Blinded by the Light?

[Stinger]

Can anyone quess what these two articles have to say about our current situation concerning the war we are engaged in?

"Looking back at the history of tragic times often reveals that many -- or most -- of the people of those times were often preoccupied with things that look trivial, or even pathetic, in view of the catastrophe looming over them. Will later generations looking back at our times see a similar blindness, and even frivolousness, in the face of mortal dangers?"

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/thomassowell/2006/02/07/185446.html


"It was December 29, 1972. Eastern Airlines flight 401 was approaching the Miami International Airport on a flight from New York when a light failed to illuminate on the console. It was the nose gear light. It would normally glow green to indicate that the nose gear was "down and locked." The entire crew of this Lockheed L-1011 started to fixate on that warning light. They changed the bulb. No help. While the pilot, the co-pilot and the flight engineer, along with an Eastern Airlines engineer, tried other fixes for the bulb problem, someone moved the control yoke. The autopilot was disengaged and the aircraft started a slow decent. Nobody noticed. The flight engineer and the Eastern engineer climbed below the cockpit to eyeball the nose gear. As the flight engineer was looking down at the nosewheel he noticed lights from the aircraft reflecting off the Everglades swamp. The airplane was just skimming the surface. Before he could notify the flight deck the L-1011 crashed into the Everglades. There were 176 people aboard. Seventy-six of them survived."

http://boortz.com/nuze/200602/02092006.html

 

[cnredd]

From a previous post...

If anyone thinks Iraq is the problem in and of itself, they are mistaken...

WMDs...rape rooms...Abu Gharib...Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurd...etc, etc, etc...

All minor compared to the bigger threat...Middle Eastern values and ancient anti-western cultures...

Whether anyone likes it or not, Iraq is just the beginning...

America has long shied away from the "bigger picture" for DECADES while we watched Seinfeld & Friends and ate our Big Macs...The clouds were gathering, and the weathermen's voices haven't been loud enough to get anyone to understand that the storm was a brewin'...

Oh sure...You've seen INSTANCES of rainfall...but everyone just closed their eyes thinking the big hurricane would go away if they act like the hints of it never existed..."These instances were isolated!" people would say...not realizing that war has been proclaimed years earlier by the WHOLE DAMN CIVILIZATION...Mullahs and clerics telling their Middle Eastern Society how everything is the "West's" fault...stubbing your toe on a rock was a reason to kill an American or a European...

They yelled at us...We didn't listen...
They shot at our planes...We didn't listen...
They put out "fatwas" declaring to kill a Western on sight at anytime and anywhere...we yawned and went back to Playstation...

Then 9/11...

Some people STILL can't get it into their heads that this isn't "Osama vs. US and when we kill or capture Osama; game over."...They don't understand that if I snapped my fingers RIGHT NOW and every terrorist in the world died, the problem would NOT go away...

We NEED to change the ideology that breeds terrorism...Right now some are reading this and whining "Yeah but they're doing it wrong!...Going into Iraq MADE more terrorists!"...The ones who are reading my comments and thinking this would be naive to the "big picture."...If Iraq wasn't the reason an individual wanted to "die for Allah", whatever the next thing the Mullahs shoved down their throat would've been...

We're "infidels"...That's reason enough...They've been crying "Death to America" long before we were in Iraq...

So the ideology needs to be changed by doing two things...

Point #1) Short-term - Get rid of the threats by going after the ones who want to hurt us now..

Point #2) Long-term - Change their way of thinking before it builds into such a threat that by the time you realize it's at your door, it's way too late...

When GWB says that "it's better to fight them over there than in our streets", he isn't talking about the next few years...He's talking about the next few generations...

Hitler could've been cut off at the knees early on...but Europe continued to appease and appease while he continued to build and to build until it got to a point where he almost took over all of those that appeased him!...If anyone fought him five years earlier WWII would've been a blip on the radar...

Same thing...Hate to tell ya...Iraq is a blip...

Now the question of "Why Iraq?"...simple...Americans are stupid...

Look at everything I've written...You've seen members of this forum continue to shy away from it...Can you imagine how the country would react if GWB said the same things I've just written?...They'd tell him to stop bothering them while they go back to watching American Idol & Survivor/Detroit or wherever the hell they are this week...

If there's a major snowstorm reported five days in advance, why does everyone wait until 2 hours before the storm to go shopping and then bitch when there's no bread and milk?...How may people CHOOSE to sit through a hurricane because they think "It won't be that bad."?...How many people cross their fingers when they see the "engine light" go on and try to make it to work for the rest of the week?...Some people choose the path of least resistance even though the the one with more resistance now will prove the best path in the long run...

Bush would be saying "More resistance now...nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand."...But still some don't listen...they want the path of least resistance in spite of themselves...

So Bush pointed to the one place that Americans know well...Within that place was a popular enemy...One with a track record...Also, it is the one place that is centralized in Middle Eastern geography that was a positive to military entrance...

Some say Bush lied...Some say he didn't...I don't believe he did, but honestly?... I don't give a rat's ass...I couldn't care less if he said we needed to go Iraq because that's where the Fountain of Youth and Hoffa's body were...I see the "bigger picture"...I see through all of the mamby-pamby nit-pick political bullcrap...

We needed a "front door" (see Point #1 above) so we can actively proceed to Point #2 (above)...

So to answer your question...

do you believe that we still would have gone into Iraq if there was no documented brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime against the Iraqi people?

Yes...

Let's add a couple..

Was pointing that out only to get people on the same team with what we were going to do anyway?

