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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (12442)	12/31/2001 12:54:59 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 27756

Robert W. Tracinski The real person of the year newsandopinion.com -- THE usual end-of-the-year retrospectives are a little different this year: they begin with Sept. 11 -- and for good reason. Can you remember, off the top of your head, what was going on before the attack on the World Trade Center? Sure, there were debates on serious issues (and on many unserious issues), but nothing that approached the scale or urgency of the Islamic terrorists' war on America. The most important part of any year-end retrospective -- the most important because it focuses not just on events, but on the movers of events -- is the selection of a "person of the year." But the most famous attempt at this, Time magazine's Person of the Year, fell short -- almost disastrously short. A few weeks ago, Time hinted that it might choose Osama bin Laden as Person of the Year. Most people were outraged at the suggestion, but could not say exactly why. Time's excuse was that the Person of the Year is not necessarily good or evil; he or she is the person who had the greatest influence on the year's events. But that is precisely what would have been so vicious about choosing bin Laden (or Hitler, Stalin and Mao, as Time has actually done in the past). It assumes that evil is the most important and influential force in the world, that the bad guys drive history. They don't. There have always been evil people in the world. In better cultures, evil men are not allowed to gain power; in worse cultures, they are given command of armies, schools or networks of terrorists. The old adage is true: all that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. So when we pick the Person of the Year, we should look to the people who really count: those who do something. By that standard, Time's selection of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is much better -- but still does not give credit where it is most deserved. Yes, Giuliani deserves praise for projecting a confident, competent leadership, not just to his city, but to the whole nation. More important was his speech before the United Nations -- not mentioned in Time's profile -- where Giuliani condemned the attitude of moral equivalency that regards terrorists and their sponsors as just another side in a political and diplomatic conflict. Nevertheless, the selection of Giuliani still grants too much importance to evil. He helped us survive the aftermath of the attack -- a noble task, but still only a reaction to evil and suffering. Time's choice still sends the message that evil is in the driver's seat, that the bin Ladens of the world create disasters, and the best we can do is to survive and rebuild afterward. But there is another job that is more important: the job of striking back at terrorists and eliminating their sponsors and supporters. That's why I think the real choice for Person of the Year is clear-cut: Donald Rumsfeld. Could anyone have imagined, on the evening of Sept. 11, that before the year was out, bin Laden would be dead or missing and his immediate sponsors, the Taliban, would be shattered and largely destroyed -- and that all of this would be achieved with a mere handful of American casualties? The victory in Afghanistan has ensured that terrorists did not get the last word in 2001. That's why our military, and its top official, deserve to be honored as the most important driver of the year's events. As secretary of defense, Rumsfeld has the primary responsibility for shaping our military strategy. He has been its most public voice, in almost daily press briefings, and he deserves credit for sticking with his strategy in Afghanistan when many (myself included) criticized it as inadequate. Credit also goes to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the hard-liner who articulated, early on, the principle that should guide a wider war: "End states who sponsor terrorism." But Wolfowitz's ideas have not yet won out against Secretary of State Colin Powell's compromise and coalition-worship. President Bush deserves credit for allowing our military to do its work without too much interference. But he has refused to support Israel's war on terrorism, and he can still negate the victory in Afghanistan by ending the war now, refusing to apply to Iran and Iraq the same resolve that succeeded in Afghanistan. That makes Rumsfeld the real Person of the Year, because his performance over the past three months reminds us that we can do more than survive this war. We can win it. newsandopinion.com

To: calgal who wrote (12442)	12/31/2001 1:21:43 PM
From: joseph krinsky	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27756

Another lesson that should be learned from MR.Rumsfeld (he's the greatest!) is that the American public WANTS the truth, we want to know what the score is, without all the bullshit. I believe we always have. We've been spoonfed a bunch of shit from the media for the last 30 years, and I think that the general public's reaction to Mr. Rumsfeld is demonstrating that the public is sick and tired of it. Just think where we could be if the rest of the politicians could find that kind of honesty in themselves and treated us like the adults we are. I don't understand their thinking. We're the roughest toughest rootingest tootingest people that ever lived on the planet, and they think we can't handle the small stuff. We beat the crap out of every enemy that ever fought against us, and recently we again demonstrated our courage, resolve, our unity, and our ability to bounce back after receiving a terrible sneak attack. We survived depressions, recessions, aggressions. (holy cow bat man, I think I'm being possessed by Jesse J.) Not only the rest of the world should take notice that if they mess with America we're going to bring smoke on their asses like it's never been done before, but IMO it's time the politicians got their heads straight, and started to get on the ball. Our country is like a spaceship compared to the rest of the world, and we make improvements in the craft while we're flying at 900 miles an hour. We are the Borg, except we have compassion, charity, generosity. Just think where we'd be if we had some leaders that would buckle down and do what's right for the country and not for their special interests. We'd be in freaking warp drive.