Posted on 06/05/2008 7:17:44 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober — if not grim — assessment of where we are.
Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When Election Day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world — Iran — is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran’s nuclear bomb will be the terrorists’ nuclear bomb — and they can make 9/11 look like child’s play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand — however outrageous those demands might be — or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden’s threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s — and our “leaders” and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the “leaders” and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.
What does this have to do with today’s presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.
One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear— or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.
There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West’s lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West’s industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.
But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.
Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes president of the United States next January.
At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure — at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.
Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.
On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
I’ve received two prophecies from people I trust who say that there are 7 cities in the US targeted and probably already have nuclear bombs in them. I wouldn’t be so sure about American cities not blowing up. I think we’re on dangerous ground.
Hope you aren’t living in one of the cities that will be nuked.
Nothing? Nothing? Get your head out of the sand, LeGrande.
Exactly. Much as I don’t like McCain, I’ll take him any day over Obamamama. He’s dangerous.
You got that right!
SIDEBAR - something we should all know.
http://alanpetersroundup.blogspot.com/2008/06/best-buy-return-policy.html
You validly use my oft-said argument.
Part of the reason we lost the Senate and Congress was that many Republicans had decided to NOT vote to send Bush a message. And entered us into the morasse we face today by “abstaining” and thus doubling the effect of every Democrat vote as there was not one opposing it.
If you are angry at your face, spa not spite it.
I think you are listening to Iran's propaganda machine and swallowing it hook, line and sinker and are over estimating Israel resolve to strike first. If Israel strikes Iran, the WHOLE Arab world aligns against Israel, in today's world they cannot stand up against Hamas, Hellezbella, (arms of Iran) Syria, Egypt, they would need America to stand with them, Obama will leave them swinging in the breeze because OIL is our life blood
If Iran drops a nuke over an Israel city, the millions of Muslim in Gaza are affected, so that's unlikely to happen. Isn't that the reason the Arab world hates Israel, they are living on Pali land? So blowing it up to a waste land is pretty stupid, even for Muslims
Iran's strategy with the threat of nuclear attacks on Israel is to beat them down to the point they capitulate to the Pali's demands and basically dissolve Israel to a non state out of fear.
Israel cannot launch strikes against Iran to disable or destroy their nuclear program without Americas help. They do not have the long range refueling capability to run the thousands of sorties against Iran.
If Obama gets elected POTUS, Israel is screwed, Iran knows it, Israel knows it, the only one who doesn't is the Obamanation
save
When supposedly 84% of Americans don't like the way you do your job, most people would say, 'screw it'.
But I know President Bush loves our country and takes his presidential oath seriously and literally.
Please President Bush....we MUST retard Iran's progress to acquiring nukes.
Since when should world opinion mean a damned thing when our nation and its people are in peril?
Though, I certainly wish that was true,(and it might be) but I have a hard time believing it.
I think Israel would rather dissolve than nuke every major Arab capital based on the threat of being nuked.
Obama will split the democratic party and the pubs will do what they do best, retreat. The result will probably be similar to Clintons presidency, except that Democrats will consolidate their positions in Congress.
If McCain wins then all of the liberal goals will get achieved because McCain will have no opposition at all. Everything good that happens will make the Democrats look good and everything bad that happens will be the Republican Presidents fault. Democrats will own Congress for the next 40 years.
If I was a liberal I would certainly vote for McCain. Now if we had a Republican House or Senate, or even a shot at that, then this scenario would be different, but we don't. We have already lost and we are in for a long period of rebuilding.
Do I sound depressed? I am. The fifth column in the Republican party won. I might buy a sailboat, there must be some beautiful unspoiled places left in this world.
I haven’t liked Best Buy since I took a look inside when the store was new here. However, I sometimes respond to their advertising a a way to look at an item “in the flesh” before I decide whether to get it online cheaper.
It's refreshing to see a member of the media showing true vision and perspective.
We have life so good that we no longer appreciate the goodness any more, thus a hangnail requires government health care to help us get through the trauma of suffering.
Soon, we will get a good dose of required true individual work for survival considering the attitudes of the masses and the options for political leadership available, yes we will get "change" to make life better for us all whether we want it or not as individuals.
Freedom will live in the archives for posterity and remembrance.
Thank you for saying it once again.
Fars:
Part of the reason we lost the Senate and Congress was that many Republicans had decided to NOT vote to send Bush a message. And entered us into the morasse we face today by “abstaining” and thus doubling the effect of every Democrat vote as there was not one opposing it
He's not "single digit I.Q. challenged" obviously, so what is it that he does know?
That's worthy of contemplation in itself.
I do understand how you feel. I, too, feel that the Republican party has let me down. I wish someone else had been voted as our candidate, but we have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. McCain has to be better than Obama, at least as far as taxes and Iraq and terrorism are concerned.
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