Monday, August 27, 2007
Not One of Us
One of the reasons I get pissed when people start defending our policies reguarding the Gitmo detention camps. This is Israel. You know, the place where suicide bombers used to go off like clock work. The place where it's more realistic that they would have a "the bomb goes off in 24-hours" hypothetical situation in real life. They don't do the shit we're doing. Because what we're doing is not necessary and is counter productive toward our goals of security. We need to stop giving the enemy points. And the finger for giving the enemy points, credibility, and a fruitful enlistment and training opportunities points directly at the Oval Office (and a second finger at the US Naval Observatory). We knew these lesson back in the 80s, back when we successfully fought terrorists to the point where the average citizen no longer thought about them. Why do we have to re-invent the wheel?
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4 comments:
One of my political theories has always been that we must create future enemies so that future politicians have something to distract us with when needed. Almost every enemy we have fought has been an ally at one point in time and, lately, they have been allies we put in power. Not all of them have proven to be the big bad we wanted (Noriega, Qaddafi), but other have (Iran, Iraq). Think about how that North Korea one is paying off now. We could have ended the war numerous times, but instead have kept it at a cease fire. Why? Well, they came in pretty handy in 2004, didn't they? Nothing much about them now, but Kim is still in power, they still want nukes, and are still a threat. We just don't need them as an enemy right now so off to the back burner they go.
I'm ranting again, aren't I? I must remember to comment on other people's blogs and rant on my own. Sorry.
kanrei, no worries. I say about the same thing on this tread at Making Light. Yeah, always gotta have a boogie man. Unfortunately it never seems to be the person we thought it would be.
What we need is some kind of independent "Office of Godwin's Law" (the OGL) or something. So that when presidents starting making Hitler comparisons to whichever big bad it is at the moment, OGL can call a common sense time out, we can all take a breath, stop, back up, have a good chuckle, and then move on intelligently.
Jim, it's just this President's case of Great War envy. Everytime he makes the comparison with this war being like WWII and the defeat of facism, I picture his father cringing.
And just to reiterate my philosophy about this, al Qaeda is a band of thugs, and they deserve to be treated that way. Kill them where you find them. If the RoE requires taking prisoners, then bring them before a criminal court as quickly as possible and put them in jail (for a really, really long time). Showing that you're treating them as common criminals defuses their political ideology and scuttles their recruitment possibilities.
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