Patton or Churchill (not the Chruchill you might think)
The differences in tactics for combating terrorism proposed by the left versus the right are more than subtle. For the most part the left does not really have any ideas at all - they simply are the party of "No." and so it goes.
The 'best' ideas the left can muster is to play defense and hope (certainly not pray) that it is enough. The left will blame capitalism for so much of the world 'hating' us as well, and of course terrorists are the poor people who have no hope for anything else.
While we do indeed need to have a solid defense - one which I feel could be made stronger - we also need an offense as well, and it must be a convincing one. How many wars have ever been won by being on the defensive?
Did the Maginot line with the day for France? Yes, it did make the Germans go around it, but in the end all the defense structures did not do much at all except perhaps help keep construction companies going because of all the business. Even France's tanks were made for a defensive war with the Char weighing in at 68 tons, and capable of an overland speed of a mere 8 miles per hour. The idea? Make it heavy, big, and thick in order to withstand a pounding.
Even when faced with the idea that Germany would attack her, France played the game of defense to the extent of not wanting the British Expeditionary Forces to even fly patrols over Germany, and denied permitting them bomb Germany held positions until it was, obviously, too late.
Also, a quote by Patton says something very worth reading: "In landing operations, retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish… above all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."
With a nation to protect retreat is also impossible, surrender is as he says it is, and the next part is worth a second look: When you attack you decide the place and time, the numbers to send and the targets and mode of attack. The only think the defenders can do is hope to spoil that attack. If you, the attacker, notice the situation is not to your advantage you do not attack, pull back and wait.
So we can either play defense and slowly watch our civilians die at the hands of motivated attackers while we do nothing but wring our hands and condemn such activity, or we can in fact explain to them and anyone else who might need to remember that we are not in favor of war, but we will not back down from it, either.
The mistake the left makes is saying that they do not like war -- as if this is at all an important statement. I doubt you'll find too many Americans like war at all, but what the difference is understanding that war - aggressive war - is the only way to take the pressure off the defense.
Now, with London having experienced what it has, we hear again from the same voices who refuse to understand anything about the situation, that we are so unsafe and the bombings are proof of this lack of security.
Do these people honestly think that terrorist cells were simply sleeping since Madrid, and before that 9/11? Who feels comfortable thinking that our safety as a nation should be tied to the ideas of the intellectual left like Ward Churchill, the 'professor' in Colorado, who said, " On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens along with some half-million dead Iraqi children came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable - in fact, widely predicted - result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival."
Of course, the Oil for Food program didn't help, and neither did a decade of Saddam doing next to nothing to help his own population WITH the money from the Oil for Food program, but Ward is tenured, thus untouchable. We all should be rather familiar with his most famous line: " More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."
Yes, such profound wisdom from the left is hard to duplicate. Sure, he's tried for a while now to backtrack over his exact words, but is anyone actually going to believe it? If so, I'd like to sell them a bridge.
No, the leftists do not really give a damn about it at all. They'd rather understand those who wish to kill us than to kill them first. To these relativist thinkers, 'us versus them' is an idea as out of touch as 'good versus evil', though I do not see them flocking to live in places like Syria, North Korea, or backwater China.
A defensive effort, while needed, will only work if we have people and resources going after both nations and groups inside of nations who wish us harm. We must get them first because if we do not, they will certainly not wait to 'understand us'.
The 'best' ideas the left can muster is to play defense and hope (certainly not pray) that it is enough. The left will blame capitalism for so much of the world 'hating' us as well, and of course terrorists are the poor people who have no hope for anything else.
While we do indeed need to have a solid defense - one which I feel could be made stronger - we also need an offense as well, and it must be a convincing one. How many wars have ever been won by being on the defensive?
Did the Maginot line with the day for France? Yes, it did make the Germans go around it, but in the end all the defense structures did not do much at all except perhaps help keep construction companies going because of all the business. Even France's tanks were made for a defensive war with the Char weighing in at 68 tons, and capable of an overland speed of a mere 8 miles per hour. The idea? Make it heavy, big, and thick in order to withstand a pounding.
Even when faced with the idea that Germany would attack her, France played the game of defense to the extent of not wanting the British Expeditionary Forces to even fly patrols over Germany, and denied permitting them bomb Germany held positions until it was, obviously, too late.
Also, a quote by Patton says something very worth reading: "In landing operations, retreat is impossible, to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish… above all else remember that we as attackers have the initiative, we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows. We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest."
With a nation to protect retreat is also impossible, surrender is as he says it is, and the next part is worth a second look: When you attack you decide the place and time, the numbers to send and the targets and mode of attack. The only think the defenders can do is hope to spoil that attack. If you, the attacker, notice the situation is not to your advantage you do not attack, pull back and wait.
So we can either play defense and slowly watch our civilians die at the hands of motivated attackers while we do nothing but wring our hands and condemn such activity, or we can in fact explain to them and anyone else who might need to remember that we are not in favor of war, but we will not back down from it, either.
The mistake the left makes is saying that they do not like war -- as if this is at all an important statement. I doubt you'll find too many Americans like war at all, but what the difference is understanding that war - aggressive war - is the only way to take the pressure off the defense.
Now, with London having experienced what it has, we hear again from the same voices who refuse to understand anything about the situation, that we are so unsafe and the bombings are proof of this lack of security.
Do these people honestly think that terrorist cells were simply sleeping since Madrid, and before that 9/11? Who feels comfortable thinking that our safety as a nation should be tied to the ideas of the intellectual left like Ward Churchill, the 'professor' in Colorado, who said, " On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens along with some half-million dead Iraqi children came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable - in fact, widely predicted - result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival."
Of course, the Oil for Food program didn't help, and neither did a decade of Saddam doing next to nothing to help his own population WITH the money from the Oil for Food program, but Ward is tenured, thus untouchable. We all should be rather familiar with his most famous line: " More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."
Yes, such profound wisdom from the left is hard to duplicate. Sure, he's tried for a while now to backtrack over his exact words, but is anyone actually going to believe it? If so, I'd like to sell them a bridge.
No, the leftists do not really give a damn about it at all. They'd rather understand those who wish to kill us than to kill them first. To these relativist thinkers, 'us versus them' is an idea as out of touch as 'good versus evil', though I do not see them flocking to live in places like Syria, North Korea, or backwater China.
A defensive effort, while needed, will only work if we have people and resources going after both nations and groups inside of nations who wish us harm. We must get them first because if we do not, they will certainly not wait to 'understand us'.
posted by Edward W. Prather at 19:28
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