Posted on 03/23/2004 3:22:38 PM PST by Phsstpok
I recently began an email exchange with a friend from high school I hadn't spoke with in many years. We got in touch around the 30th reunion of our high school class (which included Mara Liasson of NPR and Fox News, of all people). She is a very liberal Democrat. For the last few months she has been generous enough to forward me every bit of leftist filth she can get her hands on that attacks GWB. I've generally ignored it. Finally I got fed up last week and responded. She had sent me a poem which claimed to be made up of Bush's malapropisms. I responded by pointing out that she should only criticize Bush in this way if she could explain anything that John Kerry ever said in his life, particularly the tortured statements recently where he seems to contradict himself three of four times within a single sentence. Well, that set her off. She responded with several emails with increasing vitriol and spite. I responded to each one, refuting all of her claims and charges against Bush, Republicans and conservatives, with a lot of anecdotes and information gleaned here on Free Republic.
My last email from her had the following diatribe:
Tell me, who in Iraq was on those planes going into the World Trade Center? That is a whole different ballgame. Afganistan is one thing. Iraq is another. No one protested or argued when we went into Afganistan after we were attacked. We went into Iraq to get rid of nonexistant weapons of mass destruction and Saddam. George wanted to avenge his father's embarrassment. And the UN was ignored. WWII was entirely different. And, we didn't get involved in that war until we were attacked. What makes the US the almighty father figure of the world? Why our boys? Sorry to hear your son will be added to the list of my friends with sons in Iraq. It breaks my heart worrying about them all.
Below is my response to her. She has not responded to me in several days. I just wanted to share this. By the way, we were both raised in the most Jewish community in the US (in the world, outside Israel). She is Jewish and I am a non-chruch going Christin (long story having to do with cynicism about liberal ministers). Earlier she had sent me a long piece about the new anti-Semitism in Europe. She was shocked that I agreed. She assumed that I was an anti-Semite "Nazi" because I'm conservative. Go figure.
I would appreciate any CONSTRUCTIVE comments on my reply to my friend as further ammunition, in case she ever gets back to me. I'm willing to bet she has gotten back to me because she's gone to friends in the dim party to gather ammunition. I figured I'd stock up here, just in case <g>.
>> Tell me, who in Iraq was on those planes going into the World Trade Center?
Uh, I don’t think you constructed that sentence very well. If someone was in Irag then they couldn’t be on the plane, now could they? OK, that’s a smart ass remark. Sorry. I assume what you’re saying is “were there any Iraqi’s on the planes that hit the WTC?” and the answer is no. But, there were at least two and probably 8 Saudi’s who were trained in their “craft” in Iraq by Saddam’s secret police, with the aid of Abu Abbas, who was based in Baghdad. The people who blew up the trains in Spain a week ago were Moroccan’s and Indians, but Al Qaeda still claims the credit. That’s the point. They don’t make the distinction. It’s artificial and hides the truth.
>> That is a whole different ballgame.
No, it’s the same “ballgame,” though it’s not a game of any kind. I guess you don’t count Saddam paying $25,000 a head to Hamas and Hezbollah to pay for suicide bombers to be terrorism? Oh, that’s right, that’s not terrorism because the targets are just Jews and killing Jewish civilians is OK because they’re mean nasty occupiers, just like we are. That’s the answer given by the “peace demonstrators” who were marching yesterday. You do know why that theory holds in the Muslim world, don’t you? The “Zionist entity” is on land that once belonged to Muslims and anything that was ever part of the “Uma,” the Muslim world, is forever a rightful part of the Uma, and no one can ever claim it. That’s the same reason that Spain is also considered occupied territory, and all of Europe from the East, up to gates of Paris, where the Muslim conquering armies were stopped by Charles Martel and finally defeated at Vienna. That’s the defeat that Osama and Saddam have both publicly vowed to seek revenge for. And Osama said that they chose September 11th because that’s the date in 1922 that the “British Mandate” was established (with lines drawn by Winston Churchill) in all of what is now Israel and Jordan, and it was all designated the Jewish Homeland. No West Bank and Gaza. No Jordan. No Palestinian state. All of it a homeland for Jews. Before Hitler. Before Auschwitz. That’s the significance of 9/11 and how they tie it all together. Were they all lying when they said that it was the same war and that they want to kill us all, take our homes and enslave our children?
To Jihadist’s the world is divided into two parts, the Uma, or land of peace, where Muslims rule and Sharia is the law, and the “land of war” where they are required to wage Jihad until that land joins the Uma.
>> Afganistan is one thing. Iraq is another. No one protested or argued when we went into Afganistan after we were attacked.
