June 18 - Comments are down to deflect spam attacks yet I am serene: the guy at my internet provider maybe managed to fix whatever was keeping me from mu.nu sites (and I hope I didn't just jinx all his efforts.)

This past week in Washington has been breathtaking if only for sheer insipidity. Of course I'm not saying that the renewed focus on Iraq is intended to distract us from dealing with border control and immigration issues (which are, despite Senatorial efforts to combine the two, entirely different problems) but I don't know if I should be angry, amused, or resigned when I hear a Democrat Congressman say that Zarqawi came to Iraq after the U.S. army. (I heard it on Fox, I don't remember the idiot's name, and my forgiving nature is more due to the fact that I am really bad at names than charity or forebearance in my nature.)

Now, I'm just a normal U.S. citizen who tried to exorcise my desire for revenge after Sept. 11 and examine the various suggestions as to how to best deal with the threat to my country without yielding to blood lust. I spent more time than my family liked reading various opinions and following the news (on the other hand, being glued to internet pages at least kept me quiet, so my family sensibly considered it an even trade.)

When then Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the U.N. back in 2003, I watched it on CNN and then read the speech on the internet. I had never heard the name Zarqawi prior to that address nor had I known that an al Qaeda terror camp specialising in chemical weaponry operated in northern Iraq but I did know, because it was widely publicized at the time, that Saddam Hussein had increased the cash award to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to $25,000. That, for me, was sufficient evidence that Iraq under Saddam funded terrorism and the confirmed link to al Qaeda that Powell offered was additional, not primary, proof that we needed to deal with Saddam and end his support to terrorists. (If I haven't made it clear a sufficiently tiresome number of times already, I consider terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians to be acts of terrorism.)

Now I don't know why someone elected to national office who presumably considers himself to be sufficiently informed so as to speak to the issue on national television (much less vote in the House) didn't know that Zarqawi was operating out of Iraq long before we invaded. I am willing to assume that he is ignorant rather than mendacious (as in by her excuse she damned him.)

One significant point in Powell's speech that provided a key point of clarity was the term "nexus of terrorism" -- a phrase and comprehension that I believe seperates those of us who demand victory in the war on terror and understand that the limits by which many would constrain us also separate us from those who aspire merely for a stalemate.

Quo vadis?

I watched the movie Network tonight with several terrific people (sadly I worked last night and didn't wake up early enough to meet or hear the iconic Darcy and friends) and, although I had seen the movie before, the issues it raised were extremely disturbing even thirty years after it was made.

I find I have been stymied in my writing because I'm tired of reitering the same arguments -- yet I also recognize that we are losing the edge we need to fight this war because that which we call the MSM is truly meant to entertain than to inform.

Ain't the blogosphere grand? I didn't even have time to dwell on this before I read Gerard's terrific post "RULES? IN A KNIFE FIGHT?": Redrafting the Rules of Engagement in the First Terrorist War which crystallized much of my irritation with how ridiculously far we are going to accomodate the enemy even as we fail to assert that our goal is victory and to do what it takes to win.

Victory, people. Not a stalemate, a draw, or defining a new line of engagement. Total, complete, annhilatory victory. Read the whole thing.

Bottom line: if loudly playing hip-hop music is "torture" then many parents of teenagers can now seek recourse in the courts. (Needless to say, if it is rock music the kids are blasting out then some of us parents have the consolation of knowing our kids have good taste.)

Hell, I'm doing what I've done too often: making a stupid joke to obscure how furious I really am.

Let's put it on a personal level: suppose your child is missing. Suppose you have very good reason to believe your child's life is in danger. Suppose some bastard knows where your child is and the identity of the person(s) threatening said child.

What would you do? And how moral are we be if we wouldn't do exactly the same for any child? And how quickly have some forgotten that, on Sept. 11, aboard AA Flight 77, students, i.e, children were flying to LA for a National Geographic conference?

There are things about which I am intractable. Anyone who can look into the eyes of a child yet not be swayed from murderous intent is a monster, and we slay monsters, not coddle them much less want to understand them.

If we aren't willing to defend our children then we are useless and need not concede defeat becuase we have already been defeated. It's really as simple as that.

Posted by: Debbye at 01:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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