manu1959
Left Coast Isolationist
---------------------------------
This piece (most of which I agree with)was sent along by a friend and is attributed to General Richard Hawley(USAF Ret.) It was not written by him, but is actually a column by humorist Larry Miller which appeared in The Daily Standard on 14 January 2002; the version circulating on the Internet omits the openingand closing paragraphs - I will include them in this version:
---------------------------------
People have been making New Year's resolutions for a long time.Usually they're personal and last no longer than a smoke ring or one ofTom Daschle's smiles. You know the drill: "I'm going to cut down on mydrinking, lose a few pounds, and read more books."
Of course, byJanuary 3rd, you get drunk, order a pizza, and buy a satellite dish.
This year, though, my resolutions won't be personal, and they won'tlook forward. They'll look back. Four months back. As you know, sinceSeptember 11, our leaders and soldiers have done a fine job, frequentlya brilliant job. (I mean, please, how about that Rumsfeld? If he were awoman, I'd#8212;Wait. Come to think of it, I'd still do nothing.) I don'teven care that so many of our fellow Americans have been contrary andmealy-mouthed. What makes me want to scream like an actress and throwthings is this: Since the attack, I have seen, heard, and read thoughtsof such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed.
You've heardthem too. Here they are:
(1) "We'renot good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully: We're good, they'reevil, nothing is relative. Say it with
me now and free yourselves. You see,folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean, we're perfect. Okay? The onlyperfect being is the bearded guy on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Theplain fact is that our country has, with all our mistakes and blunders,always been and always will be the greatest beacon of freedom, charity,opportunity, and affection in history. If you need proof, open all theborders on Earth and see what happens.
(2) "Violence only leads tomore violence."
This one is so stupid you usuallyhave to be the president of an Ivy League
university to say it. Here's thetruth, which you know in your heads and hearts
already: Ineffective, unfocusedviolence leads to more violence. Limp,
panicky, half measures lead to moreviolence.
However, complete, fully thought through, professional, wellexecuted violence never leads to more violence because, you see,afterwards, the other guys are all dead. That's right, dead. Not "ontrial,"
not "reeducated," not "nurtured back into the bosom of love."Dead.
(3) "The CIA and the rest ofour intelligence community have failed us."
For 25 years we have chained ourspies like dogs to a stake in the ground,
and now that the house has beenrobbed, we yell at them for not protecting us.
Starting in the late seventies, underCarter appointee Stansfield Turner, the
giant brains who get these giantideas decided that the best way to gather
international intelligence was to usespy satellites.
"After all, [they reasoned),
you can see a license plate from 200miles away."
This is very helpful if
you've been attacked by a licenseplate.
Unfortunately, we were attacked by
humans. Finding humans is notpossible with satellites. You have to use other
humans. When we bought all oursatellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the really stupid part.It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans into the
worst places of the world. You can'tjust have a guy who looks like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hi ya,boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that bin Laden fella." Well, youcan, but all you'd be doing is giving the bad guys a story they'll betelling for years."
(4) "These people are poorand helpless, and that's why they're angry at us."
Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozenhead collection was just a desperate cry
for help. The terrorists and theirbackers are richer than Elton John and,
ironically, a good deal lessannoying. The poor helpless people, you see, are the villagers theytortured and murdered to stay in power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evilscumbags who steered those planes into the killing grounds is the sonof a Cairo surgeon.
But you knew this, too. In the sixties andseventies, all the pinheads marching against the war wereupper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they could thinkof to get out of their final papers and spend more time drinking. It'sthe same today."
(5) "Any profiling is racialprofiling."
Who's killing us here, theNorwegians? Just days after the attack, the New
York Times had an article sayingdozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden family livingin America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff, never to returnto studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm crushed. Pleasecome back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World" for a minute andthink practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor in the backof a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt.Rushmore and turn,grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn'toffend them."
*SO HERE'S what I resolve forthe New Year:
Never to forget our murdered brothersand sisters.
Never to let the
relativists get away with theirimmoral thinking.
After all, no matter what your
daughter's political scienceprofessor says, we didn't start this.
Have you seen that bumper stickerthat says, "No More Hiroshima's?" I wish I had one that says, "No MorePearl Harbors."
I resolve to be more vigilant and watchful. A good warning signthat these mutts were nuts was when they started dressing their womenin heavy-duty, baby-blue bubblewrap. Any man who doesn't want to glanceat a woman is, by definition, already very easy to talk into killinghimself. Then again, to be fair, we haven't seen their women.
To scream, "Keep going!" when everyone else says, "Stop."
I'll just cut down on my drinking next year. Hell, I really wasn'tplanning to, anyway.
