The Price of Panseyhood

Fred Reed writes a weekly column for the Washington Times Metropolitan section and also used to write a column for the Air Force Times. His style is gritty, tell-it-like-it-is, definitely not Politically Correct. Some of it is no doubt offensive, but worthwhile to reflect upon the words and his message. The article below is not from a politician or the media, but a warrior. It is controversial, but it makes a distinctive point. Fred Reed is a former Marine. The World Trade Center - The Price Of Pansyhood By Fred Reed The Washington Times ©Fred Reed 2001. All rights reserved

(1) We lost. Our moral posturing about our degradation is merely embarrassing. We have been made fools of, expertly and calculatedly, in the greatest military defeat the country has suffered since we fled from VietNam. The Moslem world is laughing and dancing in the streets. The rest of the earth, while often sympathetic, sees us as the weak and helpless nation that we are. The casualty figures aren't in, but 10,000 dead seems reasonable, and we wring our hands and speak of grief therapy. We lost.

(2) We cannot stop it from happening again. Thousands of aircraft constantly use O'Hare, a few minutes flying time from the Sears Tower.

(3) Our politicians and talking heads speak of "a cowardly act of terrorism." It was neither cowardly nor, I think, terrorism. Hijacking an aircraft and driving it into a building isn't cowardly. Would you do it? It requires great courage and dedication-which our enemies have, and we do not. One may mince words, but to me the attack looked like an act of war. Not having bombing craft of their own, they used ours. When we bombed Hanoi and Hamburg, was that terrorism?

(4) The attack was beautifully conceived and executed. These guys are good. They were clearly looking to inflict the maximum humiliation on the United States, in the most visible way possible, and they did. The sight of those two towers collapsing will leave nobody's mind. If we do nothing of importance in return, and it is my guess that we won't, the entire earth will see that we are a nation of epicenes. Silly cruise-missile attacks on Afghanistan will just heighten the indignity.

(5) In watching the coverage, I was struck by the tone of passive acquiescence. Not once, in hours of listening, did I hear anyone express anger. No one said, coldly but in deadly seriousness, "People are going to die for this, a whole lot of people." There was talk of tracking down bin Laden and bringing him to justice. "Terrorism experts" spoke of months of investigation to find who was responsible, which means we will do nothing. Blonde bimbos babbled of coping strategies and counseling and how our children needed support. There was no talk of retaliation.

(6) The Israelis, when hit, hit back. They hit back hard. But Israel is run by men. We are run by women. Perhaps two-thirds of the newscasters were blonde drones who spoke of the attack over and over as a tragedy, as though it had been an unusually bad storm-unfortunate, but inevitable, and now we must get on with our lives. The experts and politicians, nominally male, were effeminate and soft little things. When a feminized society runs up against male enemies-and bin Laden, whatever else he is, is a man-it loses. We have.

(7) We haven't conceded that the Moslem world is our enemy, nor that we are at war. We see each defeat and humiliation in isolation, as a unique incident unrelated to anything else. The 241 Marines killed by the truck bomb in Beirut, the extended humiliation of the hostages taken by Iran, the war with Iraq, the bombing of the Cole, the destruction of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the devastation of the Starke, the Saudi barracks, the dropping of airliner after airliner-these we see as anecdotes, like pileups of cars on a snowy road. They see these things as war. We face an enemy more intelligent than we are.

(8) We think we are a superpower. Actually we are not, except in the useless sense of having nuclear weapons. We could win an air war with almost anyone, yes, or a naval war in mid-Pacific. Few Americans realize how small our forces are today, how demoralized and weakened by social experimentation. If we had to fight a ground war in terrain with cover, a war in which we would take casualties, we would lose.

(9) I have heard some grrr-woofwoofery about how we should invade Afghanistan and teach those ragheads a lesson. Has anyone noticed where Afghanistan is? How would we get there? Across Pakistan, a Moslem country? Or through India? Do we suppose Iran would give us overflight rights to bomb another Moslem country? Or will our supply lines go across Russia through Turkmenistan? Do we imagine that we have the airlift or sealift? What effect do we think bombing might have on Afghanistan, a country that is essentially rubble to begin with? We backed out of Somalia, a Moslem country, when a couple of GIs got killed and dragged through the streets on TV. Afghans are not pansies. They whipped the Russians. Our sensitive and socially-conscious troops would curl up in balls.

(10) To win against a more powerful enemy, one forces him to fight a kind of war for which he isn't prepared. Iraq lost the Gulf War because it fought exactly the kind of war in which American forces are unbeatable: Hussein played to his weaknesses and our strengths. The Vietnamese did the opposite. They defeated us by fighting a guerrilla war that didn't give us anything to hit. They understood us. We didn't understand them. The Moslem world is doing the same thing. Because their troops, or terrorists as we call them, are not sponsored by a country, we don't know who to hit. Note that Yasser Arafat, bin Laden, and the Taliban are all denying any part in the destruction of New York. At best, we might, with our creaky intelligence apparatus, find Laden and kill him. It's not worth doing: Not only would he have defeated America as nobody ever has, but he would then be a martyr. Face it: The Arabs are smarter than we are.

(11) We are militarily weak because we have done what we usually do: If no enemy is immediately in sight, we cut our forces to the bone, stop most R&D, and focus chiefly on sensitivity training about homosexuals. When we need a military, we don't have one. Then we are unutterably surprised.

(12) The only way we could save any dignity and respect in the world would be to hit back so hard as to make teeth rattle around the world. A good approach would be to have NSA fabricate intercepts proving that Libya was responsible, mobilize nationally, invade, and make Libya permanently a US colony. Most Arab countries are militarily helpless, and that is the only kind our forces could defeat. Doing this, doing anything other than whimpering, would require that ancient military virtue known as "balls." Does Katie Couric have them?

