Posted on 07/09/2006 11:51:14 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
Last week's headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.
World War III has begun.
It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993.
What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture.
The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war.
While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun.
The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs.
Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire.
And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it?
I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.
But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation."
The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else.
I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one.
Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels.
What a despicable little article.
Irrespective what number you put on it, this world war started in November of 1979 when the Iranians stormed our embassy and we let them have it without firing a shot.
So Rick Rescorla, was also in the famous battle in Vietnam that was the basis for the movie "We Were Solders" ?
The proper title is WWIV, the class of civlizations, the war against the Islmofacists, ete. WWIII was the Cold War.
This is a most idiotic article I have read. The military can dust lots of old cold war plans and I am sure they have lots of new options. It is the idiot liberals that are at the end of their ideas not the military planers.
Here's an idea:
We win, they lose
Nonsense. You sound "pessimistic" because you are a spoiled child who wants instant gratification.
Democratic Party leaders don't want "peace," either. They want Kosovo to secede from Serbia, initiating another shooting war. They want Palestinians kicking Israelis out of the West Bank, kicking off another shooting war. They want ObraGore leading a Revolution in Mexico, potentially killing hundreds of thousands.
And President Bush isn't out of new ideas. He invented the 6 Party talks and has deployed our national missile defenses that together have tucked North Korea safely away inside a little box. Not that the author above noticed, but those NK missiles didn't make it to Japan.
Iran doesn't have the bomb. Saddam Hussein is in jail.
And the author is so ignorant that he doesn't even know that President Bush forced Libya to **peacefully** surrender its entire WMD program...that U.S. Marines kicked Charles Taylor out of power in Liberia...that the shattered remnants of the Taliban can do little more than toss hand grenades out of their remote Afghan caves, etc.
No new 9/11-style terror attacks here in the U.S. for the past 5 years, yet the author above is pessimistic.
Our tax-cut-driven economy is roaring, yet the author above is pessimistic.
Clueless. The author is clueless and without maturity...a perpetual adolescent.
We are far short of the tenth part of the casualties of Vietnam. And the Democrats are boasting that Bush has the "problem" that at least one of his generals hopes to recommend reductions in troop strength in Iraq next year.Definitely "sky is falling" rhetoric.
The US is not "out of ideas"...it just hasn't been able to convince itself that preemptive regime change is a morally justifiable option.
With or without missiles and nucs, Kim Chong Il and Ahmadinejad need to be removed from power in the interest of humanity.
I have an idea: Round up those who profess allegience to our enemies, and fight against our enemies.
It is the one thing that we haven't tried yet.
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Where RICK RESCORLA walked in Vietnam, exactly, 40 years ago.... (See 1st Picture)
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
RICK RESCORLA's heroism is indexed 35 times in the Book 'WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE & YOUNG'
(See: RICK RESCORLA Medal of Freedom Petition)
http://www.lzxray.com
(See: Paramount Pictures Website)
http://www.WeWereSoldiers.com
(See: Freerepublic.com Threads)
http://www.Freerepublic.com/forum/a39626542519c.htm
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1019769/posts
.
Factually frauldent, intellectually inchorent absurd nonsense. Say Perpetual Whiners and assorted Know Nothings, Why is it your columns sound just like the Lunatic Leftist rants? Like them this is full of knowing misstatements (Everything said here about Iraq) his opinons screamed as fact, (they are not facts just his feelins) and a complete abscense of any thing evern remoting looking like ideas. Once again the Neo Isolationsists rant is "We have NO idea but we hate what Bush is doing".
Sorry your are scared of everything Mike Goodwin, go back to hiding under your bed, GW is doing just fine. Oh, and turn off the Junk Media, pretty obvious you know nothing other then what the New York Times/CNN and AP tell you. Try hanging out on Free Republic and learn some FACTs before writing again
Yeah this dogma worked really well for the Germans in Eastern Europe during WW2. NOT! Counter Insurgency is not total war. Right now it is primely fought by Muslims, with our backing, against Muslim Terrorists. This ridiculous "total war" doctrine exposed by Social Worker turned Talk Radio Host Mike Savage et al would have us fight ALL of them by ourselves. Absurd nonsense. Not do able political, not doable militarily, unwarranted morally. This is not WW3, it is NOT Total War. Our foes cannot destroy us as the Nazis and Japanese might of been able too. Some of the Arm chair Pattons however, want to turn it into WW3. Thankfully Bush and Company are FAR smarter and FAR better military and political strategists then any of the Freeper Generals.
The author is.
Yes, that's why we're not fighting all out. It does make sense not to do so if the judgement that our enemies are weak is correct, as I believe it is. That is why I think the author's fears in the original article are overblown.
I agree with everything you posted on this thread, except for the above line. Again, I think it is prudent to assume our enemies are competent. Also, North Korea is not Islamic. Therefore we are at War with more then just Islam. At any rate, the Russian Mongoloids and Chinese Chicoms certainly have enough nuclear ballistic missiles to kill most of us. Both Russia and China appear to be supporting North Korea within the UN. Islam is not our only enemy right now. We are up against an 'Unholy Alliance'.
If you would name the world wars in succession you should include all of tha actual world wars. That would include the Seven Years War and the Napoleonic Wars and this one would get a VI.
Thank-you for your response and the info.
or maybe WWVI
I think you're more correct than you might have meant. I'm assuming of course that I read your last sentence with sarcasm added.
I came to that conclusion a long time ago and without any satire in it. I believe it will take such an attack on an American city and a Democrat as president, a Democrat who has redisarmed us and pulled down all our electronic and Intelligence defenses as well. His response to perhaps a second city getting surreptiously nuked, or even a third, will be a wild spraying of missiles that will be gross overkill and largely misdirected but the job will get done.
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