Yes...

Do I believe that 911 opened up his eyes(and others...myself included) that the problem isn't relegated to one country, disproving that "Saddam didn't attack us, so we shouldn't have attacked him" bullshit?...

Yes...

Do I believe that if we don't fight now, the fight will come to Western Society later whether we like it or not?...

Yes...

Is this only the beginning?...

Yes...

Unless, of course, the appeasement crowd delivers a leader who will go back to the position the last four presidents took...which will allow the wounds inflicted on this perverted ideology time to heal...

Game...Set...Match...

 

[VTA]

From a previous post...

If anyone thinks Iraq is the problem in and of itself, they are mistaken...

WMDs...rape rooms...Abu Gharib...Sunni vs. Shia vs. Kurd...etc, etc, etc...

All minor compared to the bigger threat...Middle Eastern values and ancient anti-western cultures...

Whether anyone likes it or not, Iraq is just the beginning...

America has long shied away from the "bigger picture" for DECADES while we watched Seinfeld & Friends and ate our Big Macs...The clouds were gathering, and the weathermen's voices haven't been loud enough to get anyone to understand that the storm was a brewin'...

Oh sure...You've seen INSTANCES of rainfall...but everyone just closed their eyes thinking the big hurricane would go away if they act like the hints of it never existed..."These instances were isolated!" people would say...not realizing that war has been proclaimed years earlier by the WHOLE DAMN CIVILIZATION...Mullahs and clerics telling their Middle Eastern Society how everything is the "West's" fault...stubbing your toe on a rock was a reason to kill an American or a European...

They yelled at us...We didn't listen...
They shot at our planes...We didn't listen...
They put out "fatwas" declaring to kill a Western on sight at anytime and anywhere...we yawned and went back to Playstation...

Then 9/11...

Some people STILL can't get it into their heads that this isn't "Osama vs. US and when we kill or capture Osama; game over."...They don't understand that if I snapped my fingers RIGHT NOW and every terrorist in the world died, the problem would NOT go away...

We NEED to change the ideology that breeds terrorism...Right now some are reading this and whining "Yeah but they're doing it wrong!...Going into Iraq MADE more terrorists!"...The ones who are reading my comments and thinking this would be naive to the "big picture."...If Iraq wasn't the reason an individual wanted to "die for Allah", whatever the next thing the Mullahs shoved down their throat would've been...

We're "infidels"...That's reason enough...They've been crying "Death to America" long before we were in Iraq...

So the ideology needs to be changed by doing two things...

Point #1) Short-term - Get rid of the threats by going after the ones who want to hurt us now..

Point #2) Long-term - Change their way of thinking before it builds into such a threat that by the time you realize it's at your door, it's way too late...

When GWB says that "it's better to fight them over there than in our streets", he isn't talking about the next few years...He's talking about the next few generations...

Hitler could've been cut off at the knees early on...but Europe continued to appease and appease while he continued to build and to build until it got to a point where he almost took over all of those that appeased him!...If anyone fought him five years earlier WWII would've been a blip on the radar...

Same thing...Hate to tell ya...Iraq is a blip...

Now the question of "Why Iraq?"...simple...Americans are stupid...

Look at everything I've written...You've seen members of this forum continue to shy away from it...Can you imagine how the country would react if GWB said the same things I've just written?...They'd tell him to stop bothering them while they go back to watching American Idol & Survivor/Detroit or wherever the hell they are this week...

If there's a major snowstorm reported five days in advance, why does everyone wait until 2 hours before the storm to go shopping and then bitch when there's no bread and milk?...How may people CHOOSE to sit through a hurricane because they think "It won't be that bad."?...How many people cross their fingers when they see the "engine light" go on and try to make it to work for the rest of the week?...Some people choose the path of least resistance even though the the one with more resistance now will prove the best path in the long run...

Bush would be saying "More resistance now...nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand."...But still some don't listen...they want the path of least resistance in spite of themselves...

So Bush pointed to the one place that Americans know well...Within that place was a popular enemy...One with a track record...Also, it is the one place that is centralized in Middle Eastern geography that was a positive to military entrance...

Some say Bush lied...Some say he didn't...I don't believe he did, but honestly?... I don't give a rat's ass...I couldn't care less if he said we needed to go Iraq because that's where the Fountain of Youth and Hoffa's body were...I see the "bigger picture"...I see through all of the mamby-pamby nit-pick political bullcrap...

We needed a "front door" (see Point #1 above) so we can actively proceed to Point #2 (above)...

So to answer your question...



Yes...

Let's add a couple..

Was pointing that out only to get people on the same team with what we were going to do anyway?

Yes...

Do I believe that 911 opened up his eyes(and others...myself included) that the problem isn't relegated to one country, disproving that "Saddam didn't attack us, so we shouldn't have attacked him" bullshit?...

Yes...

Do I believe that if we don't fight now, the fight will come to Western Society later whether we like it or not?...

Yes...

Is this only the beginning?...

Yes...

Unless, of course, the appeasement crowd delivers a leader who will go back to the position the last four presidents took...which will allow the wounds inflicted on this perverted ideology time to heal...

Game...Set...Match...

+1.
Very well said.

 

[Stinger]

But do the appeasors get it, does the "let's get Bush at any cost" crowd get it? GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE COCKPIT AND SEE THE BIG PICTURE. While they are chasing down the lights (the foriegn sureviellence nonsense, Bush lied, no WMD,) the plane is about to crash. This fixation on these nonsenseical matters blinds them to what is really going on in the world and freezes them from action.