You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught
-- South Pacific
Three American soldiers were abducted by the enemy-not as captives of war-the taking was motivated to create and to demonstrate their superior position in guerrilla warfare and to create citizen fear in Satan America. We can now anticipate they will target the further abduction of American and Coalition troops, broadcasters, contract people, etc. We really can't sit still.
Here in the States, we arrested six people who planned to strike Fort Dix in New Jersey and indiscriminately murder American troops in training, and we also arrested members of the four-people terrorist plot at JFK Airport in New York to blow up the major fuel farm depot and pipelines. The terrorists, as usual, were "unaffiliated" groups who were just responding to their earlier and present Islamic teachings just like those "Saudi students" who took out the Twin Towers.
It is patently obvious that all of these actions are State funded, sponsored and directed extensively by "rogue cells." Follow the money and the educational teaching and training, which these individuals received independently and collectively, and you will find a consistency of purpose to submerge our way of life no matter how long it may take.
In a recent survey of American Muslims, 35% were U.S. born, and 15% of those surveyed under 30 years of age answered that suicide bombing can be justified-Holy! Holy!
We can readily see that the distribution of terror by "rogue" cells is definitely playing with our heads and seeking to instill subtle fear in our minds and bodies. Fear for the safety of any Americans taken in battle. Fear born of the fact that we went into Iraq to prevent the happening of another Twin Towers in America and now look at JFK and Fort Dix, where we find that our friendly pizza deliverer is looking to set us up for a kill.
The children of Islamic Fundamentalists are taught to recite, live and believe in the premise from the musical South Pacific that you must learn the lessons, "Before you are 6 or 7 or 8, To hate all the people, Your relatives hate," and more particularly the Satan America and those who are non-Muslims. They are lessons of heart, mind and body.
We must also reverse our low position on the academic scale of nations as a priority U.S. obligation in the battle to teach the positive to our children. Education is absolutely vital for all of American's children. We must be in the top five-at least. We should not outsource this need for teaching and understanding.
The "Surge" was sold, presented and intended to be a precursor to an exit strategy and nation stabilization, to assure an acceptable government in place. It was intended for greater involvement by Iraqis in the operational stability of their nation. [At least, it had to look democratic and without ethnic profiling.] We have learned that in the Middle East, if you don't bring about something in this generation, there is always the next generation or even the one after that.
We sent additional U.S. Surge troops-the Iraqi Parliament held up their part of the bargain by planning to take a two-month vacation break-which is absolutely a deplorable and insulting turn of events to our country. It reflects that to the Iraqis it is business as usual and that, as long as U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill with money and U.S. lives [not their lives and not their oil]-who cares? Frankly we MUST and we should care about it NOW and not later. We must clean up the application of the Laws of War and the Rules of Engagement, at least, to the same intensity as those of our enemies, but with just a little more civility.
Placating the demands of the Middle East with its diplomacy and desires born of ego and oil should now be a thing of the past. Setting specific timetables for withdrawal is nonsense, especially where there are no post-conflict plans in place. In addition, we have tacked three more months of service onto the tours of those already in Iraq. The fact that the Surge makes the six-month dump of additional American troops in place dependent on whether we like what the Iraqis accomplish is childish. The continuing expenditure of American lives and injuries is also unsupportable. We screwed up-now let us seek to turn the screw to, at least, our minimal advantage and the world's discomfort.
We have to rethink and reinvent our strategies for the new era in which there can be no victory and no defeat. So let us do it for our own self-interest-you can only be a sucker for so long and then try to reclaim reality.
So, if I may, I would like to make a few suggestions now that we have an opportunity for on-the-job training and strategies [some of you may remember the Spanish Civil War.] After a war, we usually hold hearings to investigate and pontificate on how we should have fought and how we should have exited. This while continuing to commit our national resources to the enemy's recovery-not ours again. Now we are in place and on the ground, at a time when we can rethink and redefine our possible alternative base and exit strategies and test them by on site return or relocation to other bases in and outside the U.S.
The post-war strategies for the return to stability, reconstruction and normalization we can leave, in great part, to the diplomats and the nations in the regions where the war has taken place. Does that constitute American indifference; probably-but, so what, are we the world's only police force or its rebuilder? Nor can we be labeled as Isolationists since defense and security can only be had in a global community where obligations must be apportioned among other nations. The ultimate burden is not the U.S.'s alone to bear or to assume-we should not be obligated to ignore our Katrinas, tornadoes, hurricanes.
The slogans of "stay the course" or "cut and run" should be replaced with the old "search and destroy." Not in a haphazard or untutored way but with a realization that our constitutional way of life cannot be controlled by fear. It's time we are carefully taught to be directed by a recognition of our way of life and not by uncontrolled fear. We must learn by each step in a way not dissimilar to that of our enemies. We must be responsive to any attack or diminution in our ability to exist and grow. That would be the way to lose our unique place in the world as the beacon of freedom and not as the occupier of a nation whose citizens do not respect our way of life.
The Islamic Fundamentalists, the Russians, the Venezuelans, the North Koreans, the Iranians and all the other terrorists who may throw down the gauntlet to us-we need not pick it up alone, nor may we pick it up at all unless the regional nations are willing to fully [not in name only or with fifty or a hundred troops] accept their diplomatic or military obligations. So be it.
We must sharpen our agility and opportunity to go wherever those struggles may lead us, but we must not lead or leave precipitously. But, if leave we must, then regroup to where we can sustain our readiness to struggle against those who have been taught from childhood that we are the enemy in this struggle against the Middle East nations. While we regroup our thinking and what we have learned along the way, we must instill this in our students so that they can continue the teaching and thus continue our constitutional being.
We ourselves must be taught not to become mired in the conflict of others, but to keep up and hone our ability and be able to go wherever the battle leads us to preserve our Nation or our National interests [social, political and economic].
We cannot tolerate defeat in any form, and that is especially true on the soil or in the security interests of the United States.
Iraq has taught us a lesson of involvement - we should teach it to our citizens and the world, namely:
- Diplomacy
- Persuasion...Diplomacy
- Sanctions...Diplomacy
- Economic Sterilization-Freezing of Assets...Diplomacy
- The Massing of Troops of Regional Forces...Diplomacy
- World Intervention-including the U.S....Diplomacy
- Blanket Bombing...Diplomacy
- Truce...Diplomacy
- Peace...Diplomacy
Diplomacy can mean appeasement
Diplomacy can mean success
Diplomacy can mean failure
Diplomacy can mean truce
Diplomacy is important
Diplomacy is not everything
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