27 June 2008
Wise old words
Posted by Bryon under: Humor; World Affairs .
This is a very well written article and in the interest of presenting both sides of the issue I am pleased to blog this. Many of our readers fully support the war and most feel we should attempt some kind of win. I may not agree with every point but we want to be open and fair. Thank you Cavetrollhead.
The link for online text is here: http://www.islamreview.com/articles/worldsituation.shtml
This was written by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004.
Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted,
As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left to speak to. To be sure you understand that this is not politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led us through pre and WWII (1933 - 1945) up to and including our present President, I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international conflict.
This would include just naming a few in addition to President Roosevelt - WWII: President Truman - Korean War 1950; President Kennedy - Bay of Pigs (1961); President Kennedy - Vietnam (1961); [1] eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat) during the cold war (1945 - 1991); President Clinton’s strikes on Bosnia (1995) and on Iraq (1998). [2] So be sure you read this as completely non-political or otherwise you will miss the point.
Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.
First, let’s examine a few basics:
1. When did the threat to us start? Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us: Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979; Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983; Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983; Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988; First New York World Trade Center attack 1993; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996; Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998; Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000; New York World Trade Center 2001; Pentagon 2001. (Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide). [3]
2. Why were we attacked? Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.
4. Who were the attackers? In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.
5. What is the Muslim population of the World? 25%
6. Isn’t the Muslim Religion peaceful? Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of Hitler, that made no difference. You either went along with the administration or you were eliminated.
There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests). (http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm). Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities.
Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others. Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way - their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else.. [5]
The point here is that just like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing - by their own pronouncements - killing all of us infidels. I don’t blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up or die?
6. So who are we at war with? There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don’t clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.
So with that background, now to the two major questions: 1. Can we lose this war? 2. What does losing really mean?
If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.
We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question - What does losing mean? It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly to terrorist attack us until we were neutered and submissive to them.
We would of course have no future support from other nations for fear of reprisals and for the reason that they would see we are impotent and cannot help them.
They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn’t matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do, will be done. Spain is finished.
The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize that if we don’t win, they are finished too, in that they can’t resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading fast. See the attached article on the French condition by Tom Segel. [6]
If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us if they were threatened by the Muslims. If we can’t stop the Muslims, how could anyone else? The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war and therefore are completely committed to winning at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any cost.
Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.
So, how can we lose the war? Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by imploding. That is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we can win.
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don’t comprehend the life and death seriousness of this situation.
President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war. For the duration we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.
And don’t worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him? No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.
Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn’t because they are disloyal. It is because they just don’t recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and weakening, it concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.
Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war perhaps exemplifies best what I am saying. We have recently had an issue involving the treatment of a few Muslim prisoners of war by a small group of our military police. These are the type prisoners who just a few months ago were throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing with Saddam Hussein. And just a few years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans and dragging their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq.
And still more recently the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources internationally, of the beheading of an American prisoner they held. Compare this with some of our press and politicians who for several days have thought and talked about nothing else but the “humiliating” of some Muslim prisoners - not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses through the streets, not beheading them, but “humiliating” them.
Can this be for real? The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If this doesn’t show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can. To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned - totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world.
Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media people are disloyal. It simply means that they absolutely oblivious to the magnitude of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have been pushing us for many years. Remember, the Muslim terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels. That translates into all non-Muslims - not just in the United States, but throughout the world. We are the last bastion of defense.
We have been criticized for many years as being ‘arrogant’. That charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world. We can’t. If we don’t recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated. And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, equal rights for anyone - let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the World.
This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read.
If we don’t win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn’t that sound eerily familiar?
Democracies don’t have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct piece. And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power. They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about the “peaceful Muslims”?
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that we can lose. I believe that after the election, the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we are in and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking about. Do whatever you can to preserve it.
Love,
Dad
By the way on Vietnam, the emotions are still so high that it is really not possible to discuss it. However, I think President Kennedy was correct. He felt there was a communist threat from China, Russia and North Vietnam to take over that whole area. Also remember that we were in a ‘cold war’ with Russia. I frankly think Kennedy’s plan worked and kept that total communist control out, but try telling that to anyone now. It just isn’t politically correct to say so. Historians will answer this after cool headed research, when the people closest to it are all gone.
As you know, I am a strong President Bush supporter and will vote for him. However, if Senator Kerry is elected, I will fully support him on all matters of international conflict, just as I have supported all presidents in the past.
