Posted on 07/19/2006 12:11:16 PM PDT by Paul Ross
Big Bump
you did misspell a word. (there = their.......otherwise a very good grade for arruracy in all counts.)
55 and counting.......
I always cringe when I see the stories on tv about the bomb shelters in Israel. We have North Korean and Chinese missiles pointed at American citizens (no doubt Russian missiles as well), yet none of the major cities have bomb shelters anymore (except for politicians). Why have the American people allowed themselves to be put in such a position, where there is no safeguard for them should Kim Jung Il finally make good his threats against us?
"Why have the American people allowed themselves to be put in such a position,"
Because it is much easier to live in the world of make believe that our government will protect us from all evil and harm.
#19 BTTT!
Simply one of the best article's I have read in this current conflict going on. A difficult lesson ~
I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized latino sailor from my ship.
All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's
mutilated ear.
Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.
Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows. Nobody moved. Not one person.
The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.
Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly. Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two
of the hands that held someone back.
You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]". He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.
This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters... right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up... or that he was wrong.
Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.
Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him. I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.
I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors.
This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.
Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.
President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.
Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:
1. Instigate a war.
2. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.
3. Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.
4. Once a truce has been called you can resume your
intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.
This tactic has never failed. Not once. In fact it worked so will for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!
President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."
Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country.
And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw. As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat.
Wow! Thanks for that post! Who was the author?
But in point of fact you don't classify less than the current state-of-the-art with nontheless very real defense capability and security value as "junk". Witness we still use ships that are over 40 years old, and planes over 30 years old, updated to be sure, but they represent a huge investment, not to be cavalierly dismissed as "junk".
Ditto missile defense deployments. The Brilliant Pebbles program, as the Independent Working Group concluded...would have bought us at least 20 years of robustly effective missile defense for only $11 billion.
Today, we have no real defenses worthy of the name deployed, and are down still another $50 billion in paper studies. Amazing isn't it how paper can suddenly cost so much, and give you so little?
And meanwhile, this Administration killed a number of the cures for the sabotage against missile defense that Clinton had ordered [going with a puny ground based interceptor, laming up the speed and range of the SM-3 Aegis interceptor, killing outright Theater Ballistic Missile Defense etc.] ...all under a cloak of silence. The dogs did not bark. The MSM and Rats remain silent in approval of anything which undercuts real defense...and the conservatives remained silent falsely hoping that the Administration was simply going on to something better. We now know different.
Bump!
That is obviously what the RATs and RINOs bank on as a governing creed...the inculcated dependency...and blind trust.
Unfortunately it looks like we are seeing the Administration relying on this very phenomenon, while it is squandering time and money, with nothing to show for it, although the technology is there...it is a political shell game. And we need to call them on it.
Too many people prefer illusions to the truth. That is what Dhimmirats count on..
You are so right.
A close friend of mine. (A retired Vet)
And the amazing thing is how relatively inexpensive the Brilliant Pebbles solution was ($11 billion) compared to the worthless paper studies and minimal slow-walking testing and deployments ($50 billion)that have been done to avoid deploying anything. It is just amazing squandry, and something has to be done before we are confronted with nuclear calamity.
Thanks for the heads up to your post #29.
Mike
What do you believe we should have done? What would it have accomplished?
http://www.ifpa.org/pdf/IWGreport.pdfThis rhetorical observation from the High Frontier website asks the right question:
In 1992, the most mature SDI program in terms of technology and of near-term deployment feasibility, Brilliant Pebbles, was killed by then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-GA). High Frontier Chairman Hank Cooper, then head of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, has expressed on numerous occassions that this program has been proven in testing, and represents the best option for an effective near-term defense for the United States against the ballistic missile threat. Recently, in hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz specifically mentioned a space-based kinetic kill program. The research, he said, "had been dormant for some time". Yet, the technology exists now, with a minimum of research needed to be ready for deployment. Will we see the resurrection of the Brilliant Pebbles program?
Intercepted them all.
What would it have accomplished?
Restored security if not deterrence, since obviously retaliatory ability is virtually meaningless.
Wasting interceptors on flying soon-to-be-submarines, is dumb. As far as restoring security goes, we still have it, and the bad guys now know they can't find out how well our stuff works by using a cheap fireworks display.
China was no doubt behind the launches, they were HOPING we would engage so they could learn how our defenses work. But if they want to know, they have to actually shoot at something. They blinked, not us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.