Posted on 07/17/2005 8:20:32 AM PDT by bitt
Col. Charles Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force, tells a story about White House planning in April 1980 for the mission to rescue our 53 hostages in Tehran. Beckwith had visited the White House Situation Room to brief President Carter.
In the meeting, according to one writer, "Charlie mentioned that his Delta shooters would 'take out' the hostage guards.
"Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher looked over at Charlie, eyebrows raised. 'Take them out,' Colonel?"
Beckwith replied: "Yes, Mister Deputy Secretary. We're going to double-tap 'em. Shoot 'em each in the head twice."
Christopher protested: "Couldn't you just shoot them in the shoulder or something?"
And liberals wonder why conservatives consider them weak.
Now, before you accuse me of painting with a broad brush, let me say many Democrats do not seek a weak America. For example, Joe Lieberman does not. Zell Miller does not. Sam Nunn does not. John F. Kennedy did not. Alive today, he'd be a hawk.
However, it is eminently fair to say that virtually all those bound to a weak America also are bound to the Democratic Party.
Karl Rove was 100 percent accurate with his June 22 comments: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9-11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9-11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
Liberals are livid, mainly because, secretly, they know Rove has them nailed. Their party in the past 60 years has a rich history of appeasement, defeatism, naivete, fear and weakness.
Liberals simply have not got the will to kill our mortal enemies. They just want to shoot them in the shoulder.
Consider two moments from the century that was: Yalta 1945 and Vietnam 1968-74.
At Yalta, President Roosevelt gave away Eastern Europe to Stalin. At the time, our side had had nearly three decades to size up the evil of the Soviet Union. It was, after all, the nation that murdered 5,000 officers the cream of Poland's military at Katyn Forest in 1940.
And yet, as Roosevelt told a confidante: "I think that if I give (Stalin) everything I possibly can without demanding anything in return, then, noblesse oblige, he will not attempt to annex anything and will work to build a peaceful and democratic world."
FDR was wrong. For millions of Eastern Europeans, his assessment meant oppression. For thousands, it meant death. For example, ask Peter Fechter, the young German who tried to escape East Berlin in August 1962.
Ah, but wait you cannot ask poor Mr. Fechter. Shot by East German border guards, he slowly bled to death in no man's land at the Berlin Wall.
American troops heard his cries but dared not rescue him lest they be shot themselves. Fechter was 18. Today, he would be 61. His corpse is Roosevelt's legacy. His corpse, plus the corpses of 1,064 others and all these at the Berlin Wall alone.
Now, Vietnam. In a book on the war, Col. Harry Summers recounts an incident from the 1974 Paris peace talks. Summers told Col. Tu of the North Vietnamese army, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield."
Col. Tu replied, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."
Indeed it was. The communists did not have to win on the ground. They had to win on the TV screens of America's living rooms.
Doing so, they benefited immensely from the collaboration of America's reporters. The most egregious example is how our press magically transformed the Tet Offensive from a great defeat for the communists (which it was) into a great defeat for the Americans (which it was not).
Reporters were shocked that a handful of Viet Cong were able to take a cab to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, blow their way into the compound and kill a few U.S. soldiers.
Indeed, this was disturbing. But in the big picture, it counted for virtually nothing. The Tet Offensive was a disaster for the North. The Viet Cong were wiped out: 50,000 dead. The communists were left to fight with only their uniformed troops.
But why would a reporter bother with such mundane analysis when he can embark on the sexy task of doomsaying? Walter Cronkite made his famous report declaring the war lost and what do you know, overnight, the war was lost.
Nothing changes. Thirty-seven years later, we may lose the Iraq war because of the protests of America's victory-haters.
Again, my caveat: Many Democrats are not weak Americans. But nearly all weak Americans are Democrats.
Therefore, I think I am entitled to say that when it comes to national security, the Democrats are the party that harbors the timid and the self-handcuffed.
You could say they are the party of Atticus Finch, the heroic lawyer but misguided father in "To Kill a Mockingbird," who told his brave daughter Scout, "I forbid you to fight."
Likewise, Democrats forbid America to fight. For 70 years, they refused to take communism seriously. Now, they refuse to take terrorism seriously. They simply cannot believe our enemies mean us harm.
Thank God, George W. Bush knows better.
At the White House in 1980, a shocked Warren Christopher asked: "You mean you're really going to shoot to kill? You really are?"
Yes, we really are. And for some Americans, it's time to grow a spine.
Michael Bowers is a copy editor and page designer for The Star. Send e-mail to mbowers@starnewspapers.com
Crack is yellower and looks like a rock - and if you snort it, it will get stuck in your nose. heheh.
New tagline.
I also considered that....loathe to give up the Hanson, tho
Bump.
I guess the Spitball wasn't invented yet.
BUMP!!!
Nah, never happen, they'd have to give up their metrosexual agenda.
The Left is so desperate it's laughable.
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)
ditto to that.
I think you just invented the new method of execution for captured terrorists well done!! This will keep the defense budget down too! win win all round :-)
A liberal sprewing their BS to a terrorist would be considered extreme torture.
LOL
Liberalism = Cowardice
Thanks for your "Ditto" comment and for the Victor Davis Hanson quote appended to your name!
Makes a great tagline!
At the risk of starting a flame war, I think this unfairly overlooks those bound to the Libertarian Party as well.
The Double Tap. Good name for a tavern.
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