[3] Source for statistics in Par. 1 is http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001454.html
The Institute of Islamic Information and Education. http://www.iiie.net/Intl/PopStats.html
Note the attached article by Tom Segel referred to in footnote 6 infra, the terrorist Muslim have already begun the havoc in France. (The note was not attached to the E-mail I received. Gene)
[6] I checked this article with two sources - Hoax Busters and Urban Myths. It does not come up as a Hoax on either. I also then E-mailed Mr. Segel and he confirmed the article was his.
[7] “I don’t think the Army or any branch of service runs any type of war any more. It’s done by senators and congressmen. There are too many civilians involved.” Returning Iraq veteran, Sgt. 1st Class Greg Klees as quoted in the Cedar Rapids, IA Gazette on May 13th, 2004.
[8] There are 64 Muslim countries. This does not count countries like Spain that are controlled by the Muslim terrorists.
18 Comments so far...
Bryon Says:
27 June 2008 at 1:50 pm.
I don’t agree with every thing this man says but I can tell he is a very smart man. I do agree that loosing this war is a very poor option. I know that the military can win. We have the best military in the world. That is not an opinion.
Imagine a company wants to build a dam. They get their contractors and tell them about the job. After that they say, “We don’t want to pay for your whole work force to do the work and you only get so much money for materials.”
When the construction workers struggle with these heavy burdens they decide the dam is to hard to build. Some say it is too late to stop so they decide to compromise and cut funding. When this fails to get the expected success they increase the man power. Since this new method is getting the project back on track they want to immediately cut man power back. The contractors are trying to tell them not to do that and that they need more workers and funding.
If the company abandons this dam like they want to then the partially damed water will build up and when the half built dam breaks the flood will destroy a lot.
Thats what I see in this war. Its not the military. Let the solders tell congress how to run the war, not the other way around. Congress’ job is to make sure nothing unlawful or unmoral is happening. That is about it.
Tony Says:
27 June 2008 at 2:33 pm.
bryon you are rigth on i like your example of the dam it fits really well. i also dont agree with every thing this guys says but he has a lot of good points. we CAN’T lose!
Hawk Says:
27 June 2008 at 2:42 pm.
Sometimes I get frustrated with the anti-war people here but I try to follow your philosophy that we need to find points of agreement or we will be lost as conservatives. Still, it is refreshing to read something I agree with so much. Thanks for posting this and thanks Cavetrollhead for sending it.
Bryon Says:
27 June 2008 at 2:52 pm.
Your welcome. We really do need to realize that not everybody wants the same thing. It will take more work so don’t give up on our dream.
Nalvy Says:
27 June 2008 at 4:28 pm.
Bryon you are the Yoda of your generation
Carrie Says:
27 June 2008 at 4:35 pm.
So Bryon why don’t you put up a picture? Are you 17 or 18?
T. Fan Says:
27 June 2008 at 5:12 pm.
Okay girls, quit flirting with Bryon.
A lot of this is good but I don’t agree with all of it either. Still it is good to present both sides and try to be fair so I’m glad you posted it. I definitely agree with the part about senators and congressmen running the war. That is just wrong.
Sharon Anderson Says:
27 June 2008 at 8:44 pm.
Thanks for your post, Bryon. The comments show that you have a lot of people thinking, so I wanted to put in my two cents worth.
I agree that radical Muslims pose a very real threat to our western culture, but one of the things that frustrates me most about the current administration and their “war on terror” is that they claim to be fighting this war and still allow potential terrorists by the thousands to enter our country. If they really wanted to protect us why didn’t they secure our boarders immediately after the 9/11 attacks? Why do they continue to keep our borders open so that any supposed terrorist including OTM (other than Mexicans, many of whom are from the Near East) could just walk across into our country? Where is the electronic surveillance that would make a border fence effective?
Sometimes it appears that the administration wants us to fear for our lives so that we will be willing to give up our liberty and send our soldiers to serve as world policemen without a Congressional declaration of war. Here is an interesting SHORT video montage from the Republican National Convention 2004 which shows how fear can be generated. PS None of the quotes are repeated.
Sharon Anderson Says:
27 June 2008 at 8:59 pm.
All that said, we do need to check the Muslim threat, but there are lots of questions: Is it possible to beat global terrorism? What is the best way to protect our country? Can our presence in Iraq do the job? Are we doing what we need to here at home? Etc.
M.G. Says:
28 June 2008 at 10:03 am.
Sharon, that video was freaky. Living in a constant state of fear is not a way to live. It puts things in perspective about finding a balance. I do believe there is a threat but I also think we are making it worse by our actions. We are in a serious dilemma.
