Simply Foolhearted

Op-ed

Simply Foolhearted

By P.H. Rolen

 

I am going to do something that I rarely do. I am going to jump right into the thick of an issue and take a side in print. I take a stand here on this particular issue because I have been intimately involved in from day one. The depth of that intimacy involved actively becoming a target for death by the enemies of our nation so it is an issue that I am passionate about. For nearly five months of my life I endured a constant barrage of rocket, mortar, and indirect small arms fire on a daily basis. I do not intend to use that service for which I freely volunteered as a bludgeon, however, as an active participant in what we have now come to understand as the Global War on Terror it behooves me every so often to stop and take measure of the changing of the winds around me.

Recently in a speech before the Israeli Knesset President George W. Bush sparked a firestorm of criticism when he remarked that” Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” Though Bush did not mention Barack Obama at any point in the speech, Obama none the less intuited this as a direct attack on policies that he has advocated and the media blitz that followed lambasted Bush’s remarks  as “Sad” “Bulls**t” and “Unfit for the office of the president.” Democrats from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to former Presidential candidate John Kerry fumed out the ears at the thought of Bush daring bring up the issue of appeasement.

The first thing that I scratch my head at here is the enormous inferiority complex that shines through when someone starts defending themselves from an attack that was never made. White house press secretary Dana Perrino reacted to the hullabaloo with amusement and reiterated what was painfully obvious to anyone who wasn’t infected with America’s current political partisanship sickness by pointing out that the president did not direct his remarks at anyone in particular. “Who was he talking about!?” the television pundits screamed into our television sets. Democratic partisans demanded an answer as they pointed fingers, curded pundits and fell over one another to get in front of a camera and attack the president. Well let’s see, he might have been speaking about former president Jimmy Carter who recently met with the openly terrorist, Islamic organization Hamas, an organization that takes pride in murdering Israeli citizens on a daily basis. He might have been speaking about any number of European leaders including former French President Jaques Chirac who openly cozy up to many deplorable Islamic entities in the name of multiculturalism. He may have even been criticizing Eli Moyal, the mayor of the Israeli town of Sderot who recently called for open talks with Hamas despite numerous citizens in his home town being killed by Hamas’ relentless rocket flurries.

The fact is that Obama piping up and making this speech, a speech that was supposed to commemorate the 60th birthday of the Jewish State, about him and his policies reveals a deep insecurity not only within Obama but within the entire Democratic power structure. In 1939 a proud Neville Chamberlain returned home to Britain after meeting with one Adolf Hitler and proudly proclaimed a great “Peace in our time.” Well the rest of that story is history and through that narrative the 20th century taught us tough lessons in appeasement 101. The fact is today, on a daily basis, the government of Iran supplies weapons and fighters who cross into Iraq and kill our soldiers. The president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly asserted that Iran seeks to “Wipe Israel off the map” and make Israel a “Stinking, rotting corpse.”  Iran funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations that kill innocent civilians and in loud public rallies chant “Death to America, death to Israel.” Only a few weeks ago Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton branded Barack Obama’s open desire to meet with these organizations as “Naive and counterproductive.” Obama’s people say it is not a sign of weakness but of strength that a sitting U.S. president would meet with terrorist nations and organizations. The brand the current policies as Bush’s “Cowboy diplomacy” but In fact it has been the stated doctrine of the United States government for more than 30 years not to negotiate with terrorists. What is astounding to me is the fact that in a situation where virtually every foreign policy expert says the wrong thing to do is for a sitting U.S. president to meet with terrorists, legitimize their organization, and offer their media wings what would in effect be a propaganda coup; huge portions of the American political machinery rush to the aid of personally insecure politician for the sake of saving him from himself an defend obvious appeasement policies.

Obama does not represent the Democratic Party. That might be one of the few policy positions that you will ever hear me agree with Hillary Clinton on. The nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic Party standard bearer essentially delegitimizes the entire hard hat wearing, union card carrying, blue collar faction of the party and empowers the left fringe, zealot ideologues of moveon.org, the Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos. The hard hat unionites know from the past that appeasement fails and the reason they flock to Hillary Clinton in such droves is she, along with supporting their union goals, speaks from a position of strength.  Here’s the cold facts Jack, whether you agree with war or not you cannot deny that since September 11, 2001 there has not been a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In fact places where there have been major attacks like London, Madrid, Bali, and elsewhere represent significant populaces which identify heavily with the Chicagoan hauteur, elitist positions of Barack Obama. Mr. Obama openly seeks retreat from our battleground in Iraq which would cede the entire western front of this struggle to Iran, the world’s largest terrorist, leaving Israel increasingly isolated. He would throw more and more resources into a NATO mission in Afghanistan regardless of the fact that the other alliance nations are pulling less and less of the weight. He has openly advocated attacking Pakistan which is a nuclear nation and doing so would destroy all chances we have of keeping those nuclear weapons out of the hands of the fundamentalist elements. Worst of all… seriously, worst of all he would, as president, sit down with the terrorists and totally legitimize these religious thugs as a political entity regardless of the fact that history has shown us time and time again that it will not work.

Doesn’t anyone remember Yasser Arafat, the terrorist leader who the west famously engaged as a “Peace partner?” Arafat perfected the art of going on western media and proclaiming our peace process as his only goal in life, only to return from the interview and hop on Palestinian television and lead chants of Death to Israel and America. Does anyone remember Saddam Hussein, you know the murderous dictator that gassed his own people and invaded his neighbors killing hundreds of thousands. Remember how he constantly gamed the UN oil for food program and consistently took advantage international olive branches. Does anyone remember that this same Iranian regime took American embassy workers hostage back in the seventies and no amount of our president peanut farmers talking and olive branching could bring them home?

Barack Obama seeks a return to the exact same foreign policies that killed 6 and injured 1042 in the 1993 World Trade center attack. He would go back to the doctrines that brushed off our dead servicemen in the Khobar towers and the fallen embassy workers in Kenya and Tanzania. Good ole BHO would take us back in time and simply talk it out with the ideology that delivered America a near sunken USS Cole and the souls of 2974 civilians on that fateful September morning. Hillary Clinton may call the foreign policy goals of an Obama presidency “Naive” I call them simply fool hearted. For America to elect a president whose first promise is to make my sacrifice in Iraq and the deaths of over 4000 of my comrades illegitimate is completely unacceptable. Perhaps those who so gleefully disgraced the fallen of the Vietnam War feel that it is perfectly acceptable to have their midlife crises by reverting our country back to the good old days of lost wars and social turmoil for their own political gain. To normal, everyday Americans it is pitiful, divisive agenda that is tearing our nation apart.

George W. Bush may have done many things wrong during his tenure as President of the United States; the speech to the Israeli Knesset was not one of them. The overt insecurity of the Obama coalition to Bush’s admirable speech should make everyone take pause and assess what it is we as Americans want out of a nation. The fact is we are in a war that we did not start, but a war against an enemy with an ideology as murderous and remorseless as any free men have ever faced. Our enemy knows he can’t beat us in symmetrical warfare so his only option is to engage us asymmetrically and hope and pray that every person he kills will make the nightly news in the context of America is losing Bush’s war.  So far the media has done exactly what he wants us to do; God forbid we give him a president who acquiesces as well.