This piece (most of which I agree with)was sent along by a friend and is attributed to General Richard Hawley(USAF Ret.) It was not written by him, but is actually a column by humorist Larry Miller which appeared in The Daily Standard on 14 January 2002; the version circulating on the Internet omits the openingand closing paragraphs - I will include them in this version:
---------------------------------
People have been making New Year's resolutions for a long time.Usually they're personal and last no longer than a smoke ring or one ofTom Daschle's smiles. You know the drill: "I'm going to cut down on mydrinking, lose a few pounds, and read more books."
Of course, byJanuary 3rd, you get drunk, order a pizza, and buy a satellite dish.
This year, though, my resolutions won't be personal, and they won'tlook forward. They'll look back. Four months back. As you know, sinceSeptember 11, our leaders and soldiers have done a fine job, frequentlya brilliant job. (I mean, please, how about that Rumsfeld? If he were awoman, I'd#8212;Wait. Come to think of it, I'd still do nothing.) I don'teven care that so many of our fellow Americans have been contrary andmealy-mouthed. What makes me want to scream like an actress and throwthings is this: Since the attack, I have seen, heard, and read thoughtsof such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed.
You've heardthem too. Here they are:
(1) "We'renot good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully: We're good, they'reevil, nothing is relative. Say it with
me now and free yourselves. You see,folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean, we're perfect. Okay? The onlyperfect being is the bearded guy on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Theplain fact is that our country has, with all our mistakes and blunders,always been and always will be the greatest beacon of freedom, charity,opportunity, and affection in history. If you need proof, open all theborders on Earth and see what happens.
(2) "Violence only leads tomore violence."
This one is so stupid you usuallyhave to be the president of an Ivy League
university to say it. Here's thetruth, which you know in your heads and hearts
already: Ineffective, unfocusedviolence leads to more violence. Limp,
panicky, half measures lead to moreviolence.
However, complete, fully thought through, professional, wellexecuted violence never leads to more violence because, you see,afterwards, the other guys are all dead. That's right, dead. Not "ontrial,"
not "reeducated," not "nurtured back into the bosom of love."Dead.
(3) "The CIA and the rest ofour intelligence community have failed us."
For 25 years we have chained ourspies like dogs to a stake in the ground,
and now that the house has beenrobbed, we yell at them for not protecting us.
Starting in the late seventies, underCarter appointee Stansfield Turner, the
giant brains who get these giantideas decided that the best way to gather
international intelligence was to usespy satellites.
"After all, [they reasoned),
you can see a license plate from 200miles away."
This is very helpful if
you've been attacked by a licenseplate.
Unfortunately, we were attacked by
humans. Finding humans is notpossible with satellites. You have to use other
humans. When we bought all oursatellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the really stupid part.It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans into the
worst places of the world. You can'tjust have a guy who looks like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hi ya,boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that bin Laden fella." Well, youcan, but all you'd be doing is giving the bad guys a story they'll betelling for years."
(4) "These people are poorand helpless, and that's why they're angry at us."
Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozenhead collection was just a desperate cry
for help. The terrorists and theirbackers are richer than Elton John and,
ironically, a good deal lessannoying. The poor helpless people, you see, are the villagers theytortured and murdered to stay in power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evilscumbags who steered those planes into the killing grounds is the sonof a Cairo surgeon.
But you knew this, too. In the sixties andseventies, all the pinheads marching against the war wereupper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they could thinkof to get out of their final papers and spend more time drinking. It'sthe same today."
(5) "Any profiling is racialprofiling."
Who's killing us here, theNorwegians? Just days after the attack, the New
York Times had an article sayingdozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden family livingin America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff, never to returnto studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm crushed. Pleasecome back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World" for a minute andthink practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor in the backof a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt.Rushmore and turn,grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn'toffend them."
*SO HERE'S what I resolve forthe New Year:
Never to forget our murdered brothersand sisters.
Never to let the
relativists get away with theirimmoral thinking.
After all, no matter what your
daughter's political scienceprofessor says, we didn't start this.
Have you seen that bumper stickerthat says, "No More Hiroshima's?" I wish I had one that says, "No MorePearl Harbors."
I resolve to be more vigilant and watchful. A good warning signthat these mutts were nuts was when they started dressing their womenin heavy-duty, baby-blue bubblewrap. Any man who doesn't want to glanceat a woman is, by definition, already very easy to talk into killinghimself. Then again, to be fair, we haven't seen their women.
To scream, "Keep going!" when everyone else says, "Stop."
I'll just cut down on my drinking next year. Hell, I really wasn'tplanning to, anyway.
