I just heard about this on CNN this morning… I’m afraid I’ll probably not get a decent Rant or Essay up in time because I’m too addle brained to rush something intelligent together without thinking long and hard on it first… But I want to show my support ASAP.
HERE GOES…
I’d like to point out the damage being done to the USA’s prestige, reputation, citizens and Karma by keeping open a place like Guantanamo… I know that some folks are gonna squawk about how we need a place to find out about the threats to this nation… And I agree that we as a nation should be able to ferret out dangers to ourselves.
But we should do it in the light of day and in accordance with the way that we would expect our own troops and citizens to be treated.
If we’re going to accuse someone… We should stand up and do it according to our constitution… It’s what we’re fighting for… Isn’t it? How can we honestly say that we’re a nation of laws and rights; and crow to the rest of the world that we value rights and freedoms above all else… And then drag people we call suspects away in the night and put them under wraps isolated away from the very system that we’re crowing about?… Are we saying to the rest of the world that our own government doesn’t trust it’s own system to get at the truth?
This will come back to haunt us.
- We’ll see our own rights eroded by a government that’s gotten a taste of tyranny and finds it makes for easy “problem” solving.
- We’ll see our loved ones suffer when other countries begin grabbing Americans and treating them the same as we treat theirs… As they tell us “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
- We’re seeing our prestige as the “Shining Beacon of Freedom” being tarnished each and every day that we commit this travesty and continue to use weak and cowardly excuses to justify it.
- We will ultimately make ourselves less safe by offending more and more people… Eventually… We’ll create another Osama bin Laden who’ll have the wherewithal to strike at us again in a major way.
As I’m writing this I’m listening to G.W. Bush speak madness to the Israeli government by saying that “We should never talk to people that we suspect to be our enemies.”… And now he’s playing the Holocaust Card by invoking the “If we’d have blasted Hitler first!” rant”
Translation… Let’s blast Iran!… We don’t need to talk!… Let’s start WWIII now!..
When are people going to understand that the world mindset is much different than in the ’30’s and ’40’s? The world is too intertwined to go around with the attitude that we just won’t communicate.
Not to mention that weapon systems exist now that didn’t then that complicate things way out of proportion to the size of the countries or even organizations that we might run afoul of.
I pointed out in a Rant that I wrote a long time ago how we’re being stampeded and how and why a simple millionaire was able to put together a real, live, big time attack against us. This is a good time and place to drop in an excerpt:
When is the last time you had a truly malevolent thought? I mean something really nasty? Something that would result in someone’s death, doom or destruction? What kept you from following through? How close did you come? Did having to live with yourself play a role in your decision? More so than going to jail?
Try it another way… When was the last time you met a stranger? Did you fear for your life? I’m willing to bet… probably not. We’re surrounded by strangers every-time we walk out the door… Supermarkets, Gas Stations, Wal Mart, the movies… etc. Most of us make it home safe.
But… We’ve got politicians and other leaders fervently telling us that we are imminently going to be blown up and that evil hordes are hiding under your car, bed, couch pillows… you name it. We’re all goners if we don’t hurry up and learn to hate the “others” and authorize our leadership to blow the hell out of them… NOW!
And isn’t it funny that with all the traveling that Americans do around the world today… That relatively few of us return home with horror stories worse than a ripping case of diarrhea? We’re not being beheaded, robbed, raped, beaten, eaten, kidnapped or molested in numbers anywhere near approaching what it would take to justify our not getting on those planes, trains and automobiles, now are we? Passport applications are actually at an all time high.
Americans wander the earth in incredible numbers… It wouldn’t be hard to find one in most major cities if a person suddenly developed a hankering to do something nasty to one of us. And we can be found in bunches for anyone wanting to take us out in volume. Yet… It doesn’t seem to be happening at all on the levels we’re warned about are imminent. So… What gives?
So the question is… Who benefits from all of this terror! Terror! TERROR! business? I’ve been drunk, stupid and stoned in some pretty questionable neighborhoods in some pretty far flung places and gotten away clean. I’ve SEEN plenty of ugly american behavior in places all over the world where the offenders got away clean. So… If we can get away with provoking and inviting mayhem and it generally doesn’t happen… Why are we being told that we and our loved ones are doomed to be blown up as early as tomorrow? Why are we authorizing our leadership to go blow up and harass a population with a hell of a lot less means to get to us than we have to them on the premise that they’ll come over here and blow us up?
