's intelligence personnel and the Wahabbis. (The US treats the Palestinians largely as non-terrorists. For better or worse, that's the official stance of the US.)
We are supposedly not at war with the Arab culture or Muslim religion. We're supposedly at war with a handful of crazy Wahabbis running around the world. Ah, but we expanded our War on Terrorism beyond the crazy Wahabbis to Saddam, who happens to be evil but is very much not a crazy Wahabbi. (Bit of an aside, Saddam was a very secular guy who repressed the ultrareligious folks in his country. Hence, the Wahabbis hated him.) Ok, Saddam is gone and now we occupy/liberated Iraq. Now what? Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 nor our retaliation for 9/11. Is our next target going to have anything to do with the Wahabbis or not? Are we still at war with the Wahabbis?
The overwhelming majority of our forces are dealing with Iraq, not out there hunting Wahabbis. THAT annoys me. I want bin Laden's head on a pike and the Wahabbis decimated. Instead, we exonerated Saudi Arabia completely, which is the birthplace of the Wahabbis and provides much of their personnel. We know very little of what Saudi Arabia is internally doing to hunt down the Wahabbis, besides a very few token arrests.
My point is that we have claimed to have drawn a line in the sand (the Wahabbis), and then ignored it in persuit of a very different goal (Iraq/Saddam). Is that very different goal valid? I don't know. I'm very much opposed to handing people freedom on a silver platter without them earning it. "If the people do not rise up and take freedom for themselves, they neither deserve it nor will they keep it." If we stated we wanted Saddam's head on a pike because he annoyed us, it'd be fairly respectable. Instead we made a multitude of various claims. WMD, liberating the people, terrorism, whatever.
I remember reading much of your words applying to the Native Americans. The US Army committed genocide, and got away with it. "Might makes right," indeed. If we try going down that road again, I do not believe it will be quite as easy. I recommend keeping the "War on Terrorism" strictly against the crazy Wahabbis. (Remember, the guys that actually attacked us.) Apparently some folks vastly disagree with me, and are in the position to act out their will. Any future "Native Americans" might not be as easy to wipe out as the Native Americans were back in the 1800's.
Turning the "War on Terrorism" into the Tenth Crusade is not a good idea for a vast multiple reasons. It will get messy. Instead of just attacking people that attacked us (perfectly justified), we will be declaring war on people that did not attack us. It will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. By declaring war on another religion, they will likely recipricate.
I saw this in the Balkans. Evil psychopaths on both sides. Mass graves, assassinations, random killings, etc. I do not want this to happen to my country. I remember staring into the skull of a young girl who was shot because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to be Muslim. There is no justification for indiscriminating firing on children just swimming in a pond on a hot day. On the other hand, I listened to stories told to me by Muslim soldiers of their actions against the Christians. Who is right? Who is wrong? Neither. Both sides are screwed up, and equally guilty. It's a cycle that I believe will continue until one side is dead.
Oddly enough, one of our greatest victories against the Wahabbis happened in the Balkans. This victory was not by invasion or 'smart bombs'. They do have their place, mind you, just not in every instance. We convinced the locals that the mujis were bad news. "See, the mujis are unreasonable people", "they're making you look bad", blah blah blah. Bribery, diplomacy, flat out BS, and trickery did it. The locals turned on the mujis. Some were killed, other left in a real hurry, others were imprisoned for war crimes. The mujis were gone. No sexy CNN footage of smart bombing, or nifty toys. Most of this was carried off by Special Forces and certain other folks. Sometimes a little talk (and a few bucks slipped into the right pockets) can do a lot better than a few hundred bombs. Sometimes not.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Sometimes it's better to try other tools first.
I don't want to see that cycle started on a global scale. Maybe one day it might be inevitable. Today is not that day. Every sane person, on both sides, should attempt to avoid such a war. If it becomes necessary, so be it. Until it becomes necessary, it should be avoided. If a global war between Muslims and Christians breaks out and 'got out of hand'... I do not believe it would stop until nearly every member of the opposite side is dead. Some Muslims and Christians WANT to see this kind of war. Both are fanatics. Yet their arguments are rather similiar. I hope voices of reason hold. We shall see.
I am not a member of either religion. I'm pagan. Part of my reasoning is self-preservation. Another part is that I do not want to see my estimate of a worst case scenerio come to pass. I believe in the preservation of life when possible. If you have to kill, you do it. But it should be a last case resort, not the first.
The more I think about it, the more I agree with Jefferson. "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."
