'The Last Helicopter'

Hassan Abbasi has a dream -- a helicopter doing an arabesque in cloudy skies to avoid being shot at from the ground. On board are the last of the "fleeing Americans," forced out of the Dar al-Islam (The Abode of Islam) by "the Army of Muhammad." Presented by his friends as "The Dr. Kissinger of Islam," Mr. Abbasi is "professor of strategy" at the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guard Corps University and, according to Tehran sources, the principal foreign policy voice in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's new radical administration.

For the past several weeks Mr. Abbasi has been addressing crowds of Guard and Baseej Mustadafin (Mobilization of the Dispossessed) officers in Tehran with a simple theme: The U.S. does not have the stomach for a long conflict and will soon revert to its traditional policy of "running away," leaving Afghanistan and Iraq, indeed the whole of the Middle East, to be reshaped by Iran and its regional allies.

To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the bodies of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd...

I hope he's right and the American character has changed from the one that I've lived with my entire adult life. I was certainly changed by 9/11 and my acquaintance with the writings of Islamic radicals. You'd be amazed at the number of people out there who believe otherwise, though... one of my bosses came in this morning with a "powerful" DVD called "Fahrenheit 911." She wasn't impressed when I called the director of that fine movie a propogandistic fraud. If the Islamists are correct, not only God help us... but God help the world. A dark ages like none other would descend. One glimmer of good news: no one would see "Fahrenheit 911" in that world, either.

This is as bad as Sadaam using the pickup trucks to attack our tanks.

What the Jihadist fail to realize is this is a new type of warfare, not a 'hot spot' of violence that needs to be controlled as in Mogadishu. This is GLOBAL war against those who live in the 4th century, and those who live in the 21st

Modern weapons and nukes have made this a more dangerous proposition, but the results needed will not go away even if the Jihadists are defeated for the moment. The radical Isamic cleric will use any deats to promote a new generation of terrorists and this will go on until one of two things occur:
1) The Muslims who desire to live among peaceful nations will rise and destroy the Jihadists as their faith commands them or
2)The forces of the West will destroy the Jihadists in a continuing, escalating war until it is a constant occurence, within our borders and in the hot spots around the world.

The occurence of the first guarantees continual civil strife in the Muslim countries...brother against brother, and it will spill inside our borders. Same with the second scenario.

If you do not own or know how to fire a weapon of some kind, LEARN. The day will come soon enough when we, and our children will have to take up arms against those who wish us harm on our soil, in our cities and lands.

I am not trying to be alarmist or look at this with the perspective of paranoia. The Muslims throughout history have never stopped fighting, no matter what threat has been brought against them. To die for Islam is what they crave more than anything. The more you kill the more that take their place to fight.

What America and the West must realize soon is there can be no peace with these people. the peace they crave is total subjucation of the world to it's narrow anachronistic views.

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