Hi, folks.
To say this is a sad day in American history illustrates the profound limitation of language. I saw varying emotions around town today and felt all of them - disbelief, horror, shock, sorrow, sympathy, and anger. I broke down in tears at lunch and cried like a baby into a napkin.
Before I weigh in on an appropriate military response, let's think about what we can do for the victims. If you can help, please visit the American Red Cross web site at http://www.RedCross.org and type in your zip code for a local chapter. If you live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, we have it on good authority that a blood drive will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) at Reunion Arena.
Now, about the assholes, let me see. How can I put this without it ringing of raw revengeful polemic?
I can't. So, here it is straight from the heart . . .
If today did not bring enough pain, suffering and ignominy to this nation to stimulate an immediate, overwhelming retaliation against those who are responsible, then we are gutless zombies and bigger cowards than those who perpetrated this evil.
Do we have the gonads to float our carrier fleet and 100,000 men into the Middle East and do what needs to be done, or are we going to do another Scottish air disaster routine where we spend the next 10 years painstakingly trying to find out exactly who is responsible down to the man and then negotiating for five years for him/them to be tried at the Hague? If it's the latter, then we just need to step aside and let Israel do what they have wanted to do for more than millennium.
But, some say, "We don't know who did it beyond a reasonable doubt."
I say we know enough. We know who our enemies are. We know who the terrorists are, and we know where they are. We know that bin Laden and his band of thugs have expressed the specific intention of doing exactly what was done today. We know that one of the many Palestinian terrorist organizations took credit for it. We know that Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are rogue states and, if they had nothing to do with it, their governments are smiling about now.
So, here's the plan, step by step:
1. Tell Israel we are sorry. They were right all along. We were wrong from the very beginning. They were brave. We were weak. Mea culpa. Then stand aside and let them handle, in their own special way, the Palestinian terrorists.
2. Tell Afghanistan that we want bin Laden, and we want him now. The Taliban can either deliver him in 24 hours with all of his lieutenants or we can come after him. If we have to do the latter, we will bomb Kabul so flat it will be coastal city when we finish . Or, look at it in a positive way. The Taliban government is intent on destroying all statues, idols and "blasphemous" works of art and antiquity within Afghanistan. We will assist them, footing the bill and assuming full responsibility for destroying all man made structures within the borders of that country. Their choice.
3. Send love notes to Iraq and Iran, not so subtly suggesting that if there is any credible evidence that they were involved even in the most insignificant of ways that their air space becomes our air space and that we will not finish with their air space until they arrive in the seventeenth century. All military installations, communications facilities, power generation facilities, dams, TV, radio, and industrial production will disappear in clouds of dust, much like the clouds of dust we saw in Manhattan this morning.
It's simple, straightforward, and it's something they can understand, relate to, and get in touch with. Oh, I know what some of you are saying. You're saying violence begets violence, and that the terrorists win if we retaliate. Perhaps that's so, but I guarantee you that if we explode bin Laden into small bite-sized pieces, he may be the winner but he won't make the awards ceremony.
Will it go down this way? Not likely. There are too many diplomats running the Department of Defense instead of Generals. That department, by the way, used to be called the Department of War, because that's what it was, and that's what it should be. After this happened, I was embarrassed to be an American when we ordered two nuclear aircraft carriers into the harbor of New York City to protect ourselves, rather than directly to the Middle East where they can fulfill their mission, which is not defense, but war.
I look back over what I have written and I am shocked and dismayed. I despise violence. I hate it. But I also recognize that until those who feast upon violence are put to rest, we will never have peace.
To say this is a sad day in American history illustrates the profound limitation of language. I saw varying emotions around town today and felt all of them - disbelief, horror, shock, sorrow, sympathy, and anger. I broke down in tears at lunch and cried like a baby into a napkin.
Before I weigh in on an appropriate military response, let's think about what we can do for the victims. If you can help, please visit the American Red Cross web site at http://www.RedCross.org and type in your zip code for a local chapter. If you live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, we have it on good authority that a blood drive will be held tomorrow (Wednesday) at Reunion Arena.
Now, about the assholes, let me see. How can I put this without it ringing of raw revengeful polemic?
I can't. So, here it is straight from the heart . . .
If today did not bring enough pain, suffering and ignominy to this nation to stimulate an immediate, overwhelming retaliation against those who are responsible, then we are gutless zombies and bigger cowards than those who perpetrated this evil.
Do we have the gonads to float our carrier fleet and 100,000 men into the Middle East and do what needs to be done, or are we going to do another Scottish air disaster routine where we spend the next 10 years painstakingly trying to find out exactly who is responsible down to the man and then negotiating for five years for him/them to be tried at the Hague? If it's the latter, then we just need to step aside and let Israel do what they have wanted to do for more than millennium.
But, some say, "We don't know who did it beyond a reasonable doubt."
I say we know enough. We know who our enemies are. We know who the terrorists are, and we know where they are. We know that bin Laden and his band of thugs have expressed the specific intention of doing exactly what was done today. We know that one of the many Palestinian terrorist organizations took credit for it. We know that Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are rogue states and, if they had nothing to do with it, their governments are smiling about now.
So, here's the plan, step by step:
1. Tell Israel we are sorry. They were right all along. We were wrong from the very beginning. They were brave. We were weak. Mea culpa. Then stand aside and let them handle, in their own special way, the Palestinian terrorists.
2. Tell Afghanistan that we want bin Laden, and we want him now. The Taliban can either deliver him in 24 hours with all of his lieutenants or we can come after him. If we have to do the latter, we will bomb Kabul so flat it will be coastal city when we finish . Or, look at it in a positive way. The Taliban government is intent on destroying all statues, idols and "blasphemous" works of art and antiquity within Afghanistan. We will assist them, footing the bill and assuming full responsibility for destroying all man made structures within the borders of that country. Their choice.
3. Send love notes to Iraq and Iran, not so subtly suggesting that if there is any credible evidence that they were involved even in the most insignificant of ways that their air space becomes our air space and that we will not finish with their air space until they arrive in the seventeenth century. All military installations, communications facilities, power generation facilities, dams, TV, radio, and industrial production will disappear in clouds of dust, much like the clouds of dust we saw in Manhattan this morning.
It's simple, straightforward, and it's something they can understand, relate to, and get in touch with. Oh, I know what some of you are saying. You're saying violence begets violence, and that the terrorists win if we retaliate. Perhaps that's so, but I guarantee you that if we explode bin Laden into small bite-sized pieces, he may be the winner but he won't make the awards ceremony.
Will it go down this way? Not likely. There are too many diplomats running the Department of Defense instead of Generals. That department, by the way, used to be called the Department of War, because that's what it was, and that's what it should be. After this happened, I was embarrassed to be an American when we ordered two nuclear aircraft carriers into the harbor of New York City to protect ourselves, rather than directly to the Middle East where they can fulfill their mission, which is not defense, but war.
I look back over what I have written and I am shocked and dismayed. I despise violence. I hate it. But I also recognize that until those who feast upon violence are put to rest, we will never have peace.
Facebook
Twitter