Time to dissemble another GOP talking head and the all to common distortion of facts. This one comes to us via
Diana Irey a congressional hopeful from PA. She is trying to unseat Jack Murtha and takes a few cheap shots on her website to make her point. But today I will be focusing on an article penned by the candidate on why we so desperately need Republican leadership to keep us safe from the dreaded Muslim bogymen.
UPDATE: Well it appears I have gone and done it again. The comments moderator "Moe" has officialy banned me from www.redstate.com
Behold, I grant you a boon, cyberotter. by Moe Lane
For it is All Hallow's Eve, and Those That Walk In Twilight must be - not adored, of course, but perhaps recognized would be a safe way of putting it.
Anyway, in accordance with old, old, old tradition... I give you a treat, o costumed one:
Blam.
Wasn't that nice of me? Now you can go back to your website and tell everybody how you were banned at RedState. I could almost imagine that you'd pen a screed about the irony of it all, except that anybody who uncritically links to Olbermann would be effectively dead to it anyway...
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
I guess he wasn't diggin what I had to say in this piece. Bonus points for the artisic fashion in which he does it though.
The world as we knew it ended 27 years ago next week, when hundreds of radical Muslim students overran and occupied the American embassy in Teheran. For 444 days, the world watched and waited, as a radical Islamic regime held hostage not just 52 diplomats in a fortified bunker, but, in fact, an entire nation thousands of miles away.
For the first time, we Americans - a proud people, with an altruistic history of sacrificing blood and treasure to free or defend millions of people around the globe from the depredations of dictators and tyrants - heard our county described savagely as the "Great Satan."
Interesting premise, but in fact untrue. The world as we knew it ended in 1947 when the US and western allies became engaged in what would become to be known as "The Cold War <http:>." The act of war was transformed into a battle of ideology and regime change brought about by, economic warfare and trade embargos, propaganda, espionage, and proxy wars. No longer were enemy forces pitted against one another on the battlefield. For the first time in American history were not defending freedom or the freedoms of others, we were in fact attacking a possible threat yet to be realized.
The seizure of the American embassy in Iran on November 4, 1979by Muslim extremist students was the first shot fired in what is now, clearly, a war with a radical Islam determined to destroy the West and reestablish the Muslim Caliphate along a crescent that stretches from Spain to the Middle East.
Making the assumption the goal of this act was to increase control across Europe and the Middle East is absurd and naive. The goal of this horrible act was to unite Iranian's against the westernization of their country by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi<http:>. The Shah's appointment of Prime Minister Mossadeghbecame a rallying point for Iranian's when the PM enacted the Oil Nationalization Act, removing western powers from overseeing Oil distribution from his country. Tired of embargo's and blockades from the west and the UN The Iranian Revolution ( The Islamic Revolution ) was the 1979 revolution that transformed Iran from a constitutional monarchy, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to a populist theocratic Islamic republic under the rule of Ayatollah (or Imam, as he is known in Iran) Ruhollah Khomeini.)
This war is unlike any our nation has ever faced - in fact, it is unlike any war ANY nation has ever faced - because it is not a war that pits one nation-state against another; it is a war that pits one entire civilization against another.
If this is unlike ANY war then why are we fighting it with conventional troops and tactics? I think Jack Murtha knows this is a loosing proposistion.
To make matters worse, we face this war not because of territorial ambitions, or imperial over-reach, or commercial or economic interests; we face this war because we choose to exist.
The "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" ruse. I won't get into it, but an excellent article on this talking point can be found here
For more than three decades, they waged war against America and her principal ally in the Middle East - Israel - and we chose not to see it for what it was. Rather than recognizing what was going on, we chose, like the ostrich, to bury our heads in the sand. And as a result, we buried American bodies in the desert.
The seizure of the American embassy in Teheran in 1979 was followed by the suicide truck bombing against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut on October 23, 1983, which cost us the lives of 241 young soldiers - the deadliest single-day death toll for the Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
That attack was carried out by the same Hezbollah terrorists who rain destruction on northern Israel. They were funded, trained, and equipped by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
(Actually it was the Islamic Republic of Iran)
And what did we do? Ronald Reagan chose to listen to the counsel of men who advised withdrawal - men like my opponent, Jack Murtha.
On 11 September 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, the architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, announced that "2,000 terrorists" had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of Israeli-allied Phalangist militia leader and Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, "encircling and sealing" the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. By mid-day on 15 September 1982, the refugee camps were entirely surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who installed checkpoints at strategic locations and crossroads around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening of that day, the camps were shelled. Around mid-day on Thursday 16 September 1982, a unit of approximately 150 Israeli-allied Phalangists entered the first camp. For the next 40 hours members of the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the encircled and sealed camps. The estimate of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) to 3,500.
And withdrawing from this region was a bad idea why? How could we have any legitimacy in this region after supporting a country (Israel) that could do something like this? We would be in the middle of a civil war)
Five weeks after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as our 42nd President, a Ryder rental van packed with 1300 pounds of explosives detonated in the underground parking garage of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Islamo-fascist terrorists linked to what later became known as "al Qaeda" had brought spectacular terrorism on a grand scale home to America for the first time.
