Arik, you indeed make a compelling case for what I see as the fundamental truth underlying the current
conflict, the situation with the West against Islam...by ANY definition it is war for survival, a war which is a
war which is WAR. The ultimate measure for victory is a concept call WINNING, simple idea, new rules
of strategy, end game being the same. What has changed in my view is how it must be fought. I read with
horror the impossible mental machinations the civil libertarians and the folks who genuinely understand the magnitude of the stakes, honest, well-intentioned debate, like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of
a pin...old, old, pointless sophistry, a boring exercise in futility. They agonize over the death of our own freedoms. If we cast the war in terms of historical precedent without adequately casting terms of argument to be congruent with the reality of the situation we do, in my opinion, follow exactly down the slippery slope you refer to, toward our own devastating road to American fascism, the total death of what so many of our forebears have bled and died for. I deplore that outcome. I BELIEVE there is an out for all of us. Only Jews can use the words, Blacks can use teh words, gays can use the words...words of derision used by others in referring to those minorities...and get away with it. It is part of the "political correctness" of our society that we have all come to live with. Yesterday someone posted an article by Salman Rushdie, the author who still lives under some threat of danger for the temerity of writing a book critical of Islam, "The Satanic Verses." In his article yesterday he stated what many here have thought and some including myself have said. Here finally is a Muslim who calls Muslims terrorists at heart. Only he could have said it and get away with it. For all practical purposes, as Rushdie admits, Islam equals
terrorism. For those who are Muslim and deny it, challenge them to put their hands on their book and swear in the name of allah fealty forever to separation of church and state. They cannot do it! The founding fathers did not expect or anticipate this. I advocate an amendment to the Constitution, rewriting Article I to allow for freedom of religion as long as that religion does not in ANY WAY condone or advocate establishing a religion-based government of ANY KIND, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, whatever. That is a way out of the legal quandary.
Now in the best of good faith I urge you to consider taking your well made points one step further, the critical step,
the one that puts us at war with Islam. For those Muslims here now, a loyalty test as above. We must then
move quickly to overthrow the obscene joke of the House of Saud since most of their country are Wahabis, the most intransigent and extreme color of Islam, thus leaving us open to take on Saudi Arabia. We must engage
many of our so-called allies. What I advocate could under some circustances be called by vitriolic names. Ethnic
cleansing comes to mind. One point however...we did not start it! We have the means of annhiliating the overwhelming majority of those against us this very morning. Annette Benning's charachter in "The Seige" comes
to mind as she addressed Denzel Washington's charachter as they confronted unthinkable standards of terror in NY when that film was released, unthinkable until September 11th..."Just remember, the most committed wins!"
That is the bottom line. In summary a religion has declared war on us! No? Then why haven't Egyptians, Saudis,
Pakistanis, Syrians, Iranians, Muslim Philipinoes, Indonesians, en masse, turned out in the streets to deplore
what was done to America on September 11th? Might I suggest they do not because they approve, even applaud it? We do not! have to endanger our own civil rights, our own fundamental freedoms, if we cast the war in its
own terms. We CAN win. That does not translate automatically into "we will win"...our war to win will involve nukes.
Regardless of the mistakes that got us here, our gutting of our military, our foreign dependence on oil, our failure
to address Israel's maltreatment of the Palestinians...that is all history. This is where we are today. Until 70,000
have died, or 7,000,000, we will as a nation, I fear, be loathe to follow your conclusion to the end. End of rant.
Now ON TOPIC (slightly, for this very eclectic thread) for a Sunday morning and with no business news to entertain us, I have some GOOD news for my friends on this thread as well of those who merely lurk and smerk. Yesterday I got a catch-up call from a very close friend of mine, our kinship formed as we sweated together in a group of folks climbing Mout Kilimanjaro in 1989. He is very! high up in one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. You can relax about what you hear that fool Tommy Thompson say about not needing to vaccinate the public against smallpox!!! There WILL BE ENOUGH doses to vaccinate everybody who can safely be vaccinated, all in less than a year. The labs are smoking!! Even on Sundays! What the adminstration is telling the public is not congruent with what they are doing, just not broadcasting it yet in order to avoid further
panic. Smallpox IS something to panic about as it carries a 30 % mortality and it spreads among an unimmuized population like influenza. Anthony Faucci admitted on "Face the Nation" this morning that public health officials who must be the first to respond in case of smallpox attack ARE being vaccinated as we speak. The rest will follow in short order. That was a good piece of news I wanted to share.
God (not allah) bless America!
Jim Black |
