Thursday, April 01, 2004
Fallujah must die.
A part of me can't believe I'm writing this. After all, I do recognize that there are people in Fallujah who were horrified at the attack on four American civilian contractors. According to reports, many residents of Fallujah hid in their homes while the merry-makers desecrated the bodies of four people whose job it was to plan & provide security for army convoys bringing food to this former-Baathist stronghold. That only tells me so much, and it's not enough to exonerate them.
Many of you reading this may be aghast at that last sentence. Surely their fearfulness kept them inside, and represents an implicit disapproval and horror at the barbarism of their fellow townspeople, most of whom were young men, teenagers and boys. This assertion, while true, only serves to further cement my judgment. Fallujah must die.
The Islamic world is one of cowardice, hiding behind the guise of machismo and wounded pride. To hide in one's home, to let the horror continue unabated while one is safely tucked away, signifies the moral bankruptcy not only of the citizenry, but also of Islam and it's adherents'. Let it all happen, it will all blow over.
Don't tell them of your horror.
Don't tell them that there is no place for barbarians in the modern world.
Don't tell them that their maniacal behavior will bring violence upon their home and family.
Don't tell them they are fighting a losing cause, and are choosing nihilism over survival.
Don't tell them, when their children join in the barbarism, that they (the children) are wrong and that they will pay a moral price for their behaviour.
After all, does not the Koran say that the horrors of yesterday are glorious in the eyes of Allah? And we wonder why people like Saddam thrive within the social construct that is Islam, and the Middle East in particular?
If these are the choices they make, and the language they speak, then we must reply to them in the manner they are best-suited to understand. Get the Americans and other aid workers out of danger. Warn the residents of Fallujah that they have a few hours to leave: enough time to evacuate themselves but not enough to pack all of their things (whether weapons or clothes or what have you) and then drop a MOAB or similar tactical device on Fallujah. The bomb should be enough to render dust all traces of a town having once existed on that site, but will not be so destructive as to irradiate the area. At that time they may return to sort out whatever may be left over from the strike. The sight of the former Baathist town of plenty reduced to sand and ash will communicate our resolve much more effectively than any diplomatic overture.
If they will not wipe the slate clean, then we will.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Chicago-Based Organization Harasses Rove at his D.C. Home
Demonstrators Swarm Around Rove's Home
"The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed to a window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible. Shortly thereafter, sirens shot through the neighborhood and Secret Service agents and D.C. police joined the crowd on the lawn. Rove opened his door long enough to talk to an officer, and the crowd serenaded them with a stanza of "America the Beautiful."
"Seems like he doesn't want to invite us in for tea," Emira Palacios quipped to the crowd.
Palacios is the Co-Chair of National People's Action, as well as Hispanos Unidos, and has been an activist for the rights of illegal aliens to gain access to healthcare, higher education, etc., and, according to the NPA website:
(I)n the fall of 2002, she helped broker a deal with Bank of America, Kansas to implement a new banking program that allows undocumented workers to open bank accounts with their tax identification numbers.
Word to the not-so-wise at NPA: Undocumented workers don't have US-issued tax ID numbers ... those "IDs" are theirs courtesy of the Mexican government. Don't pass them off as legitimate, tax-paying citizens of the US when you know them to be nothing of the sort.
Fortunately for Palacios, she and her cohorts realize that, as the employee of a public official, Rove is unable to sue NPA for damages without the clearance of the Bush Administration. Rove is thus fair game for cretins who consider it their right to trash his lawn, scream at him through bullhorns, bang on his windows and otherwise infringe upon the seemingly esorteric rights of a man to enjoy his Sunday afternoon off. Rather than constitute an example of the infringement of civil liberties that LLL's are so quick to carp about, this event symbolizes that such rights are alive and well (if badly served by socialist Apparatchiks).