Actually, the same people who organized the protests yesterday against the “occupation” of Iraq were in the streets protesting the “illegal invasion” of Afghanistan as well as the “genocidal sanctions” imposed by the UN on Iraq after the first Gulf War. Among them are CAIR and International Answer. Do a Google search on International Answer and check out who provides their funding. Free Mumia. The Iraq Sanctions Challenge (funded by Saddam). U.S. Out of Korea Committee (funded by Kim Jong Il). The Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Mideast (formed and funded by Saddam before GW 1 in 1990). Peace for Cuba. The pro-Palestinian group Al-Awda. Workers World Party (founded, run and funded by the KGB in the cold war at Stalin’s orders, still a major part of the world anarchist and anti-capitalist “movement”). The same folks funded the Independent Commissions of Inquiry into U.S.-backed Israeli War Crimes. The Iraqi Ambassador to the UN was a key speaker at their Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia in 1999. No, these things aren’t connected at all.
If they claim to be on the same side trying to kill us, why shouldn’t I believe them?
>> We went into Iraq to get rid of nonexistant weapons of mass destruction and Saddam.
No, we went into Iraq because they were a big part of the infrastructure of world terrorism. Funding it. Training them. Providing them passports and logistical help. Planning and carrying it out when it fit their aims. And the chance that Saddam could give them WMD made it too risky to continue to wait for the sake of waiting. George Bush specifically said the threat was not imminent, but that if we waited until it was imminent then it would be too late. If our government, and the French government, and the German government, and the UN and all of the other major countries were wrong when they all said that Saddam had WMD, then we would still be breaking up a key part of the cabal that is waging war on Western Civilization. It has yet to be proven that there were no WMD. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The car bomb in Baghdad that took out the hotel and homes (full of Iraqi civilians) this last week had over 1,000 pounds of high explosives. The same volume of biological agents could destroy life on this planet. It fits easily in a car. You can prove to me that it’s not there? Or that it simply wasn’t driven into the Bekaa Valley using the thousands of valid French passports provided to Saddam by the French DGS (those “good guys” who blew up the Greenpeace boat)? And you recognize that there were 16 chemical and biological facilities discovered after the invasion that could be used to manufacture WMD that Saddam never declared to the UN as required? Yes they could be used to make other things than WMD, but the 18 UN Resolutions over 12 years all made hiding those factories a “material breach” that would authorize the use of force without any further UN Security Council action. And these things were all camouflaged and guarded by the Iraqi military. Gee, I wonder why?
>> George wanted to avenge his father's embarrassment. And the UN was ignored.
President George HW Bush was not embarrassed. He built a coalition in 1990 to achieve a specific goal and he stuck to that. With UN support. After Iraq was kicked out of Kuwait Saddam signed a peace treaty with the UN, not with US, that guaranteed that he would do certain things and not do others. Throughout the 90s (the glorious Clinton years) he ignored all of that, broke every agreement, killed hundreds of thousands of people, publicly threatened to kill millions throughout the world, attempted to assassinate GHW Bush when he visited Kuwait in 1993, and Billy boy and Mad Madeline Halfbright fired a few cruise missiles up a camels butt. And Saddam violated 18, EIGHTEEN, UN resolutions that said “stop or the peace treaty is broken and we’ll attack again.” The UN was ignored alright. It was ignored by Saddam and by the French and the Germans and the Russians and Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton. You know that Bill Clinton went into Kosova without UN approval? And we hadn’t been attacked by anyone. Justify that.
>> WWII was entirely different. And, we didn't get involved in that war until we were attacked.
If you do even a casual analysis of the world leading up to World War II you’ll see that it is exactly the same. The League of Nations was a hopelessly corrupt and inept organization that kept passing meaningless resolutions appeasing the Nazi’s and the Japanese as they slaughtered people in Europe and Asia. And the forces out to enslave the world laughed. And at the time folks argued that they were different things, that they were enemies who would never support each other, just like you hear arguments that Osama and Saddam would never support each other now. Except that Saddam said that he supported Osama and Osama said that he supported Saddam, so long as they were both fighting us and Israel. And have you already forgotten that we have been attacked? Not just 911, but the Cole, the Khobar Towers, The embassy in Africa. Lockerbie. The first WTC bombing in 93 (funded by Saddam). The Achille Lauro. And on and on. And that assumes that we want to ignore the attacks on our allies. These people are comrades in arms, according to their own statements and the organizing events they hold together, with the PFLP and the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, Hamas and Hezbollah, the Red Army Faction and FARC, the Provisional IRA and the Sandinistas, ad nauseum.
>> What makes the US the almighty father figure of the world? Why our boys?
Because it’s the right thing to do and not fighting evil people killing and enslaving millions around the world is evil in itself.
‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’ (attributed to Edmund Burke).
