Posted on 11/18/2006 6:54:55 AM PST by GMMAC
Our wonderful new Senator in Montana won by a half a percentage point (about 4000 votes as I recall) for exactly three reasons, IMHO:
- The state's news media (Lee Newspapers, which owns or controls most of the rags in the state) had been indulging in all-out hatchet jobs on any Pubby in sight for the past six or eight years. Burns was just the latest of a half dozen, although I'm sure he's their biggest current trophy.
- A statewide ballot initiative was launched, ostensibly to increase the minimum wage, but actually intended as ballot bait for the dims' base.
- At the same time, lib lawyers got THREE conservative-based initiatives tossed off the ballot by one of their pet judges, then "providentially" managed to get the State Supreme Court to throw out all of the appeals ten days before the election. I surely didn't, but I'm sure that there were a bunch of conservative voters who just threw up their hands and skipped voting altogether.
Also, IMHO, the MSM chatter about conservative voters staying home out of disgust is so much fertilizer...... It might be interesting to see how many places besides Montana got the same tactics pulled on 'em.
Historically when countries can no longer afford to directly fight (for social, geopolitical or otherwise) their enemies, but possesses the wealth and military technology, can use proxies. Look at Iran's approach to develop a sphere of influence form Iraq to Syria/Lebanon. She did it by proxies. The US can do the same thing, especially if the fighting is done by insurgents and irregular forces. The US needs to nurture a proxy insurgent/irregular military force in the Middle East. When we entered Iraq, the jihadists and Sunnis formed the insurgency against the US forces. The weakness with the Sunnis are they (and Saddamm) brutalized the Shias (60 percent of Iraq) and Kurds (20 percent of Iraq). We should have supported an irregular force of Shiite militias and Kurd militias and used them in a war against the Sunnis. The MSM will bemoan of atrocities and demand the US to do something about it. We could have easily brushed aside the demands by pointing out we can not control the situation because the Sunnis have brutalized (throw victimization back at the liberals) the Shiites/Kurds and now the oppressed groups want "justice" (another favorite liberal word). I think the world and MSM will protest but the insurgent population will be decimated if they continue to fight or stay in Iraq. When the Sunnis are outnumbered 4 to 1, and US backs the loyal Iraqis against them, within two years of our arrival the Sunnis either submit or flee. I think an Iraqi elected government of Shiites and Kurds plus a small sprinkling of submissive Sunnis would be more stable and effective than the current government with Sunni traitors within it.
Unfortunately the depravations from affluence can sometimes be worst than the depravations from war. This quote is from an unknown Roman who bemoaned the fact that late Imperial Rome no longer possesses the fighting men because they are out of shape and soft from the wealthy life style to field good legions in lieu of paying for barbarian mercenaries.
Well said, and sadly true.
I'm not sure we have to be in that same league. Today, once we have really joined the fight, we can kill everyone we need to kill in 1/2 a day with zero casualties. That is the kind of war I am talking about.
All that you say is true. But what you say is true only because the American people are not yet sufficiently provoked to fight a total war.
A WMD strike in an American city that kills something above 100,000 people would probably do it.
Most Americans will sit there on their couches, watching Saturday football or grilling burgers out on the deck, fat, dumb, and happy with the world until a mushroom cloud erupts over New York or Los Angeles, or Sarin or VX is released in Washington or Chicago.
save for later
Yep.
You do have a point. Hell hath no fury like pig-ignorant Democrats awoken from their slumber by attacks on THEMMMMM!!
Fine if US servicemen get slaughtered because of their 'Rat insular stupidity - but let these self-centered POS' get attacked on a REGULAR basis, 911 wasn't enough, and you will soon hear the petulant screams of these idiots demanding the Pentagon wipe out every last country in the middle east, friend and foe alike. Contradictory? Totally hypocritical? You bet. Doesnt't matter. When was the last time you observed a spoiled little five year old pay attention to principle or consistency?
Unfortunately for these little sacks of worthless excrement, when the Katrina-squared chaos comes to the US, caused directly by their appeasement and traitorous actions, those who will be prepared will not be so coddling of them when it comes to direct and brutal survival. They deserve no quarter.
bumping
I can remember taking 410's and 22's to school, putting them in the coat room, and going rabbit hunting on the way home, after school.
Big difference in CNN and Movietone news.
I think it's more likely the Islamos have figured out they can "attack" us without awakening the sleeping giant. Pearl and 9/11 invited agressive military responses. Why put up with that?!
No, better to create chaos in Baghdad (and on our TV screens). Once they've sapped any desire to fight in Iraq, they'll move the chaos to Jordan...then Kuwait...UAE...and so on. Sensing America's loss of will those countries will find accomodation with the enemy. Then they'll move on our allies: London, Sydney, Seoul, Moscow. Their citizens will begin to see American aggresion as "stirring up the terrorists". Before long, we will have no allies.
And that's when they'll hit us. By then, with the whole world against us, where will we send that amazing American military to strike back?
This is a patient and determined enemy. I think they've figured out they can defeat us without another huge attack that might awaken the drowzing giant. In fact, such an attack would likely be counterproductive from their standpoint.
Mark Steyn excerpts from the book. Check out the whole series so far. This is #5.
What you say is all true. But it presupposes that the islamists won't overreach or screw up and that they can control the nutiest of the nutty. Doesn't seem likely to me.
That was a different country, only 3 generations removed from people who fought Indians, cleared farmland and built town in the middle of nowhere. A Christian nation that lived by the rule of law, loyal to family, community and country. That inheritance has been diluted since then. We are living off the interest of prior generations, but the principal is being dissipated.
But do you think that will really happen, short of the bombs falling on our cities? We seem to have regressed to a point where wars are not to be won anymore, because somehow that will be politically or morally unacceptable. We always seem to stop short. We wasted 58,000 lives in Vietnam because we seemingly would not fight that war as if it were a war to be won militarily. Gulf War I left Saddam in power for another dozen years to stir things up for another round, and then although we kicked him out, we've somehow found ourselves sitting ducks in a country that doesn't seem to want us there, and a national will that has led to an electoral repudiation of the political leaders who put us in that country. Clinton launched push-button wars that led us nowhere other than blowing up aspirin factories and empty desert camps.
We fought in WWI and WWII with a clear purpose. We had to annihilate the enemy fighters in the field. We had to remove the hostile governments in those combatant countries and replace them with governments that would be cooperative with the victorious powers. We knew we had to drive the fighting will from those adversaries, occupy the conquered countries (in the case of the Second War), deal harshly with any resistance, and leave when we had a strong ally in place of a defeated enemy.
After Pearl Harbor the American people realized they were in an existential war with the Axis Powers. Once they realized this the will to kill the enemy without remorse was there.
Once the American people realize they are in an existential war with the islamic radicals (and their communist allies) we will have the will to kill without remorse.
To see this imagine a scenario where we have hundreds of thousands dead in our cities from WMD attacks and the world's oil supplies have been taken over by islamic radicals who boast of bringing us to our knees. Under these conditions the American people will be willing to commit to total war. And unlike WWII where we had to slug it out for years to achieve the objective of destroying the enemy's will to fight, with today's weapons we can destroy completely our enemy's will to fight in a matter of hours.
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