Hi, everybody, I made it home safely. Now, I wish I could go back to the Oregon Coast and stay - but responsibilities dictate I stay in Southern California for a while.
Anyhow, conversations with liberals (and reading certain sites that love to give me grief - you know who you are!) have made me laugh inside - such conversations normally do - but it really cracks me up how the Left loves to take what is said, misunderstand it, and twist it because you don't clarify enough. As a writer, I should know better.
Okay, before I lose you here, let me explain:
One of the cardinal rules of writing is to write with clarity. The writer has to remember that not all persons reading his or her writing fully comprehends all aspects of what is being said. In other words, don't assume the reader knows what you are talking about without you explaining it fully.
What makes it worse, the liberal left will actually take what you say, and simply attach their own commentary making it look as if you meant something you didn't mean. Liberal Trolls are especially good at this.
For example, if I indicate that I disagree with the anti-war crowd, conservatives know exactly what I mean. However, because liberals think in absolutes and literalisms when it comes to certain parts of language, to them if you disagree with the anti-war crowd, that makes you pro-war.
Nobody in their right mind is Pro-War!
However, conservatives know better than to underestimate the enemy. The left will argue that conservatives, then, have no faith in our country, if we think that the enemy could come here and destroy us from within. Once again, they have it all mixed up. Do I think the Jihadists will just suddenly come into this country and march across America like the Germans marched across France during the early portion of World War II? This is a different kind of war and a different kind of enemy. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of parallels to past enemies such as the Nazis in Germany, but Islamic Terror is unlike anything we have ever fought before. One thing, however, holds true. It is dangerous to leave rogue nations, like Saddam's Iraq, or Ahmadinejad's Iran, unchecked in their power. A brutal despotism like the factions that hide in these countries and use terror as their weapon become an infestation of internal violence and festering Anti-Western sentiment.
However, don't be fooled into believing that the chipping away at our innards that is today being performed by Islam will never become a collapse from within. They may not be able to destroy us from within immediately, but every civilization, when the enemy is left unchecked, has its breaking point.
The Liberal Left is uncomfortable with combat. Clinton proved it with his non-reaction to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clinton failed to see that action against America for what it was - an act of war. Instead, and him being a lawyer I guess this should have been expected, Billy boy considered the attack to be a criminal action, rather than an act of war against our fine nation. And, like the liberals of today, Clinton did not see terrorism as an eminent threat that ought to be dealt with by force. He underestimated the terrorists. Had he understood the importance of standing up to the enemy when an act of war against the U.S. is propagated, 9/11 may have been avoided.
Clinton did not take terrorism seriously, and we paid the price for his inaction.
Bush could have considered 9/11 to be a criminal act like Clinton would have - but he didn't. He saw 9/11 for what it was - and outrage, and an act of war!
The attack on America on September 11, 2001 was a deliberate attack on America. It was an act of war by Islamic Terrorists acting out how they believed they should in a Holy Jihad. However, rather than being a part of a single nation, or axis of nations, the enemy took a new form. And President Bush recognized this, and declared that both terrorists and regimes that gave them safe harbor would be targets of America's War on Terror. The goal? To prevent terror from coming to America again through preventing regimes that sponsor terrorism to threaten us with weapons of mass destruction.
Unfortunately, along the way, two things happened. Number one, Bush fell victim to the Liberal Propaganda Machine that used an old tactic called "Bush Lied." They used it on Daddy Bush too! Remember that whole "No New Taxes" fiasco? Began with the "Bush Lied" propaganda. They fail to mention that it was a Democratic Party sponsored piece of legislation, and Daddy Bush essentially signed it to enable other legislations to move through as well. Tokyo Rose used that tool of propaganda against our troops during World War II as well, proclaiming that they were fighting a war they couldn't win, and that their president lied to them about it.
Second, Bush allowed his idea of Globalism to undermine our ability to protect our nation through actions such as securing the borders.
Yes, I believe that the enemy is being highly underestimated by the Left, and that this is a war against an evil enemy. The enemy has shown that they are capable of targeting innocent civilians for murder, committing brutality against women, and often sending children to do their bidding. They have shown us that their hate for non-Muslims are stronger than their love for their own children - otherwise they would not use their children as human shields or send them out to die on the battlefield.
The Lefty Liberals say they condemn tyranny, but oppose decisive action against any government that sponsors terrorism, and the left refuses to actually condemn terrorism, instead blaming America for provoking any terror attacks.
The Constitution makes it clear that protecting the nation is the number one responsibility of the federal government, not the job of some international body (that would rather appease the enemy anyway) like the United Nations. The Left would rather appease the enemy and avoid force at all costs.
As a conservative I am not pro-war as the liberals would like people to believe, but I do recognize that the world is a dangerous place. The enemy has unfair advantages because they act as mercenaries who are willing to do business with any ruthless regime that will help them with training, funding and weapons. They are willing to come into places like the United States and lie dormant for years, exploiting the freedoms and good-natured hospitality of Americans while plotting to turn against the nation and destroy it. They have no value for the sanctity of human life. We can't afford to wait for the enemy to attack us again. We have to take the action to the enemy before they have the chance to strike again. We must be proactive in our war on terror, targeting both terrorism and the nations sponsoring them in order to preserve our national security.
In 1998 Clinton told America that Iraq under Saddam Hussein's rule was dangerous and that the United States needed to "attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. . . " The left now has no memory that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, or that they used them against their neighbors and the Kurds at different times during the past.
I am a realist. I realize, though I don't like war, that war is a reality in this world because evil and tyranny conspires to use terror to force their ideology upon the world.
Unfortunately, Bush has fallen victim to the Politically Correct Anti-War fringe and has changed the War on Terror to a Police Action - and in the meantime has allowed his internationalist ambitions to overrun our need for security at the borders.
I, however, have not folded to the Left's propaganda machine. I recognize the Islamic Jihadists as being murderers of freedom loving peoples, as well as their own civilians. I recognize that we must have moral clarity in this War on Terror, and we must fight this war as a war, not some police action. We must hit the targets hard, we must close off any opportunities for the enemy to strike at us (like at the borders), and if profiling is necessary to keep us safe, we must do so. Terrorism is not finished by a long shot. In London, recently, the terrorists have shown that they are still capable of attempting terror attacks.
I believe that it is time to stop playing politics, and for the left to stop spending more time worrying about their propaganda and the election in 2008 than on doing what is necessary to give our intelligence community and military all the support they need to fight this war properly.
I don't like war, but I realize that it is necessary to protect this nation.
We mustn't be foolish and underestimate this enemy.
We must defend our nation from the Jihad that has been declared against The West.
I am a realist - and the reality is that the Islamic Jihadists wish to destroy us.
Is that clear enough for you?