Iraq. Let me say up front that I have no problems with the Muslim religion. I have problems with Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists, a small, but dangerous faction within the Muslim community.
This whole thing about WMDs. It has been confusing as to whether they were there or not… it appears now that they were in fact there. If it had been proven, however, that they had not been, I’m not sure I would really fault the Bush Administration for that whole heartedly. They had a cold war mentality and our intelligence sources over there have always been woefully inadequate at best. If you look over to the Fall of the Shah of Iran in early 1979, you will find that we, the American Government and the intelligence community, were somewhat surprised by it. How good is your intelligence really when a governing power can be toppled and you’re surprised? Not so good. Additionally, I believe the Clinton administration didn’t help the cause on many fronts, but I won’t go there since I can rant about Clinton, actually rage about that low life, immoral, bastard, for pages.
I do remember being terrified of Iraq, over a year ago. The thought they could have a nuclear arsenal or some way to propel large quantities of poison into our population terrified me. I remember growing up being afraid of the USSR. I grew up in a military family so for me, it was very real. This feeling of fear that dwelled deep inside me with regard to Iraq was worse than my being afraid of the Ruskies as a child. Now I have children. I have a family and nothing can get you moving like a threat to your family. After 9/11, that is all I thought about, how to protect my family. I did extensive research on what to expect during a nuclear holocaust. I spoke to people who lived and fought in WWII, trying to get a feeling of what to expect should the worst happen to us. Rationing, fear, joblessness. I just wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to be mentally prepared.
Now we are in Iraq, we have suspected that Hussein may not have been the physical threat to us we had expected, a backwards thank you to the criminally insane over in N. Korea, who convinced him they would help him get nuclear weapons, took his money, and never delivered. But whether he was fully capable of wiping us off the face of this planet or not, is irrelevant, because what I have realized now is far worse in my eyes. He was not the one to worry about. He was just some demented twisted psychotic whack job who ended up in a position of power in a country so messed up I find it mind boggling, in a region of the world that can be very dark and extraordinarily sinister, in an area over run by religious fanatics, Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists willing to stop at nothing to take over… and quite honestly, I find THEM to be more frightening. You can over throw a ruler, you can assassinate him, build distrust amongst his minions, fund a major coup, but religious fanatics like we are fighting now… that is vastly different and far more serious.
I read an article that is a partial transcription of a speech given by the former Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. Mr. Lehman is currently a member of the Kean Commission, the group given the responsibility of investigating the 9/11 terrorist attack. He was addressing the U.S. Naval Institute 130th Annual Meeting and Annapolis Naval History Symposium on 31 March. He said some things that I love to quote now, one of them being “Our enemy is not terrorism. Our enemy is violent, Islamic fundamentalism” to which I add, terrorism is but a tool they use. Mr. Lehman brings out many good points. He speaks of how the Bush Administration, after 9/11, immediately looked for the ‘state’ that was responsible for this act… but what they found is that it was not a ‘state’ act, but the act of those engaged in a religions war, a war we seemed oblivious was being waged against us. For a good overview of today’s warfare of an enemy without state, link over to HERE.
Be afraid, my friends, be very afraid.
I will never try to act as if what happened under Hitler was not one of the greatest atrocities of the modern world, but what we were working with then was one evil demented man who, through some weird charisma combined with instilling fear in those around him and some sort of luck on his part (bad luck for the rest of the world), was able to propel himself to the top of a major government and was able to gather followers of enormous proportions. Once he was eliminated, which took mammoth exertion on the part of many countries UNITED in assuring he would not succeed in taking over the world, his cause crumbled, his minions destroyed, his people, and the people of the world, freed of his tyranny.
What we have here and now may be worse. There is not just one leader. The best way I can think of it is as a template. If you were to take an Atlas of the world and lay it out flat on your kitchen table, and then take a template of everywhere Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists exist, and lay it on top of the world, you would see what we are dealing with. We are dealing with a Beast of magnanimous proportions with tentacles so long and far reaching, we cannot see where they end. This Beast has grown from within. This Beast is in every country, in small sects. They are here in the USA. They are in Africa. They are in Europe. They are everywhere. And their sects may be smallish in size in some areas, but mark my words, they are no less dangerous. They communicate. The modern world has given them e-mail, the internet, telephones, and cell phones. They are united in their cause and they will stop at nothing to win, because death for their cause is an honorable way to die.
The French may turn out to be an excellent example, yet again. Time will tell. They do not see the danger they are in. They do not smell it. They do not acknowledge it. Therefore, they do not fear it. Slowly their country has been infiltrated with the Islamic Fundamentalist Extremist community and this will be far worse than before. They will not be able to SEE the tanks rolling across their borders. They will not be able to SEE and readily identify the enemy soldiers, rifles in hand, cutting down their citizens and ransacking their towns. The enemy is fully entrenching themselves in their society, breeding, and growing, living amongst them, working along side them. They are unidentifiable because they are becoming French. I don’t know how long it will take, but eventually, it will happen. There will be an uprising. Terrorist attacks as the Beast from within realizes it is time to convert one and all to the side of the righteous and eliminate the infidels. And who are they going to turn to? Please let us have the strength to tell them to take off. Please let us have the strength to say, “We told you so. Now suffer.”
We are not over in the Middle East fighting against Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. We are fighting something far worse with the potential to have far reaching incomprehensible horrible ramifications. And the worst part… we are not united. We are bickering. Our media doesn’t see it. Our citizens do not want to believe it. We may have gone over there thinking we were looking for WMDs, but we have come to realize that what we are fighting is much graver. And fight we must. They will not stop and we must not either. We did NOT start this. They have been using terrorism as a tool for years. We must, however, stop it. And we must unite. It is time for the people across this great land and across this world to truly understand what we are fighting. It is time to quit tip toeing around it, like we are bigots in saying we will not stand for Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists, and put it out there for what it is. We are fighting a religious war. And it is not Muslim vs. Christian. Or Muslim vs. Jews. This is Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists vs. the collective whole of everyone who is NOT an Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists, including Muslims who are NOT Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists. Good Lord. Look at the hundreds of thousands of Muslims they have killed.
Have I painted a clear enough picture here? Let’s step back to pre-Algebra and Venn diagrams. Remember those? They were the circles where we would learn about mutually exclusivity… color in the parts where the circles overlap, where they are NOT mutually exclusive. In our modern day Venn diagram we have one circle that IS Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists. In the other circle you have everyone who is NOT (that includes Muslims who do not believe as they do). You will note that in the minds of the Extremists, the two circles cannot touch. They are mutually exclusive. There is no cohabitating. It is us or them.
My vote is for us. Wake Up America. We are at War. There is going to be another Terrorist Attack. It is not if, but when. And it won’t be our fault, although our media will play into their hands and make it sound as if we are responsible for other’s actions. Support our Troops. They are Securing our Future.
