>>> It's nice to see some moderation in a thread that's become one of the most knee jerk conservative threads around. <<<
I'm sure I'm one of those knee jerk conservatives although I must admit, I haven't a clue what a knee jerk conservative is.
I was watching the Band of Brothers the other night and during an interview, with one of the men from Easy Company, he mentioned that, "We was attacked." There wasn't any doubt in our minds about what we do. We signed up to kill Japanese.
The Japanese killed about 2,000 Americans at Pearl Harbor and we immediately responded by declaring war.
Someone has been attacking our embassies and other military installations for years. Then they killed over 3,000 people in New York. And we have people who doubt that we should respond with force.
Our grandfather's generation knew what to do. Too many of our generation seem to think that appeasement is the way to go.
No, we aren't conducting this War on Terrorism properly. We are fighting a politically correct war with the idea of ending it as quickly as possible with as few casualties as possible. We should be declaring all out war and be trying to destroy anyone connected to al Qaeda.
We're in a war we won't win because of our foreign policy which I'm sure you are aware of. The six US policies the Muslims hate, and the reason they have declared war on us is as follows:
1. US support for Isreal.
2. US and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula
3. US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. US support for Russia, China and India.
5. US pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
6.US support for Muslim governments which bin Laden and others think are corrupt and tyrannical.
I think that discontinuing support for Isreal is a popular idea with a lot of people. I just don't think we can dis-associate ourselves from them. I don't see where hanging the Isrealis out to dry is in our best national interests. To turn on an ally, a people we helped place in that region, is as despicable as attacking US citizens in New York, in my opinion.
Then you must face the possibility of Isreal using nuclear weapons before they give up their country. The Muslims want the destruction of Isreal and they want the Jews out of the Middle East. Do you think that will happen?
I could be wrong but, trying to be a realist, I can't imagine our society willingly paying $100 to $120 a barrel for oil. bin Laden may think it's worth that much and he may be right. I don't see our society putting up with that.
So in the end, it comes down to economics. What's in "OUR" best economic interests?
Democracy, freeing a tortured people and all of the rest of the nicety things that come along with protecting our economic interests are merely gravy. They aren't the priority. They never are. I suppose it would be nice if they were.
So, how do you change foreign policy and protect our economic interests while keeping the bin Laden Muslims from hating and attacking us?
If we can't do that then we have no choice. If we are to win the War on Terrorism then we must get serious about killing lots and lots of Muslims along the lines of how we killed lots and lots of Germans and Japanese. Otherwise, we have another Viet Nam on our hands.
The occupation stage of the war shouldn't have begun until we destroyed the al Qaeda army.
If these views make me a knee jerk conservative, then I wear the title proudly. So far nobody has shown me a better way of meeting our priorities while making bin Laden happy.
dabum |