Just a few months earlier, American soldiers had been dispatched to Somalia in a humanitarian mission to ensure the safe delivery of foodstuffs to end starvation that had already killed 300,000 Somalis. On October 3rd and 4th, 1993, in what became known as the Battle of Mogadishu - popularized by the book and movie "Black Hawk Down" - 19 Americans died at the hands of Somali militias, and Americans watched on CNN as the body of a dead American Marine was dragged through the streets.
What we did not know at the time - and only learned years later, thanks to the capture and interrogation of al Qaeda operatives - was that the assault on the American forces was conducted by forces trained, equipped, and funded by the then-virtually-unknown al Qaeda.
And what did we do at the time? Bill Clinton chose to listen to the counsel of men who advised withdrawal - men like my opponent, Jack Murtha.
I guess this should teach us to stay out of the Nation Building business. I wonder which group Diana would have supported if she had been in Congress. Maybe the United Somali Congress (USC), or perhaps the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), then there was the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), and let's not forget Somali Democratic Movement (SDM). And finaly the Somali National Movement (SNM), which had already seceded from the northwest portion of Somalia in June 1993. The SNM renamed it the Somaliland Republic, with its leader Abdel-Rahman Ahmed Ali as president.
After that, the attacks against Americans overseas began coming faster and faster:
The June 1996 truck bomb attack on a U.S. Air Force barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. 19 American servicemen died.
The August 7, 1998 coordinated attacks against the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. 257 people died, and another 4,000 were injured.
The October 12, 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer in the Gulf of Aden. 17 Americans did in al Qaeda attack.
And then, less than a year later, the war came back home to America on 9/11.
Islamo-fascist terrorists are determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can, and destroy our nation - not because of anything we've done, but simply because of who we are and what we believe.
And how do you think a person comes to view "who we are and what we believe," if not by our actions? Make no mistake, we have been complicit in many horrible acts in which the Nation of Islam has had front row seats. This line of thinking assumes Islamo-fascits terrorists are born that way. They do not require life experience to develop a hatred of America. They are just born evil terrorists.
This is the great challenge facing America in the early years of the 21st century, and we need leaders who understand this threat and are committed not just to defending against it, but to defeating it.
Sounds like more Nation Building to me and we all know how well that tends to work out for us.
When Osama bin Laden - the world's most dangerous Islam-fascist terrorist - issued his famous call to arms in August 1996, he "praised the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut ... and especially the 1993 firefight in Somalia after which the United States `left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you,'" according to the 9/11 Commission report.
We should probably kill him for that. I wish we could find him. I wonder if he moved to Iraq and we just don't know his address yet.
The American embassy in Teheran. Beirut. Word Trade Center One. Mogadishu. The Khobar Towers. American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The U.S.S. Cole.
Each time, our response was muted. Each time, terrorists learned a simple lesson: they could kill Americans with impunity.
I wouldn't say impunity, but rather authority. It's still a common view even in our country, "if you take a life from me then you owe us yours." It's just that our math is a little fuzzy. 3,700 + plus dead from terrorist activity and our response was to plunge two countries into civil war and chaos causing the loss of life to exceed 500,000.
This war will not be over until one side or the other is vanquished. And I, for one, do not want to have to explain to my children why America lacked the will to defend itself.
When a bully confronts you in the schoolyard, you have two choices - you can run and hide, or you can stand your ground and fight back. If you run and hide, he will come after you. Again and again and again. But if you stand your ground and fight back, you can beat him.
Ok here is my metaphor. If a neighbor comes into your yard and kills your dog, you do NOT have the right to go into his house and kill his entire family.
For too long, America has acted like a frightened child.
Because that is the way our government wants to keep us.
The stakes in this conflict are too large for us to continue to act that way.
For the sake of our children, and our children's children, we must defeat this enemy NOW.
The war in Iraq is difficult. I have spent time visiting with wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. I have seen their courage, their resolve, and their commitment. I am very humbled by their sacrifice.
Withdrawing from Iraq now, before the mission is complete, would be just one more time that America raises the white flag of surrender. It would ensure that the sacrifices made by our fighting men and women - and their families - would be in vain. It would merely send the message to the terrorists one more time that America does not have the will to prevail - and it would, therefore, embolden the terrorists and lead to even further attacks. It would send a message to other governments as well, that America is an undependable ally - and that it is safer to cut a deal with the terrorists than to count on us.
The Islamo-fascist terrorists who threaten us may be the first to engage in a clash of civilizations, but they are not the first to threaten America. Their fate will be the same as the fate of others before them who threatened us.
America, as the sage said, will be the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
God bless our troops.
To leave is the only option that makes any sense. We should have never been there in the first place. Throughout time we have seen over and over again that to Nation Build is an expensive proposition at best. We as a Nation have demonstrated consistently we do not have the will to pay such cost for it serves to benefit us so little. We are worried about our children's futures. We are mindful when it comes to imposing our will upon other nations, that we must not become the British invaders we worked so hard to dispel from our own country. There will be a price for those who threaten our lives and our families, but must we the American people pay so much of that cost.
Jack Murtha wants to bring our treasure home.
Diana wants to burry more of it in the desert.