MILNET Opinion -

MILNET Opinion
The Circus Rolls On, 01/27/2007

This weekend, the I wrote this in the Chief Editor's Blog:

"Three days of bloodshed pretty well demonstrates how the two factions cannot get along even for a few weeks. At issue, or so it appears in the Hamas propaganda is the arms and funding received by Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas. Called "dirty American arms and funds", Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, who is also the PNA's Prime Minister is using this support for Abbas as a rallying point for his Hamas brethren who are happy to kill more Fatah supporters as well as civilians who just happen to get in the way. What are doing with your weekend? Where else in the world would you see this kind of weekend entertainment?"

An earlier blog entry looks at a Congressional hearing where one of our brightest Generals is asked if Congressional hearings are fueling the violence. When the General replies in the affirmative with a grim visage, the committee chairmen chastises the General for being politically incorrect. Understand that the politically correct answer would require the General to lie, and he refused to do so. The fact of the matter is that our Congress, for nearly a decade, has fueled the propaganda machine in the Middle East, and is at least partially to blame for the violence in the Middle East. The newly elected version of the Congress promises to "improve" on that record considerably, if the first 100 days are any indication.

The Violence

Essentially, all the violence in the Palestine territory, demonstrates the inability of the Palestinians to control their factions and validates Israel's reluctance to negotiate with the PNA. So today we have the Palestinians, poised at the brink of negotiating for their own land, arguably the most important time of their lives, and they can't muster the discipline to work together for more than a few weeks at a time.

And it isn't just that they won't sit at a table together, they slaughter each other, creating the same old killing-reprisal cycle of violence that we have seen between them and the Israelis. And that, of course, is the real problem in the Middle East. It creates the Islamic radical stereotype -- they'd rather kill than talk.

As long as that stereotype is consistently reinforced, the Middle East will remain devoid of serious investment, will remain a security nightmare and only overwhelming force will ever bring some semblance of civilization.

And of course, our politicians easily agree this is all our fault, us crazy Americans with hopes of bringing democracy to the cradle of civilization. Even with such horrible odds, and seemingly insurmountable conditions for peace in the Middle East, we continue to try while taking the abuse of everyone in the world while we try.

The Iraqi violence is all our fault, of course. If we had only left Saddam in power! Subscribers to that theory are morally bankrupt and should be 'rid out of town on a rail'. This is the "everything was fine before we attacked Iraq..." crowd and they haven't a clue as to the reality of the Islamic radicals and especially to the bigger war we are fighting. Indeed there is fresh evidence daily that not only do they wish there wasn't a war, they deny it even exists. Hillary Clinton today said that she regrets enabling the U.S. to go to war. That, you see, is the nonsense that creates the bigger problem.

If you make the war invalid, if you denigrate the rationale for the war in the first place, you somehow make it all right to back away. And that is the purpose right now. To back away...not just from the war in Iraq, but to stop fighting the Islamic Extremism that threatens our world. And people wonder why America is receiving such bad press. We stand all so noble and then when it gets tough, we hide our heads in the sand and retreat behind the false sense of security the oceans promise. On 9/11 we found out that this isolation is simply a facade. The world is at war with Islamic Jihadism and running away and hiding actually fuels the fire, and worse, makes our future worse than we could ever imagine today. The war in Iraq is just a focal point at present, the war IS a bigger war, and to use this excuse to step aside from our national security responsibility is folly.

A Tough Decision, A Tough Fight

That real reason we receive such scorn is not because we are evil or "imperialistic". It is because we dare to try to let other nations, even the peoples of non-existent or emerging nations strive for freedom and democracy. This is not a noble economic open market experiment, it is a human right. And those who oppose our efforts shrug that off and work to keep those humans aspiring to those rights from ever attaining it.

Iran and Syria, for instance, believe they only stand to gain from the chaos their influence creates and relish in the thought of more Americans killed. Al-Qaeda's leaders chortle at more Western deaths, for all that does is serve their ultimate cause. And when Arabs are killed in magnitudes greater than those in the West, they celebrate even more. Why? Because this is not about Americans or Arabs.

It is about power to rule the weaker people. It is about radical ideals that say if someone does not believe exactly like you do, you are within your rights to kill them. It is the Arab tribalism that relished in the Crusades. Moreover, since the believe they will receive a reward in heaven for killing their own people and especially us, they go right on killing. It is not indiscriminate killing -- there is a very ugly purpose in mind. A cynical person might say, "Fine, let the stupid Arabs kill themselves." That cruel solution has been stated by red necks for some time now as the violence has turned toward Arab on Arab in Iraq, Lebanon, and in the Palestinian territories.

Even if you could subscribe to that cruel notion, there is the fact that when the Islamic nutcases get done slaughtering those who won't get in line with them, they will own the oil, and the west will pay the money to get the oil. This will fund the nutcases' cause and eventually, and without too much time elapsed, be right back coming at us. They will use the money we give them for their oil to destroy us so they can own the world.

Our Congress is Our Worst Enemy

So while our Congress bickers about less than a 1% increase in troops for Iraq, troops who will try one last time to stabilize Iraq, the President and indeed our nation faces an enemy buoyed by Congressional bickering, firing a hope in the Middle East that soon "the Americans will tire of their bloodshed. They are weak and pitiful." This is the message we are sending the rest of the world and especially to those psychopaths we use it in Arab speaking broadcasts day in and day out throughout the Middle East.

And that message is costing American lives. And more Arab lives as well. To embolden this enemy means to inspire. And to inspire a violent animal is to provoke more violence. And that is what our U.S. Congress is doing. They arrogantly believe that public castration of our leader and with support from the Western media, that they are doing good work. What they are doing is helping to fuel the radical onslaught.

If this issue was so important, and the strategy and tactics used to combat it were so critical to our success, then why doesn't Congress hold every hearing on the subject in closed session. If ever there was a time to consult privately and quietly, now is the time. Yet, we have CSPAN there to show our pontificating Congress slapping around perhaps one of our best Generals as he states the reality.

Our Congress is our own worst enemy in the U.S. and the media gleefully supports the circus. But this circus of clowns doesn't simply climb in a tiny car and honk and toot their way out of the ring. They are just getting started folks, and you elected them. You put these idiots into place thinking this somehow will end the war.

But this will not end the war. It will simply bring it sooner to Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Orlando, Seattle, L.A., Houston....