Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
The United States will do whatever it takes to win the war on terror
Published on December 23, 2003 By Draginol In Politics

All over the blogsphere I'll see people say "You Americans need to start asking yourselves, 'Why did they do this to you.'"  It is a terrible misreading of the American culture. Americans don't care. You can argue all day that they should care. But they don't. I don't. There is nothing we have done that justified the events of 9/11. And those who try to justify the acts of terrorists will be ignored as sycophants and appeasers of evil.

After 9/11 the question is no longer "why did they do this to you?"  The question should be what is happening to the Islamic world as a result of their growing culture of death and violence towards the west.

Perhaps the Islamic world needs to start asking, why the US does this to them.  Because if the choice becomes us or them, Americans will choose us in a heart beat even if that means the Islamic world is a totally destroyed.  Make no mistake about that.  This isn't jingoism, far from it, it is the quiet knowledge of certainty.  The clear understanding of the American character that is saying this.

I don't say this because I hope that happens, I don't. I hope that the Islamic World can live in peace with the west and in particular the United States. I just don't think Europeans and especially the Islamic world understands American culture. We try to do the right thing. But if we feel we've been wronged (and we do) our history shows that we will do whatever it takes to secure ourselves.

Remember this: Japan bombed a military base to start its war against the United States.  The war ended with the United States vaporizing two of its largest cities after having used conventional weapons to flatten nearly every city in Japan with millions of civilian casualties.  It is one of those things about democracy - it is slow to anger but once angered, once motivated, it is hard to turn it off. So I say to you, for the sake of the Islamic world, they will not continue the path of folly in trying to convince us that the fault lies with us. That sort of argument is interesting in intellectual forums. But in the real world, when people are getting killed, those who would start killing Americans need to understand the full implications of their actions.

Blaming Bush is convenient. But I can say this: Any President of the United States would have done at least as much or would have faced riots.  The US federal government only has one job (the state governments do pretty much everything else): Take care of the personal well being of its citizens  It's not designed to build roads. It's not designed to build schools. It doesn't provide the police.  It doesn't run the water plant. It doesn't provide water or electricity.  It just takes care of individual citizens. And it does this in two ways: Killing non-citizens who seek to harm us and provide services to individuals. That's basically all it does (all but  less than 10% of the budget is dedicated to those tasks). It's not like a European government or the government in other countries in its design.  And it does those things remarkably well. And democracies can be scary things. The average person acts out of passion, emotion. The government is merely the tool of the citizenry. It doesn't rule the people, the people rule the government.  Blaming Bush for Kyoto or the International Criminal Court or the Iraqi invasion or whatever may make some quasi-intellectual feel better. But it's a delusion. It doesn't matter who the President was. Those things would have happened under any President one way or the other particularly after 9/11 in the case of Iraq.

So don't delude yourself into thinking that Americans are going to sweat about the "why" the terrorists murdered so many Americans.  Most Americans care about how its government will make the problem go away in as permanent a way as possible.  It's not the "Arab street" you should worry about, it's the American street people should worry about. Even 4 years after Pearl Harbor, poll after poll taken in 1945 showed that the vast majority of Americans supported the extermination of the Japanese as a people. Do you understand? The extermination of the Japanese as a race. It's not the terrorists that people should be afraid of. That is why the Islamic world needs to stop the terrorists. Why they need to do it on their own. They're not doing it to help us. They are doing it to ensure their continued survival.


Comments (Page 9)
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on Sep 18, 2004
If you want to help fight terrorism and help with educating yourself please visit us at ATC ( Anti Terrorism Coalition ) club heres the link _ > Link

on Sep 18, 2004

Reply #17 By: Machiavelli_incorporated - 12/23/2003 6:09:47 PM
Wardell, i understand ur point of view and agree with ur use of historical facts

however, u seem to have dismissed sumthing when u were quoting ur historical facts. We r not in the imperialistic ages any more. We r in a time when 2% of the world's population own 98% of the world's resources. The problem is not in the middle east, the problem is EVERYWHERE. If american foreign policy does not change, than u can mark my words that there will be another alqueda(i no i spelt it wrong),


Well I'll tell you what.... "If" they do...do NOT be suprised if America turns it into a "glass" parking lot!
on Sep 18, 2004
Ok Brad, if u insist on dumbing the situation down like that. It is true that one would punch back if punched. If there was say 10 people surrounding you, one of them punched u. Would you punch back knowing that if u knock him down, another one will come and punch you again. That is the reality of the US rite now. The war against terrorism is simply a war it CANNOT win unless it nukes the rest of the world. (and that would be pointless) We r exploiting the middle east for its resources rite now. If for sum reason this region becomes useless. The US will have to find another region. (the basics of imperialism) That region will then hate us. Back to the ten vs one issue. If that one person punches u, would it be smart to punch him back without regard to the other 9?