Cavetrollhead Says:
29 June 2008 at 4:00 am.
I think this is one of the most pertinent quote to the readership of this site:
“We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.
And don’t worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then. “
Cavetrollhead Says:
29 June 2008 at 4:06 am.
But I want to agree with Sharon whole-heartedly. We have to secure the boarders and I think Bush is playing some clandestine game on the boarder issue. I think on the surface, he appears to have a soft spot for Latino “immigrants” (I put that in quotes because so many illegals don’t immigrate-they invade, with no intention of becoming part the the USA) But a soft spot for them doesn’t explain it for me. He might have made a commitment to God. He is a religious man and maybe he has trapped himself in some kind of zeal that won’t let him see the issue clearly.
Cavetrollhead Says:
29 June 2008 at 4:08 am.
BTW, he clearly believes in modern revelation as he believes that God wanted him to run for President. Maybe he thinks he has had some revelation on the immigration issue. (Because reason seems to play no part, so it might be “revelation”)
SGS Says:
29 June 2008 at 4:35 pm.
I don’t want to be a bearer of a bad news, but it actually looks like we are losing the war with those Muslim terrorists. Here are some of examples, from various government agencies, all from American Thinker.
The first one is about Pentagon doing studies on the belief fundamentals of why those terrorists are what they are — NOT! Know your enemy
“the senior Service colleges of the Department of Defense had not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered” [emphasis added in the original].
Strategic Collapse in the War on Terror: As the author of this article pointed out, “words matter”. Said he,
Words matter, and in the global war on terror we are losing the battle of words, in a self-inflicted defeat. The consequences could not be more profound.Recent government policy memoranda, circulating through the national counter-terrorism and diplomatic community, establishes a new “speech code” for the lexicon in the war on terror, as reported by the Associated Press and now available in the public domain.
I believe this one is now enforced by Department of State. I could not find the article, but I recall reading about The DoS leading the way.
Here’s another good article (I think easier to read) on the same topic of naming our Muslim enemies: Would a Jihadi by Any Other Name Smell as Foul?
There are a few more articles, but they are posted as blogs rather than as daily articles. They do not have as good search engine for their blogs as they do have for their articles. But they do point out the same things as pointed out by the retired attorney who wrote the letter above. The signs as shown by those blogs are not good. We ARE LOSING the willpower war against terrorists. We have no desire to defeat them for once.
CindyL. Says:
29 June 2008 at 4:50 pm.
SGS, I totally agree. What we have done by going into Iraq has made us many more enemies than we have taken out. True that many of the Iraqis have lliked us but now that they realize we want to stay permanently we are losing a lot of ground. And the other Muslim countries hate us more than ever.
Cavetrollhead Says:
29 June 2008 at 11:14 pm.
It is funny Cindy, I think that SGS was saying just the opposite. If you read the second article “would a Jihadi by any other name smell as foul” It makes the point that it is not just grievances that make them want to kill us- but theology. To the ones who are trying to kill us, it is their religious mandate to do so. They want us to believe that it is revenge. They want us to feel guilty and believe it is our fault they hate us. But what motivates them is not just revenge- any more than Hitler killed six million Jews for revenge. Hitler killed Jews because of his IDEOLOGY. Islamic extremists kill and seek to kill the infidels for THEOLOGY.
They tell the west that they seek to kill us because we have earned their vengeance, but they tell EACH OTHER that they have a religious duty to destroy us.
I don’t know, maybe getting out of the middle east and militarizing our boarders is the answer. But you can’t do one without the other. If we don’t militarize our boarders then we have to keep on the offensive.
Cavetrollhead Says:
29 June 2008 at 11:17 pm.
Cindy, I have to quote the article that SGS recommend.
“As someone well acquainted with al-Qaeda’s writings and communiqués (see The Al Qaeda Reader), I can confidently state that their messages to the West are markedly different from their messages to fellow Muslims. To Americans, al-Qaeda, just as the U.S. memo recommends, rarely evokes Islamic theology; instead, the discourse is entirely about the Muslim world’s political grievances at the hands of the West. Their more clandestine writings to Muslims, conversely, rarely revolve around political grievances, but instead are grounded in Islamic theology and law, and stress how Muslims are commanded to have antipathy for infidels and to constantly be in a state of war with them. Even the 9/11 strikes are justified through the strict rules of Islamic jurisprudence.”
Atrocities » Christian terrorism in Vietnam Part 2 Says:
2 July 2008 at 7:13 am.
[…] Wise old words(http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm). Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. … […]
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