Re: Bush Says "No Surrender - No Retreat"

Those " leaders" who voted and started this war should be
forced to go to Irag and Afganistan and lead the troops on the front
line instead of hiding at home. But then Bush is just a cheerleader
and puppet.



On Tue, 05 Sep 2006 21:22:46 GMT, bw@xxxxxxxxx (B1ackwater) wrote:

(foxnews)
WASHINGTON ? President Bush declared his intention to step up the War
on Terror, proclaiming Tuesday that "we will not retreat" from the
fight against radical Islamists bent on destroying America.

"We will not rest, we will not retreat, we will not withdraw from the
fight until this threat to civilization is removed," Bush told a
gathering of the Military Officers Association of America.

The president said Al Qaeda is "convinced they can force America to
retreat? that we are weak and decadent and lacking in patience and
resolve and they're wrong."

Bush warned that allowing Al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Iraq would
doom security in the region and around the world.

"They oppose the advance of freedom, and they want to gain control of
weapons of mass destruction," he said. "If they drive the forces of
freedom out of the region, they will have an open field to pursue
their dangerous goals."

Usama Bin Laden was singled out by the president as the focus of
center of terrorism.

. . . . . .

Well, they oppose the advance of what they conceive of
as "immorality" - the fundy islamic version - and seek
to make the world a morally proper place ... rather
like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and their bluenosed
militant puritan followers who bomb abortion clinics,
review Disney cartoons literally frame by frame or creep
into high government offices to penalize titty exposers,
harass 'shock jocks' and eliminate the word 'evolution'
from the biology texts.

But aside from that ...

Clearly we have some problems here. On the one hand we're
nuts if we DON'T persue violent jihadists bent on doing us
harm and replacing our culture with theirs. On the other
hand we don't seem to have found a good WAY to do it. The
ordinance-heavy bullet-riddled approach isn't working very
well. It isn't working very QUICKLY either - which brings
up a third problem ... how quickly America gets disillisioned
with even righteous causes.

Bin-Laden was perfectly correct, the west does NOT have
"staying power". His and like-minded fanatics can take
pot-shots at us from now until the next century, but WE
aren't willing to put in that much time. Nation after
nation will eventually cave in under the constant
pressure of rad islam. Won't happen tomorrow, but while
radical pressure may be slight it WILL be relentless.

We've already seen weakness in Spain and France and even
England couldn't rally its people after the subway bomb
spree. After several years of (relatively light) warfare
in the 'Stan and Iraq these folks have let themselves
believe that they can just leave the islamics alone and
things will be OK.

Not.

What we need are some new approaches to terrorism that
we CAN sustain over a long period - financially, morally
and in terms of body bags. Our 'liberals' are the deluded
appeasers and have no respectable ideas whatsoever. Our
'conservatives' seem locked in WW-3 mode and will not be
convinced that the answer isn't always a bigger hammer
(or bigger supersonic bomber). Neither approach really
WORKS, neither has an acceptable outcome.

I think we need to "get small" on this. Forget the tanks
and bombers and scorching whole cities to get at a small
handful of rads who will just be replaced by new recruits
the very next day. The sustainable answer involves going
heavily into recruiting spies and informers in the terrorist
ranks, cultivating or outrightly buying info and favors from
well-placed businessmen and politicians in troublesome
countries and very SELECTIVE use of minimal military and
police force when ripe targets are revealed. The effort
can be so small and inexpensive, that the public barely
knows it's going on. More than policework but far less
than an outright war.

Win "hearts and minds" ? I don't think so. Ain't gonna
happen on any useful scale in the islamic universe for
a LONG time to come. Islam has re-awakened and is feeling
its oats ... it's not gonna moderate and appease, it will
deepen, become even more part of the cultural identity
and it's gonna have dreams of running the world - just
as western nations once did.

However ... there's the "hearts and minds" of the general
population - and then there's something MUCH more useful
and reliable - the greed of individuals. Politicians and
businesspeople can be 'persuaded' ... by juicy deals and
cash in brown bags. Make sure it's in the financial
interests of THESE people to keep things halfway OK with
westerners and they'll take care of things at home. You
don't let people kill the folks you're making good money
from, the folks who do you favors.

Does that sound 'corrupt' ? Well welcome to planet earth ...
that's how things are DONE here. Altruism is as rare as
conservatives at OzFest.

No matter how it SOUNDS, it's something that can indeed
WORK - long term and with reasonable (but not perfect)
effectiveness. But we'd better set this up NOW, before
China wedges itself in and gets first dibs on all the
influential/useful people.

Yes, we've done things like this in the past - the late
Shah of Iran was a perfect example, and a perfect example
of how we screw up these things. We wanted TOO much control,
things TOO perfect. We were afraid to lose a penny of
potential profit or to see one malcontent reading Marx
or Khomeni in the public square. By squeezing too tightly
it all slipped between our fingers. Wasn't the first or
last time either ...

We need politicians who have LEARNED better, who can be
content with OK profits, OK control ... and not freak
out when some little thing goes wrong. The question is
whether that's POSSIBLE, in the USA especially. Much
of our foreign policy is driven by business interests
who want things PERFECT - and they whisper in the ears
of our leaders until they change minds and get their
way.

The influence of the business sector varies a bit
from nation to nation but on the whole where there's
capitalism there's gonna be a lot of capitalist fingers
in the policymaking pie. Even the best politicians HAVE
to please the big-money interests to some extent - so
they let themselves drift into Exxons point of view or
whatever.

But there HAVE to be limits, big-money HAS to be ignored
beyond some sane threshold - otherwise the wars just get
harder to bear and in the end WE LOSE to Osamas boys. The
only way to make sure we win is to quit letting America
(and England/France/Germany/Canada/whatever) run on
autopilot.

We The People HAVE to get a lot more hands-on, actually
PAY ATTENTION to what's going on and who is served. If
we're too tired to do this, well, as I said, we LOSE.
Your grandkids will be spreading a prayer rug five times
a day and your little grandaughter will look SO cute in
that black sackcloth. Yea, the first thing they'll do
is chop off the heads of the 'liberals' ... but that's
just not enough to offset the BAD effects rad islam
will have on western nations and the whole liberty
and justice thing.

.

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