Posted on 12/19/2003 7:47:39 PM PST by FairOpinion
On Friday, ABC News reported, "U.S. intelligence has received information about a credible and imminent threat to New York City." There were no details, nor was the terror alert raised. This story put me in mind of the theory that Al-Qaeda could ramp it up close to the 2004 election, hoping to show Bush as a failure and thus propel Howard Dean into the White House. No question that the terrorists would prefer Dean, but there's another side to this that they can scarcely conceive.
The full breadth and scope of American power has barely been tapped in this war. I'm going to tell you right now, if these people, al-Qaeda or whoever try another 9/11-scale attack, the world is going to be a very different place. We are prosecuting this war in the traditional, civilized American way right now. We're doing it with conventional weapons and with as much cooperation and consultation as we can internationally. If it happens again, you are going to be amazed.
This mighty nation is going to unleash its full strength. Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrats can run around and say whatever they want if that awful time comes. I don't care. If this country is attacked and thus forced to unleash the full scope if its weaponry, the people that said they would never do anything about it and who played politics with the issue by delaying a vote on the Homeland Security Department's creation and such, are not going to stand a prayer at the polls. The president who's trying to stop this, who's the only president in 12 years to seriously engage this threat of radical Islamofascists, will be reelected in a landslide.
Attack Will Be No-Win SItuation for Dean or Any Democrat
If these terrorists try something again, I don't care if it's October next year, you just wait and see what kind of response there will be. I don't think most Americans have any idea of the full scope of American power, as evidenced by their misconception that we "need" France and Germany when those people would literally take hours to put a single fighter in the air. (And even that would be obsolete.) We haven't even begun to project our strength. We are reining ourselves in and tempering what we do for a host of reasons.
I don't mean to be redundant, but I'll say it one more time: If a 9/11-scale atrocity happens again, Democrats may as well concede right then and there. They'll raise Cain about it and do whatever they can, but there will be nothing in the record that any Democrat can call on to say he would have acted differently to stop it. Most Democrats from Wesley Clark to John Kerry are ruing military force, folks. They want to subordinate America to the UN when everybody knows we can't depend on those weak-kneed thugs and appeasers.
Democrats will not be able to point to a track record of saying what they would have done better because they won't do anything. Howard Dean has said he thinks we can reach an understanding with these people and that we should just show them we don't mean them any harm. Some of you might think that Dean has opening with that. I don't think so at all.
I think that if the Democrats had a prayer with their policy of appeasement, that they'd already be leading in the polls and Bush wouldn't stand a chance. They've been out there talking about this for 2 1/2 years, ever since 9/11. It didn't take them long to break with Bush. They went out there and gave lip service to the war on terror, but if you listen to what they say when they're running for high office, they do it exactly different: "Bush doesn't know what he's doing! Bush is incompetent!"
Now, you might think, "Okay, so terrorists launch again and it proves what the Democrats are saying." Again: the American people are not going to want to sit around and do nothing if it happens a second time, and they aren't going to want to sit around and let the United Nations handle it or to okay our self-defense. The president, who's been dealing with it and who has a track record of success to show for it, is going to be standing very tall if something like this happens again - not Howard Dean. I guarantee you not Howard Dean. You can engage in wishful thinking or doom-and-gloom thinking all you want out there, but it just won't be the case.
I saw a bumper sticker at a gun show right after 9/11 that I bought but never put on my vehicle. It says: "Bleeding heart liberals of America...YOU let this happen!"
If it does happen again all the whining pacifists and globalists will fade away lest they risk a lynching for opening their fat yaps. The Democratic party will be forever tarred with the blame and they will be marginalized as the party of disparate special interests. Did you hear what Rush had to say about THAT on the same program yesterday? It was the bloody awesome truth. Somebody should start a new thread on THAT comment. It bears repeating.
This was about as close to allowing us a glimpse of a US Policy position as I can imagine hearing. Rush subscribes to the Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/342/The%20Clash%20of%20Civilizations%20and%20the%20Remaking%20of%20World%20Order.htm
"Samuel P. Huntington is almost certainly correct that the next several years will see a clash between Western Civilization and Islamic Civilization, but the result of this encounter is foreordained, if not the particulars of how we'll arrive at the conclusion.
There are really only two alternatives : either Islam will reform itself and become more like the West on its own--including, most importantly, separating church and state and accepting greater economic inequalities as the price to be paid for greater growth in general--or Islam will be devastated in war and will be rebuilt, even if against its will, along Western lines, as happened in Japan after WWII.
It just is not possible to envision a scenario in which Islam succeeds in defeating the West. If, God forbid, the West ever really had its back to the wall it would undoubtedly unleash a thermonuclear, biological and/or chemical holocaust in the Middle East (and probably Indonesia) which would essentially annihilate Islam.
As Victor Davis Hanson has written in his terrific book Carnage and Culture, the single factor that has been most significant in the repeated victory of the West in global conflicts has been the ruthlessness and finality with which it prosecutes war.
The West has been more willing than other civilizations to utterly destroy enemies. There is no reason to believe that it would not do so again."
Dear God of Heaven...IF such an attack happens, I can almost visualize something like the following on the same day:
Memo to Assad in Syria: Two choices, lay down your arms and open the doors OR die where you stand because we are coming in. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. You have 2 hours to respond yea or nay.
Memo to Iranian Mullahs: Read Memo sent to Assad and comply in like manner.
Memo to Pakistan President: Move all your forces from the mountainous region where bin Laden is holed up along with any civilians. Tactical nukes are in the air as we speak and that whole area is gonna get plowed like you wouldn't believe. By the way, all your nukes are belong to us now.
Memo to Saudi Ruling Princes: You are in deep poo.
Memo to any other Islamic nation: Watch and learn. If you even look like you are going to interfere, kiss your stupid arse goodbye.
Last but not least: Memo to Kim Jong Mentally Il: Your next.
From President Bush's radio address, September 15, 2001.
You bet ! Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to you too !
From President Bush's radio address, September 15, 2001.Yep ! I have that on my profile page. I put that there just a few days after he made that address ...
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