Walking in faith

The Washington Times ^ | August 27, 2002

[gubamyster]

I was a preacher's kid, so Sundays were church, no doubt about that. The church was the center of our lives. In segregated black Birmingham of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the church was not just a place of worship. It was the place where families gathered; it was the social center of the community, too.

[Paul Ross]

I meant that 9/11 was the first terrorist event of its kind. There are a milion things terrorists could do-- should we run around like beheaded chickens over them all?

No, but when you KNOW they are planning a specific type of attack you don't wait for 'first of its kind' attempt to actually succeed. Not if you are sincerely taking national security seriously. You are proactive. As for a million things they could do, I doubt it. But for sure there are plenty of vulnerable areas....which I would in no way minimize...nor exaggerate or advertise for that matter. Which is why we need to be alert. And so also our President's National Security Advisor. She unfortunately was not. And I am not cutting her any more slack, after studying her track record and paper for over 6 years. I know she is totally oblivious to the threats from the immense Russian nuclear arsenal, and has not done anything to dissuade GWB from his unilateral disarmament wacko-ism. She is profoundly dangerous to our national security in her role as advisor to the POTUS.

[Pushi]

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I sent Bush an email the other day and told him that one of the reasons I voted for him was to get the FBI back into the category of church, motherhood, and apple pie. But then, those three have gone to pot, too. I made an apple pie the other day and it did not taste like my mother's.

[LS]

Sorry you don't see faith. I do, at every single turn. Politics is politics, and many things, such as the makeup of budgets, is irrelevant in the long run.

The war we are now fighting would NOT be substantially helped by throwing more money at the military. Rumsfeld himself said we did not need the Crusader, a bloated, massive (slow) artillery piece that did NOT give substiantial improvement over what we have, and will be WAY below what we will have.

But don't hold your breath waiting on Bush to "reap a whirlwind."

[Pushi]

Sorry, I posted to the wrong thread.

[thegreatbeast]

So much of what you say is correct. It is not heresy to find our 43rd president wanting. An improvement over what we had? Hell, yes! But an effective fighter for all that conservatives believe? No, I'm afraid GWB has seriously disappointed on many fronts.
And I'm sorry but so many of these posts strike me as racist. C. Rice is an intelligent, articulate National Security Adviser. But just because she is black and all these other things doesn't mean she is of presidential timber. So many of us wanted to anoint Powell as the first black president until we learned more about him. Let's wait on Rice too. This sermonette makes her look very promising but let's watch her real world achievments and then "judge the content of her character".

[GraniteStateConservative]

I have had some unusual and unique experiences in seeing and/or meeting important people beginning while I was in the Navy and continuing in civilian life. In 1958, President Eisenhower spoke to me and sat in front of me in chapel. In 1959, the queen, crown prince, and crown princess of Thailand came aboard my ship in Bangkok. I met Robert Kennedy and Ethel and conversed with them in Hong Kong when they came aboard my ship. I met John Cabot Lodge, Henry Cabot Lodge's brother, a reserve captain, during his active duty for training in Yokosuka, Japan. I met Admiral Thomas Moorer on several occasions while he was Commander, Seventh Fleet. I met and talked to Admiral Arleigh Burke while at the Naval Destroyer School in Newport. I met Senator John Tower. I saw President Ford and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt at the White House when I was on duty at the Pentagon in 1976. About that same time I saw Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. I flew candidate-to-be George H. W. Bush in my airplane from Jasper, Texas to Houston--in 1978. I met and talked to Bill Brock, Jack Kemp, and Pierre DuPont and saw candidate Ronald Reagan several times in Houston. I spent a day with former Congressman Dornan in Houston in 1978 while campaigning for Reagan. While working on Aruba, I saw Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the crown prince. More recently, I met and spoke with Senator Pete Domenici and Governor Owens of Colorado.

Sounds like the life of Forrest Gump! : )

[Paul Ross]

Rumsfeld was also shocked when Bush failed to deliver on his campaign promises to increase the defense budget. He had to cover for him too. He was also opposed and continues to oppose quietly, so as not to appear openly insubordinate, of the insane Moscow Treaty. And he does it in coy ways. Like just flagrantly saying 'well now we trust the Russians' ... even though we have no good reason to trust their NUCLEAR intentions and their capabilities which they continue to refine, and proliferate, are still dangerous FIRST-STRIKE threats even if the country was headed by Pope Paul. And with the SS-18 and Mirv decisions, they have more or less openly said they are disregarding the Moscow Treaty that GWB wants signed so badly.