‘If not us, who? If not now, When?’ That was Robert F. Kennedy’s favorite phrase when asked similar questions. He was killed by a “Palestinian” gunman too, you know. Sirhan Sirhan didn’t like the fact that the US supported the existence of a Jewish state within the UMA. Last weeks Spanish election isn’t the first time that a terrorist attack has affected the outcome of an election in the western world. It won’t be the last, particularly if we let them have their way. They will not be appeased. Hitler said “this much and no more” each time the world gave into one of his demands. It was a lie then and it is a lie now.
>> Sorry to hear your son will be added to the list of my friends with sons in Iraq. It breaks my heart worrying about them all.
Do worry about them. And then think about the fact that they have to be over there because we have all ignored this problem for far too long. We’ve argued “it’s not our problem” and let them continue to kill and grow in power and solidify a base. That’s what Al Qaeda means, the base.
Another quote that is definitely Edmund Burke
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.
If you can’t understand what he’s saying or why it is 100% relative to today and the 1930s both then you are lost and without hope.
We’ve allowed them to preach lies, conquest, murder and hate all over the world in the name of “tolerance.” Pick any fundamentalist Mosque anywhere in the world and record the Friday Prayers in Arabic, not the ones for public consumption in English. Get them translated. Read them. Pay attention, because it is our problem.
I suggest you check out www.memri.org. CAIR and Al Qaeda hate it because it puts out what they are truly saying to each other when we’re not paying attention. Israelis of all political stripes read it avidly and they understand that it’s the same war. I’d also suggest that you look up Dhimitude. If they don’t kill you it is the condition you will find yourself in if they win. Wherever the conquer non-Muslims aren’t allowed to hold a job or get educated. They aren’t able to vote or hold office. They cannot testify against a Muslim and no crime can be committed against a non-Muslim if the one committing the crime is a Muslim. And they have to pay half of all they have simply to be allowed to live.
No, these things aren’t connected and it definitely is not our problem. Keep telling yourself that.
Oh, boy, I feel like I’m 20 and back in the college dorm room. There’s a few… um… accessories missing <g> but I guess I’ve outgrown that. I miss a good argument with someone I care about over something important. We disagree, but please do not take any offense at anything I say. None is intended. It’s merely my poor communication skills, if it comes up.
Best to you and yours
Outstanding! :)
It must be devastating to have your beloved leftist illusions demolished. You did an excellent job.
I'm actively seeking any corrections or imporvements. Thanks for the comment. Can you help me refine this? I won't take offense if you point out something I got wrong.
Again, thanks for the comments.
Because everything crammed into our lame little brains, both Jews and Christians in liberal schools, was built on the assumption that liberals were anti-fascist and therefore pro-Jewish and that conservatives were secret NAZIs (notice guys, no apostrophe?). I grew up. She didn't.
I love her dearly, as a fond part of my childhood, and wish her no harm. In fact I want to help her. I don't want to defeat her. I want to SAVE her. Folks here are a big part of that noble quest.
Thank you all.
I think that pretty much sums up her argument.
Clueless.
I continue to be amazed by the ignorance level of some people. They are just convinced that America is being a big bad bully, GWB is doing all this for his Daddy, to make his oil buddies rich, blah, blah, blah. Amazing. And very frightening.
Driving home the other day I came up behind a car that had a bunch of DemoRat stickers. The driver was a big Dean supporter, lots of those. Also, "Defoliate Bush", "Bush is Big Business", etc.
I wanted to pull beside her and do my best Dean impression, YYEEAAAHHHHH!!! I was giggling at the thought. Then ask about Kerry, does he know what side of the street he is on today?
Talk about some sad people!!!
LVM
I know people connected with 9/11, both folks with family on the planes and one AA pilot who SHOULD have been on the plane (according to his own guilt ridden account) and this still hits me like a brick in the face. My condolences to your friend and prayers for all of our healing.
I greatly enjoyed reading, but never exchanged messages with, Barbara Olsen here on FR. When I found out she was on one of the planes it felt like a friend had died.
This is personal, folks. This is real basic right versus wrong. George Bush is right. John Kerry and his supporters are wrong. I make no apologies for that comment. In fact I'm proud of it.
excerpt from site
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
That quote from Edmund Burke in "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents" has, in general use, come to be delivered as, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
There's more written about it there. The url is http://davidsisler.com/2-17-96.htm
When googling for info for my email I came across lots of sites with variations on the quote, and one very good one that went through all of the stuff online that was innacurate or incomplete or contradictory about this quote and Burke. I believe that it was Burke, but because there was reasonable argument about the attribution I decided to fudge in my attribution so that I couldn't be blind sided with some web page that declared that the quote wasn't "really" from Burke as a way to refute my argument.
I've checked your link and it's a goody. Burke is one of the good guys. Thanks for the reference. I've saved the page.
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