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At long last, the voice of reason!
10.18.02, 06:10:22
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Post #1 (permalink) |
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This was posted at another board I go to, and I think it pretty much says it all (And ought to dispel the myth that I'm a hopeless dove):
Speech from the former ACC commander (now retired and not restricted to being politically correct), Gen. Hawley:
Quote:
Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard and read thoughts of such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them too. Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, 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 only perfect being is the bearded guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The plain 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 the borders on Earth and see what happens. In about half a day, the entire world would be a ghost town, and the United States would look like one giant line to see "The Producers."
2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid you usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it.
Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already: Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp, panicky, half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all dead.
That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "reeducated," not "nurtured
back into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E-...Well, you get the idea.
3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community has failed us."
For 25 years we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not protecting us.
Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee Stansfield
Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy satellites. "After all," they reasoned, "you can see a license plate from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a license plate.
Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding humans is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we bought all our satellites, 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't just have a guy who looks like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffeeshop in Kabul and say, "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that Bin Laden fella." Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.
4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're angry at us."
Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a
desperate cry for help.
The terrorists and their backers are richer than Elton John and,
ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor helpless people are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay in power.
Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes into the killing grounds (I'm sorry, one of the "alleged hijackers," according to CNN -- they stopped using the word "terrorist," you know), is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew this, too.
In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads marching against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they could think of to get out of their final papers and spend more time drinking. At least, it was my excuse. It's the same today. Take the Anti-Global-Warming (or is it World Trade? Oh-who-knows-what-the-hell-they-want demonstrators) They all charged their black outfits and plane tickets on dad's credit card before driving to the airport in their SUV's.
5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here, the Norwegians?
Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff, never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm crushed. I think we're all crushed. Please come back. With a cherry on top?
Why don't they just change their names anyway? That's happened in the past. Think about it. How many Adolfs do you run into these days?
Shortly after that, I remember watching TV with my jaw on the floor as a government official actually said, "That little old grandmother from Sioux City could be carrying something." Think about this: No she couldn't. It could never be the grandmother from Sioux City. Is it even possible? What are the odds? Winning a hundred Power Ball lotteries in a row? A thousand? A million?
And now a Secret Service guy has been tossed off a plane and we're all supposed to cry about it because he's an Arab? Didn't it have the tiniest bit to do with the fact that he filled out his forms incorrectly-three times? And then left an Arab history book on his seat as he strolled off the plane? And came back? Armed?
Let's please all stop singing "We Are the World" for a minute and
think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor in the back of 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't offend them."
So here's what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our
murdered brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with the immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political science professor says, we didn't start this. Have you seen that bumper sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas?" I wish I had one that says, "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
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Now, there's one important point that needs to be made, and was made by a Japanese resident of the board I took this from: Pearl Harbor was a military operation, whereas Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian targets. Yes, I know, nothing save humanitarian concern prevented the Americans from dropping Fat Man and Little Boy on Tokyo, but the fact remains that a city is not a military target, it is a civilian one.
(And no, I'm not saying Canadians behaved any better towards the Japanese in WWII than America did; I grew up in Alberta, which is right where the Japanese internment camps were. I've heard the stories) |
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Quote:
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If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what happens. In about half a day, the entire world would be a ghost town, and the United States would look like one giant line to see "The Producers."
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That quote just stinks of arrogance if you ask me... Infact, the only impression I get from the guy who wrote this speech is that he's an arrogant tosser. You yourself pointed out the Hiroshima part. He reminds me of the stereotypical bumbling military official you see on TV who's solution to everything is to bomb something.
Also, I haven't noticed America doing much since the bomb went of in Bali, which was planted by Al-Qaida. Infact, surely it's proof that their war on terrorism (Afghanistan) hasn't really achieved their goal? So much for the coalition.
Hmm, all I have to say ont he subject really. Sorry if I offended anyone. |
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kasumi
Sorry if I offended anyone.
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If anybody is that easily offended (merely by the statement of an opposing opinion), please stop reading this thread now. Please?
*wants food for thought, not flames* |
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lol, sorry. It's just in previous experience when ever I say anything even slightly critical about America people tend to jump on me with "stfu America owns j00" and stuff  |
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^ oh dear, that all depends on where you live. haha, you'd have to pay almost any swede a considerable amount of money to move to the states. they see the us as the origin of hypocracy and a superficial consumer society. *arrogance is the best, isn't it..* 
that's both judgmental and contradictional in itself, I'm aware of that. of course, some, less hypocritical, would gladly move there for the same reasons some would rather not... *ponders* wether I think there's any truth to all of that, and to this whole thread... doesn't this belong in balamb gardens anyway?
though, personally, you'd have to drag me to the states right now, since I'm not really a fan of their foreign politics, wich I think suffer from a deep big brother complex. |
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I'll eat you.
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| Of course it depends where you live, lots of people around the world would gladly move to America if they could (or indeed a number of other developed countries). But he didn't say that. He was saying that everyone in the world wants to live in America, which is false. |
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Jesus Christ, it's over a year old, WHO CARES!
ffs. Whenever I turn on CNN: "If you just tuned in, over a year ago, Terrorist attack, blah blah blah!" |
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kasumi
Of course it depends where you live, lots of people around the world would gladly move to America if they could (or indeed a number of other developed countries). But he didn't say that. He was saying that everyone in the world wants to live in America, which is false.
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Hmm, I think you missunderstood Kasumi. What you posted indicated that you often get flamed for citicizing the US. What Itried to point out was just that: ^ it's not the case everywhere, in fact, where I come from, it's quite the opposite. If you obtained a more positive attitude towards the states here, you'd probably be very frowned upon. |
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10.18.02, 21:28:14
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