[LS]

And do you wonder why no one is concerned? It is because we don't CARE what they do with these because it allows us to march ahead with SDI. The goal here, my friend, is not to disarm anyone, because that never works. It is to get out of the entangling alliances that prevented us from using SDI. The Moscow Treaty will, however, probably result in overall reductions.

Tell me, did you have the same hysterical reaction when Reagan and Gorby got rid of SS-20s? I know they were destroyed, because I have a friend who served on the commission that physically cut them up!

[Paul Ross]

Tell me, did you have the same hysterical reaction when Reagan and Gorby got rid of SS-20s? I know they were destroyed, because I have a friend who served on the commission that physically cut them up!

Well guess what. You are forgetting that Reagan said 'trust but verify.' Apparently you and your friend...and the whole freakin' country post-Reagan were hoodwinked by the Soviets...and the successor Russian govt. Tell me, did the Russian Army Rocket Corps. ever get disciplined for perpetuating their 'disinformatzia' when the the 77 HIDDEN, ILLEGAL SS-20s where discovered in the mid-90's in Czechoslovakia [ which was more than they were ever supposed to have BTW ]??? And did your friend tell us about the egg on his and the disarmers face? And the fraud was not discovered by the Standing Consultative Commission, or our overly-vaunted 'Technical Means of Intelligence'...but by the Czechs themselves. And then there were the illegal SS-20 missiles in Poland.... And we never needed Russian approval for the departure from the ABM Treaty...they were already in undisputable, undeniable, VIOLATION. The illegal battle control radars. The NUCLEAR-ARMED hyper-speed SAMs. And as far as proliferating or de-proliferating, their most current statements make it clear they were going to do whatever it is they are doing anyways....and the ABM treaty departure is...and always was...for them just a pretext.

And frankly, as far as SDI goes. Yes, by all means deploy. Deploy Brilliant Pebbles. Deploy Excalibur. Deploy 'Aegis NMD Forward'. But what do we actually see GWB doing? Deploying the horribly anemic and wasteful CLINTON plan up in Alaska???! Cancelling Standard Mark 3? [ The nearest term ABM-capable component of Aegis ...over an alleged price-overrun??? ]

Or could it be that for GWB NMD is just political window-dressing to lock up the 'National Security Vote.' Far-fetched? Oh really. Just look at the games that GWB/Karl Rove have been playing with Vieques. Or with border security. Explain that in purely national security terms. You can't. And neither can they.

[LS]

Paul, you are REALLY an angry person. I can tell you one thing: faith and anger do not mix. Jesus said, "Peace be unto you, My peace I leave to you."

Now, if reading your notes here is any measurement, and I am comparing you and GWB---no question who fits Jesus' model of "peace" more.

[rightwing2]

Deploying the horribly anemic and wasteful CLINTON plan up in Alaska???! Cancelling Standard Mark 3? [ The nearest term ABM-capable component of Aegis ...over an alleged price-overrun??? ] Or could it be that for GWB NMD is just political window-dressing to lock up the 'National Security Vote.' Far-fetched? Oh really. Just look at the games that GWB/Karl Rove have been playing with Vieques. Or with border security. Explain that in purely national security terms. You can't. And neither can they.

You are very correct. Bush's deployment of Clinton's planned NMD in Alaska is damn near scandalous. Clinton deliberately chose the most expensive and ineffective NMD option--that being land-based "hit to kill" THAAD TABMs that do not even have a warhead! The best near-term option as you said is the SM-3 "Aegis" option. However, rest-assured that the SM-3 ABM option is not being cancelled. Only Navy Area Wide was cancelled. The more important Navy Theater Wide (Aegis option) program was not. However, NTW has suffered some very significant program delays which are disturbing. Bush is about as good on national security as Bill Clinton was. Even though he supports limited NMD, he has succeeded in ramming through his plan for the massive unilateral nuclear disarmament of our strategic nuclear deterrent from 7200 statnukes when he took office to 1700 by 2012. That will mean the end of the game for America's superpower status and the void in global power will most assuredly be filled by the Sino-Russian alliance a fact that the Bushies are too geopolitically naive to realize.