Seems to me that the population that we’re supposed to be so afraid of went directly over to killing each other; which is exactly what should have been expected as soon as their local tyrant was removed. That was the same as taking the lid off of a pressure cooker… And any cultural anthropologist could have told you so.
Bosnians and Serbs, Jews and Palestinians, Shiites and Sunnis… Anytime you’ve got folks that have been at each others throats for millennia… They’re always going to be more interested in killing each other than they will be to kill some newcomers on the block. Tito, Saddam, Amin, Suharto… Simply lids on the pressure cookers. They provided a threat greater than tolerable to the local combatants. Same thing happens in L.A. or any U.S. city where the cops take out the big drug king pin or gang leader… Mortality rate goes up until a new “lid” gets settled in. But it remains largely internecine warfare… Members of the general public get whacked usually as collateral damage.
Osama whacked the WTC in retaliation for U.S. attempts on his own life. He’s a millionaire who could afford to set that kind of personal vendetta in place. Your average muslim extremist is much, much more interested in killing off those horribly blasphemous neighbors of his that let their women folk walk around without burquas. And when he’s done doing that… He’s going to be too busy fending off the counter attacks by said neighbor’s clan to consider cooking up some sophisticated plan to get over here and blow up my wife and kids.
So.. back to the question of who, what, why and where. Who… have we as a nation offended so terribly that they can afford to turn their back on their own treacherous brethren to come after us? What … evidence besides the isolated incidence of the WTC do we have that anybody gives enough of a fig about destroying us to make a real effort at it? Why… are not americans being slaughtered in significant numbers in places where we’re easy to get at… Like Europe… the Caribbean? Where… did we go wrong at letting our elected leaders stampede us headlong into terror color codes, profiling, Guantanamo-ing, wiretapping, take your shoes off, no bottled water, don’t question authority, Bill O’Rielly and Shawn Hannity loving, Islam hating, paranoids?
I think the answer lies with we as americans being so fat, dumb and happy that we willingly leave any mental lifting to whomever claims it. Statistically… we are unequivocally among the fattest, dumbest, and happiest of people on good old mother earth. What is it going to take for us to wake up and realize that we’re victims of the old Kansas City Shuffle? Our attention is being directed one place while we’re being robbed blind of our jobs (outsourcing)… security (Homeland), educations (cuts), health(genetically engineered crops) and welfare. We will wake up to discover that the American empire only lasted a little over 200 years and ended the same way the Roman Empire did. Bread and Circuses (McDonald’s and American Idol) Non citizens running the empire (illegal immigration) Declination of the ruling class(see G.W. Bush) Outsourcing of vital operations to foreigners(China, India)
What this all boils down to folks… Is that the USA needs to stand in the broad light of day and make it’s accusations as well as it’s intentions known to all the world when it comes to fighting terror… And we’ve got to be willing to take a first strike. There’s only one truth we need to make clear about our willingness to take one on the chin… And that’s that once you take your best shot Mr. Terrorist… We get to take ours… But we’ve got to have the cojones to hit back hard.
Would we still be looking for Osama if we’d immediately responded with a low yield nuke precisely at the location were we knew him to be right after the WTC attack? Would there be near as many casualties as there have been in Iraq and Afganistan had we responded with the might that a superpower has at it’s disposal?
Oh!!! That’s horrible!, you say? That’s barbaric!, you say?… Seen any pictures of the destruction we’ve wreaked up until now?… And do we have the folks responsible for the WTC bombing?… Do we have the WMD’s? Which is more Barbaric?
Would not Iran and South Korea get the message if we made it perfectly clear that we would consider any unprovoked attack with weapons of mass destruction upon anyone, anywhere… Grounds to target their home country with Complete Assured Destruction?… Knowing full well that we may have to do it at least once… In the meantime… Got Beef? Let’s talk.
And when it comes to individual terrorists and organizations… We should not shy away from putting them into the system and openly using medicine based means of extracting the truth (Versed, Anyone?) and then using that truth to send dedicated Death Squads for pinpoint take out… While we won’t completely eliminate innocent civilians getting caught in the crossfire… It will certainly be less than taking over and occupying an entire country with it’s attendant collateral damage.
But we will be doing things honorably and openly and setting the example that Human Rights are paramount.
Tags: Essays, Information, Rants, Uncategorized by TheFourEyes
1 Comment »
McCain Campaign Co-Chairman And FL State Representative Bob Allen
