Operation: Memento
I'm not what you'd call a warmonger. All you really need to know about that is I'm a Democrat. We have a very low tolerance for things that are messy and loud and bombastic and pro-American, no matter how necessary they might be. About ten minutes in to Saving Private Ryan, I tried to surrender to one of the ushers.

Yes, our theaters still have ushers. It is 1950s America and I live in a Barry Levinson film.

Generally speaking, Democrats are pro-choice on the abortion issue. This is partially because of our belief in the prerogative of women to make decisions for themselves when it comes to their reproductive rights. What is not so often said is that the only reason we really condone the killing of the unborn is because we're fairly certain they won't fight back. The day a fetus learns how to pull a trigger is the day we cave on this issue with all sorts of cowering and trembling. I mean more than usual.

The point I'm trying to make is that, even as a wussy, gun-fearing, kill-'em-with-kindness Democrat, there is only so far I can be pushed before I think it's time to push back. There comes a time in every American's life where we put differences aside and speak as one, to do what is best for the country.

Like many young Republican bloggers out there, I think it is finally time I took the big step and came out in support of sending other Americans to fight for something I claim to firmly believe in.

It makes me queasy to even consider a pro-war position, but I just don't think there are any options left. After 9/11, I'd say our president made it abundantly clear what America's policy would be toward those nations who harbored or (worse) actively supported those who would commit terrorist acts on the United States and their allies.

As much as I disagree with George Bush on... well, almost every single issue, I'm an American first and a policy is a policy.

When both the goodwill and international dictates of our great nation are so egregiously and publicly flaunted, we as a nation cannot afford to sit back and do nothing lest we lose the fear and respect of those who would do us harm.

As much as it saddens me, the time has come to act. We have the evidence: 9/11 hijackers have now definitively been placed with Osama bin Laden in the days before the attacks. I hate to say it, but our only course of action is clear:

We must invade Afghanistan.

Logistically, I know it's not going to be easy. We have spent a lot of time and energy creating a front-line for the War on Terr [sic] by invading Iraq. I get that strategy to a certain extent, you know: big country, relatively flat, lots of room, compliant populace who see us as liberators... it's really the best possible scenario to draw the bad Muslims out and kill them right in front of the good Muslims. Sure, we kill terrorists and they keep making new ones, but it's a safe bet they'll run out of dead animals in which to hide improvised explosive devices before we run out of missiles. It's a waiting game.

I vaguely remember that in the days just after 9/11, in what I remember as the pre-Iraq warm-up days, we sent a token force to Afghanistan, blew up some old machine-gun equipped Subaru Brats with some M1 tanks and some cruise missiles. I don't know, the details are vague. All I really remember was that he price of heroin kind of spiked for a while.

I think it's time now, in light of this new evidence, to seriously consider punishing the Afghan Afghanistani Afghani people and government of Afghanistan for their complicity in 9/11. I know, it's less ideal than Iraq in that it's very mountainous, landlocked, no oil, no major television network infrastructure on which we can force them to show Two and a Half Men and run by a US-installed post-Taliban puppet government. But look, these are difficult times and require us to make difficult decisions. Terrorism must be defeated, even if only symbolically and retroactively.

Something must be done. If America's safety isn't enough to motivate the administration, maybe this will prod them: Fox News' ratings are down.

The first priority is the message and if the messenger is suffering because people are watching anti-Christ CNN, well, fire up the graphics package, dust off the digital eagle and roll out the shock-n-awe.

If the destruction of Kabul is causing some kind of moral dilemma, let me assure you: they haven't finished rebuilding anything from the first time we knocked it down.

You've co-opted the saying before, Mr. President, now it's time to co-opt it again: Let's roll.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 4.2



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:32 AM