Posted on 09/30/2001 7:24:00 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow
My thoughts were of the day in July, 1956 when I stepped off an Air Force C-121 onto the 115+ degree tarmac of Wheelus Air Base in Tripoli, Libya. That day ushered in a very meaningful eighteen month crash course on the middle east. Within a few weeks I was watching our radar chart the progress of the British and French air attack on the Suez Canal. If I remember correctly, they came down from the northwest, over Crete, and proceeded on an easterly heading over the northern Mediterranean. We did not know at the time what or who they were, or what their destination was. They had kept their plans secret from the US until they arrived over the target. It was then when I realized the solidarity of Muslim countries. We had to seal off our Air Base, (note that Air Force Base was not used) from the hoardes of infuriated Arabs who saw us as implicit in the attack against Egypt.
Then, as now, and only twelve years after WWII, The most powerful country on earth was not willing to call a spade a spade. To use the word "Force" might offend someone. Nevermind that Rommel and Patton had fought all over the Libyan Desert slightly more than a decade before, and that Italian Facists had ruled Libya, we needed to keep a low profile lest we offend a country that had sixteen medical doctors in it. Honest, that is what we were told. After a few weeks of classical Arabic language training, I was able to converse(barely) with the Arab population. It was my observation that a deep hatred existed, not far below the surface of most Arabs, for anyone who was not of their culture or religion. It is now 45 years later. Little has changed.
The lines at the gates stretched for a dozen blocks, it took 3 or 4 hours for on duty personnel to creep in. Officers in uniforms with the proper stickers, haircuts, and ID all got the minute engine, chassis, and trunk inspection.
The entire military establishment froze, work and training was cancelled. What the Japanese during WW2 could never do, OBL did do: bring the US military to a state of paralysis.
It is His plan and it is not for us to question or attempt to alter.Perhaps it is part of his plan that we do question and alter.
That's what scares me more than all the loaded planes I see passing overhead.Yup - right on.
There are a billion Moslems in the world. 19 of them is just about as statistically relevant to their ethnic group as a percentage as the 2 or 3 involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.How frightfully poorly you understand us. You dismiss our call to arms against the radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorists on the grounds that it is just a misguided example of racial profiling.
If in a time past, Jesse James had stormed into your cabin and killed your sister, and then your neighbors rode out in a posse to "hang the James brothers" would you cry out for them to stop their misguided attacks on white men?
All we do, both that is powerful and weak, can be done to the benefit of evil or good. We have a moral obligation as humans to know the difference, and to act powerfully, and by necessary means, for good.
hidden problem for the Bush administration is that the
U.S. government, including our Pentagon, CIA and
other agencies, is still largely run by appointees of
Clinton-Gore or the career military and bureaucrats
Clinton-Gore promoted through the ranks.
That is one of my greatest concerns. Between the Intelligence
communitiy, defense and the State Department lots of
PC types have buried themselves like tics into,
middle level and high level positions. Patriots may be more rare
then this administration can deal with. Old hands are slipping away.
Would you recommend that we call a spade a spade, go in and do what we have to do, as best we can, and if the Moslems rise up in a great hatred of the Evil Eagle, so be it?
Or would you that we consider it essential to avoid pissing off the people of Islam too much, essential to keep them nominally on our side, even it means leaving Osama to live on, as we did with Sadam.
I was in the Air Force too, but in Thailand, tracking satellites. Nothing especially relevant here. And since then I have not had the experience you've had in the government.
It was my great pleasure to hear President Bush address the joint session of congress. When he said, "Whether we bring Bin Laden to justice, or justice to Bin Laden, justice will be done," I was overcome by the simplicity of that statement. What about you?
Whether we bring Bin Laden to justice, or justice to Bin Laden, justice will be doneYes, that was a great line. It affectively answered those who complained that Bush's earlier use of the word "justice" displayed misguided weakness. The critics were thinking of "justice" as in a court of law. Whereas Bush made it clear he was thinking of "justice" like a Texan.
The critics should have remembered one of their earlier complaints against Bush - the number of executed convicts in Texas while Bush was governor. Then perhaps they would understand what he can mean by the word "justice."
Though I post this link, I do not find it that helpful. Rather, I am currently reading The Liberal Mind by Kenneth Minogue, which I am finding to be a better explanation of such misguided thought patterns.
Oh, come on! Anyone with half a brain knows that McViegh was not alone, and was simply a foot-soldier being manipulated by middle-eastern terrorists! Or are you that naive to think he did it all alone. Hell, had he talked, he knew they'd kill the rest of his family!
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