Casus Belli?
By
Michael The Libertarian
Most days, when I
sit down at my desk with my 32 oz. Cup of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi©, I
have such a precise idea of a subject for my brain droppings that I
can write a title/headline before I even start writing my
article-in-chief. Those days are the days for which I live,
especially on days like today which are the polar opposite of today.
Days like today are difficult. It's not that I don't have
anything to write about. I have an idea of what I'm going to write
about. I have thoughts, swirling around in my head; they just haven't
congealed, entirely. Sometimes, I can write the title by the middle
of the article, but I never hold out hope on days like these.
With all that's going on in the world, today … No. Let me
not use a euphemistic phrase. Let me spell it out:
Because of DAESH (I call ISIS that because, apparently, it's a
'cuss word in Arabic and they don't like it), Iran, North Korea,
Pakistan, Afghanistan … you get the point … also because of who
is sitting in the White House, I have been having lingering thoughts
about war, lately.
I believe DAESH (and their ilk) to be the sum total of our
feckless “policy” of addressing Islamic terrorism for over fifty
years. After each incursion of terrorism, we spoke pretty words, and
ignored the problem, hoping either Israel would prevail or the
problem would just go away, on its own.
Then, in the 1970s the burka wearers started upping their game
and when the Ayatollah Assaholah took over Iran in 1979, we should
have really sat up and taken notice. We didn't. Our country's policy
after our hostages were taken from the U.S. embassy in Tehran was one
of: “We apologize for being American”. By the time President
Carter found his intestinal fortitude, not only did the mission fail,
spectacularly, but we had already been cowed into submission.
11 Sep. 2001 didn't teach us anything, either except to prompt
the government to erode our rights away (bringing us more in line
with socialist Europe) with that oxymoronic “PATRIOT” Act. We
didn't decide to eliminate the cause of our woes. We were told this
was our new reality and we'd just have to accept it.
That was a huge s**t sandwich and I wish the sheeple in this
country had enough integrity to refuse to take a bite, but swallowed
what we were fed.
Look, I am far from being a “war monger”. I just think,
over the decades, we've endured enough provocation to be “on the
side of the angels” where accusations of hawkishness are concerned.
We've tolerated enough attacks and spilling of our precious blood to
make the case that not only has war been declared, but is being
prosecuted by Jihad Johnnies of every ethnic stripe against us and on
our own soil.
So, not only have we been attacked, we've been invaded as
well. When will America wake up and realize that we are in a fight
for our very way of life (and we've already lost ground)?
Any time military action is mentioned, the usual suspects jump
up and use the “War is Hell” quote without realizing that quote
is an anachronism, in a lot of ways. We've reduced collateral damage,
tremendously. We've met flat-out destructive aggression with doe-eyed
appeasement. We've preached about tolerance and “peaceful”
Muslims (I've met precious few), but we've also seen “No-Go Zones”
in Minnesota and consistent polls showing large majorities of
American Muslims (at least) tacitly support implementation of Sharia
Law in the U.S. That's an issue for me and should be for every
pluralist American.
Back when “War is Hell” was quoted, as I mentioned before,
collateral damage made it hell and provided reasonable deterrent to
engaging in it, willy-nilly. Jihad Johnny has already accepted his
own death, by dint of his indoctrination into the extremist DAESH
fold. Would he be as quick to take up arms if he thought his
wife/mother/grandmother/daughter might get killed in our next
retaliatory missile strike?
Many years ago (can it be twenty of them, already?), I wrote
an article comparing how we wage war to a Star Trek episode.
While I always reserve the right to plagiarize myself, I won't try to
recreate the article here, but I will try and tie it in for you.
In the episode: “A
Taste of Armageddon”, The
Enterprise encounters two worlds (Vendikar and Eminiar VII) who have
been at war for five hundred years.
How have they managed to do this? Well, they learned long ago, that
war would eventually just wipe them all out or, at the very least, it
would destroy their civilization. So, they decide to use computerized
simulated attacks and have anyone declared a casualty report to
disintegration chambers to be killed. Does that sound like the path
we're on, when we start mentioning smart bombs and “eradicating
collateral damage”?
How does the Enterprise crew
eventually resolve the situation? Easy, they “pull the plug” on
the computers and offer the two planets the choice of real (horrific)
war or the diplomatic solution of talking to each other and working
out their differences.
Certainly, the tactics of the
Jihadis are used to maximize
collateral damage so, why are we dancing around the issue? Our enemy
has declared war and defined the parameters by which it will be
prosecuted. Isn't it time we started treating Islamic Extremism like
the threat it truly is? Isn't it time we did something we haven't
done in seventy years and fight this war with the intent of winning
it?
Haven't we got Casus
Belli?
- Michael
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