[GOP_1900AD]

It's a matter of public record.... nitwit!

[GOP_1900AD]

Of note.... captured on another thread, SS-20s were witnessed in a miltary parade in Chechnya in 1994. Now at that time, I am not sure whether Grozny was in Russian control or not. Either way, the appearance of impropriety was significant. I wonder what has become of those particular missiles since '94?

[GOP_1900AD]

Indeed, it's even worse than you've depicted. In addition to our notable weaknesses in ICBM (and countermeasures) strategy, as also alluded to by Paul Ross, we've been seriously duped vis a vis SRBMs and IRBMs. At the time when the SS-20 was being rolled out, we had nothing in kind and only Pershing-II in work (but as you have noted elsewhere, never deployed.). So let's assume that there were many more SS-20s than we believed and that many (if not most) of them were not destroyed but were, instead, hidden.

Now, let's add to that the now numerous SCUDs and derivatives held by a number of anti-Western nations, as well as the DF-15s and DF-21Xs now deployed by the PRC. The strength of all these TEL sited missiles is not only the ability to hide them just about anywhere, but something much more profound.

Let's look at the following scenario. Presently, a system of superhighways in the PRC has been coming together in a big way of late. The most critical linkage is from the Guangzhou HQ to the Kunming HQ and, obviously, on to Tibet. In addition, two major roads are being pushed south, right up to the Myanmar and Laos borders. The westernmost road is within weeks of completion. Meanwhile, useful idiot businessmen in Bangkok are pushing their superhighways north and will meet the PRC ones. It does not take a rocket scientist to see just how easily, in a sad throw back to the strategy used by the PRC during the Korean War, an "invasion of the Burmese" might cloak a massive incursion of the PLA clear into the heart of SE Asia, DFs and all. Now, here is the strategic quandry for the West. If those DFs were then used to hit our bases in the W. Pacific, or those of India on the subcontinent, for example, what would be our / India's counterforce rules of engagement? Would we seriously contemplate nuking Bangkok or KL in order to hit the "offenders?" Yep, things are not looking all that great right about now... we are really going to be hurting due to an huge accumulation of strategic blunders...

[Paul Ross]

Paul, you are REALLY an angry person. I can tell you one thing: faith and anger do not mix. Jesus said, "Peace be unto you, My peace I leave to you." Now, if reading your notes here is any measurement, and I am comparing you and GWB---no question who fits Jesus' model of "peace" more.

Me angry? Huh. You don't KNOW angry. Anyways, I note you totally slough on the substantive portions of my response...which you are not refuting...instead (since I surmise you are badly losing on logic and facts) you try to shift to a inappropriate personal attack on my faith. And I guess you should explain yourself. Those facts should be disturbing to a true patriot.

As for the 'model' of peace...you are also forgetting the righteous wrath of Jesus over the Philistines, whom he acidly labeled "Vipers" and how he took a switch to the money-changers in the Temple, and threw them out on their ears. What a bouncer he would have made, ya? I have prayed over these treasons by GWB and GHWB and their ilk. The spirit led me to the above. But we can't, with HIS authority turn out GWB. We can only pray for his relenting from his course of evil, and ask him to protect us. But don't ask us to be silent. We cannot.

We are told to beware (i.e., wary of, eh?!) of the false christians, and those who betray, and commit treason. The fact that you are NOT wary of these things is more likely to bring your own faith into question when you are to account for your discipleship.

[lavaroise]

Yep, scoundrels alway beg for peace, while their attacked victims are silenced conveniently by their proselytist insults. Christ indeed resisted the proselytism of money and the philistines in anger, and His peace was just that, this internal moral confidence when confronting such identical and terrifying travesty of justice.

[lavaroise]

And Rice got it right about scoundrels proselytizing their ways and abnoxious ideas - man made peace - while conveniently silencing victims and the opposition they insult.

"Help me to walk in Your way, not my own."

"He knows how much you can bear."

Clearly these people cannot bear the joys and liberties they have, for they fall like fallen angels, pupetteering people and lives with their liberties, using their life to propagate their death songs.

[Paul Ross]

Bump.