No, you are not "just curious". You are trying to paint me into a corner, so that you can trot out your "moral superiority" and wave it around to let us all know how ineffably wonderful you are. Like Mother Teresa, only BETTER!

No one would ever mistake me for Mother Teresa.

No American strike will be aimed at "women and children", or at innocent noncombatants in general. But are there going to be some killed anyway? Oh, yes. Probably quite a few.

As a matter of fact, I agree with you on both counts. Although it will come as a disappointment to some, the United States is not going to "nuke 'em all and let God sort 'em out." I am confident that the military planners will do their best to avoid civilian casualties, as they should.

Nevertheless, there are likely to be civilian casualties, despite our best intentions.

War is a VERY BAD THING, which is why these folks should have thought about the likely results before starting one with us.

Agreed.

(8) We think we are a superpower. Actually we are not, except in the useless sense of having nuclear weapons.

"War is politics by other means." That's what I was taught in the military.

There is more going on in the world than who gives whom a bloodier black eye. There is more going on in the world than the kind of scuffling that little boys engage in on the playground when someone's "honor" is challenged. This is not a game, this is Life. (If it were a game it would need better directions.)

America is the lone superpower for three reasons.

We have the most powerful military in the world. It may not yet know how to combat terrorism, but it is about to learn and may G-d have mercy on the souls of the men we test it out on. They don't know what these men can do.
We have the most powerful economy in the world. One of the biggest grievances the radical east has against the west is our unstoppable economy. Slowly but surely the world is accepting our economic system, and with it our values and way of life. The east wants to fight instead of adapt. It is the struggle of a fox caught in a trap. They will not win without destroying themselves.
We are the most just, decent, and moral people on the face of the earth. This is our power greater than any other for G-d sides with the just. Of course, someone is going to tell me about abortion. I would agree. Someone is going to tell me about how we treat the aged. I would agree. Someone is going to tell me about sexual perversion. I would agree. We have our warts. But overall we have the most just, moral, and decent society on the planet and, warts and all, the best heart. As a nation our moral power may be weeker than it was in 1950 (maybe not) but it is still powerfully strong.

We will prevail. The nation has been stung by an annoying fly (not to minimize the pain of those individuals who have been greviously injured) but we have not been seriously hurt. Now we swat the fly. I would not want to be that fly.

Shalom.

Did conventional weapons help us defeat the Vietnamese?

The problems in Vietnam were not tactical nor armament related - they were political.

Deploying tactical nuclear weapons is extremely difficult. The entire logistics of a nuclear war is much more difficult than the logistics of a conventional war. If you're talking about strategic nukes - the long-term consequences may be worse for the living than for the dead. Those were developed for Mutual Assured Destruction, not a limited war. It's hard to drop a missile on a country then send in the troops to mop up. And trust me, there would be survivors. In fact, the ones you are targeting are the most likey survivors since they probably have very deep caves.

Guns, rockets, missiles, napalm, those can do the job if the politicians have the will to let the army use them.

Shalom.

To "our Airlines"
It is a given that US airlines will have MAJOR input on the new Air Security Policies.
Today, I heard 2 networks tout the idea that "all airport security people" should be "College Graduates"; WRONG. WAITING for Colleges and Government to design and impliment a "degree program" would slow your industry's recovery by 5 years or more. Those "Grads' will have been trained In "warm fuzzy, liberal think", not the "scary world" that military training warns of.

If the FAA and the Airlines give into "liberal think", passengers must not have "nail clippers" or knitting needles; they must be "Sheep" and protected by "College Grad Sheep"
Your Industry will not, soon, recover under that plan. Loyal wolves, coyotes and sheepdogs are needed, both on staff and as passengers.

"Private Security Firms" are known as "rent-a-cops" for a reason. They do it cheap, not well. They hire "warm bodies". They abuse and overwork their few good people.

EXACTLY what I have been saying! The ONLY way we will ever stop this and really BE the "superpower" we say we are is when all the men in this country, IN UNISON, march into the offices where their women work (wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts), throw them over their shoulders, take them home, put their apron back on them, and MAKE them stay home. Then repeal the 19th amendment so that when the MEN are running for office, they can concentrate on the IMPORTANT issues, rather than child care "issues" and abortion "issues" and child-support (i.e. child rent) "issues" and maternity leave "issues", etc., etc., barf, puke, etc. Until that day comes, I won't hold my breath on us being a "superpower", just a bunch of sniveling women looking for a world-wide "group hug".

Wow! I'm speechless.

Thanks bro. I never miss Fred. Except when he's too wrapped up chasing senoritas down south and forgets to file.

He goes a little far to make a point. The combat arms of the Army, and what seems to me to be the entirety of the Marines, are still manned by men worthy of the name. They seem so young to me, but then so was I, once upon a time. Given leaders with balls the troops will make us all proud... and leadership, good or bad, comes from the top down.

So far President Bush seems to be bringing out the best in everybody, except for the people who prefer Bin Laden to him, like Rep. Marty Meehan and cartoonist Garry Trudeau. In the case of those two wretches there may not be any good to bring out.

Tom Ridge, the new homeland czar, is a combat vet (infantry, B/1/20th Inf, 196th Bde., Americal Div) of Vietnam. That particular unit means he saw the US Army at just about its very worst, and he doesn't think combat is magic or a Nintendo game. d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

Some very good points. We have become a nation run by the feminine, whether the leader is male or female. We always want 100% consensus. We never want even one person to feel at all bad, and if anyone feels bad then we forget what our goal was and focus on the feel-bad person.

Does anyone seriously doubt that, if this type and size of attack was done against Israel, that within hours at least one Arab capital would exist only in history? The Arabs know that too, which is why they focus their attacks against Israel on smaller terror bombings.

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