Posted by
Old Bill on Monday, September 08, 2008 7:59:57 PM
As those of you who have read 'The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' know, when someone enters the Total Perspective Vortex, they instantly comprehend the nature and relationship of every part of Existence to every other part of Existence. Of course, they still retain their own Free Will, and this includes the free will to view things from their own personal point of view. Thus, when Ford Prefect--the elected President of the Inter-Galactic Federation--a powerless empty suit selected by the truly powerful Hidden Ruling Elite of the Universe to serve as their mouthpiece and front man--enters the Vortex, he concludes, based on his own interpretation of the Total Universe of Knowledge revealed to him, that he is, in fact, the Most Important Creature in the Universe. In other words, Knowledge can always be trumped by Stupidity and Egomania.
I ask you to bear this in mind as you read this and other columns by all the other 'experts' whether in the Blogosphere, or in the worlds of so-called 'journalism', 'academia', 'government' or 'business'. As a matter of fact, you can throw in the world of anointed clergy, whenever they venture out of their own realm of expertise--the theology of their own church--and offer pronouncements on, well, anything else at all. Of course, when they comment on the theology of their own church, their announcements generally are authoritative, at least when they all agree. Sorry Nancy.
Having offerred this caveat, I now proceed to remove my quotidian garments, don my Encounter Suit, and risk my sanity by stepping through the Temporal Portal into the Total Perspective Vortex where I will inspect the significance of the American Election of 2008---STAND BY!----
Well, it's done. Just let me catch my breath....OK, here it is: if you're a typical American citizen, or even a typical American legal permanent resident, or even if you're just here on a legal visa as a student or tourist or businessman or whatever, your primary concern is to see that the government remain in the hands of people who will continue to ensure your physical survival and freedom for the next 4-8 years; second to that, you have to ensure that government remains in the hands of people who will ensure the continued expansion of the American economy at the fastest rate of any developed industrial nation on Planet Earth, as it has done for the past 7 1/2 years (growth of 19% GDP compared with less than half that for European Union or Japan).
Got that? You should be concerned to preserve your safety (not peace, note---total peace is found only in the grave), freedom, and prosperity--for Americans, that means a prosperity and freedom unequalled anywhere else on Earth, at any time in history, and very seldom exceeded on any planet in the Universe, ever.
Now, who has preserved this safety and freedom and created this prosperity and economic growth? And who proposes to improve on these achievements, and how? Simply, our freedom and safety have been preserved by the government in office since January 2001, and especially by our armed forces--all of them: military, police, and secret agencies.
Admittedly that government made some blunders in the conduct of the war against our enemies, allowing Osama Bin Laden to escape capture in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan because they tried to fight the war on the cheap, and left the gritty ground fighting to allies who were not as motivated, to put it politely, to catch Osama as American troops would have been. Mistake #1. Subsequently, our government made a mistake in keeping hands-off in Iraq when rioters and looters ravaged the Iraqi people and humiliated our forces by seeming to defy them with impunity. Mistake #2. Mistake #3 was allowing the 'insurrection' of Al Quaeda and Baathi die-hards to get rolling and nearly take over most of the Iraqi population by 2004, rather than sending in a huge 'surge' of American troops in 2004, rather than wait until 2007 to do so.
It will be said that the surge only succeeded because the Sunni tribal Sheiks--the real political leaders of most of the Sunni population from which the insurgents recruited most of their fighters and support--decided, in 2007, to switch sides and cooperate with the democratically-elected Iraq government against the insurgents, and this is true. But it begs the question: why did they change sides?
The answer is simply, because we Americans finally convinced them that 1) we were really going to give them their country back, democratic, independent, sovereign, and with all its oil (the insurgents had always claimed this was a lie meant to conceal American schemes to take over the country and its oil) and 2) WE WERE GOING TO WIN, AT WHATEVER COST IN BLOOD IT TOOK TO WIN.
Remember, in the days of the 'Baker Report' and the full-scale attempt of the Democrat Party to engineer American retreat and defeat, this was not clear to anyone, even Americans. Thank God (you should pardon the expression--it's only a figure of speech, not meant to be taken literally) President George Bush Jr. had the guts to fight not only our enemies abroad, but also the Democrat and Appeasement Parties here at home.
To give the government to these appeasers and cut-and-run Democrats now will undo all the achievements of the past 5 years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and will not only waste the blood of every American who has fought, bled, and died in this war, but even more importantly will surrender these two countries once again to our enemies, and condemn thousands, perhaps millions of Americans to death and crippling wounds in the future, both near and far; for this war is not over, not by a long shot--this war which Harry Reid said is '..not a war, but only a bumper sticker!'
Iran is building atomic bombs, and their leaders have virtually flaunted their intention to use them against 'the little Satan' (Israel) and 'the Great Satan' (US); Al Quaeda and other Terrorist Groups still seek to acquire them from any source they can--Russia, China, Communist North Korea, or the possessor of over 200 'Islamic Atom Bombs'--Pakistan.
And what strategy has the Democratic Party offerred to prevent a nuclear attack on the United States by these lunatic warmongers? Obama has proposed a face-to-face, heart-to-heart chat with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the Hitler of the Ayatollahs, to ask him to please not build any atomic bombs--and has flippantly proposed bombing and invading Pakistan, a country whose military and government leaders are at least trying to suppress the anti-Western, pro-Taliban elements in their own population, albeit without much visible success.
It may, indeed, be necessary someday--perhaps much sooner than we wish or expect--to invade Pakistan, and establish a peace-loving, genuinely democratic government there. In any case, one which does not make war against the United States and our allies, or assist those who do. It may be necessary to remove those 200+ atomic bombs from Pakistan someday. The circumstances which would make such a war necessary for the sake of Nuclear Peace are not in our control, or even in the complete control of the government in Islamabad. But if it becomes necessary, do we want to entrust the command of our armed forces, and the safety of our nation and our children, to Barack Husein Obama, the Community Organizer from Chicago, or to John McCain? (More to follow)