If the other 9 harbor the 10th, it is justified.

Let me put it this way. If someone murdered your child and the police knew WHO the murderer was, and WHERE the murderer was, would you then demand they leave the murderer be because of the other people in the house? You'd be an idiot if you did. And if the other 9 refused to surrender the one, would you not consider them culpable? You'd be an idiot if you didn't.

On September 11, 2001, America was attacked. You can spin that any way you want to, but the facts remain. We were not attacked because of our wealth; if that were so, bin Laden's own men should be turning their guns on HIM. He's part of that 2% that people like to wave around.

I don't agree with the way Bush has waged the war since Afghanistan. But neither do I agree with those who insist we should have sat around playing cards and waiting to cleanup after the next attack.
on Sep 18, 2004
Leadership
Duty
Respect
Selfless Service
Honor
Integrity
Personal Courage

HOOHAH!!
on Jan 04, 2006
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on Jan 04, 2006
Why did Billy punch Joe in the first place? maybe you can tell me? because i clearly have no idea... Maybe its because Billy had a really bad childhood that Joe kept on interfering with, and really made his life miserable, when it wasn't really Joes business in the first place...


And just what difference would it make? Billy punched Joe. Joe more than likely punches Billy back. Why is that so difficult for you and a bunch of other posters to understand? Brad's article is not concerned with the "why's" surrounding this possible scenario.
on Sep 24, 2006
This is good commentary, but misses the mark. It is true that democracies can be brutal, but they can also be very timid, albiet France. It is time that all democracies unite for what this really is ... the advent of WWIII.
on Sep 24, 2006
Mach: No, your analogy isn't correct. Because at the end of the day, the US has the means to eliminate Islam entirely if the majority of Americans were convinced that their lives were on the line.


This is an interesting point that I am in favor of.

Believe me, should this day come, elimination could possibly take place first on American soil, in American neighborhoods, by American civilians bearing arms from their homes.

Americans are pretty busy people and are often detached from one another. But when something threatens the quality of life we have built in America, and our peace of mind held hostage, we as a nation can be quite patriotic indeed.

Many Americans are already suspicious of anybody they "think" looks Islamic. If acts of terror do not stop soon, suspicions could turn very ugly, very quickly. THEN the US government will be forced into doing something....major.

I agree with the author that the world NEEDS to look to eliminating Islamic terrorism (or any terrorism for that matter) as this is a humanitarian, world-wide concern. Should it not stop, I feel many many people will die, including those caught in the crossfire.

I would rather see the killing stopped, but I am opptimistic.

on Sep 24, 2006

I'm glad this floated back to the top because reading through the responses really represents just how naive and seriously out of touch with reality some people are.

My essay wasn't making any statements about what is right or wrong. It is simply a statement of facts as they are.  I am not making an argument about how I wish the world was, only how it is.

The United States has the capability to wipe out the Islamic world. There is no country that could do anything about this. The reason the United States performs limited actions (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) is purely out of self-restraint of its government.

But make no mistake, if terrorists managed to start nuking American cities, the government would do what the people demanded and the hysterical population of the United States when faced with what they believed was an "us or them" situation would lash out in the most grossly generalistic way -- eliminate the Islamic world that keeps producing people trying to kill Americans.

I hope that never happens. But the responses in this thread take on the naive view that the US couldn't do it.  The US absolutely could. It has the military capability to wipe out the middle east with nuclear weapons if it chose to. It's not a matter if it could, it's a matter of what would have to happen to make that happen and based on American history, the culture of the United States is very reactive, very prone to over-reaction.

Someone actually wrote above "This isnt' the age of imperialism anymore, the US couldn't do.." with reference to how the US reacted to Japan. What an incredibly ignorant reading of the current geopolitical world. Does anyone out there honestly think that the US military capability relative to the rest of the world is today LESS than it was on December 7, 1941? 

The Jihadists survive only because of American restraint. Nothing more, nothing less.  It has the capability to make them all go away, permanently. But doing so would be horrible for the United States and for the world.  But the Islamic world must get over the believe that American restraint is unlimited.

Because if it ever came down to "Death to America" or "Death to Iran, Pakistan, Syria, etc." it would take the American public a micro-second to decide who would live and die. And that's the thing that the jihadists seem unaware. The ones who decide whether every man, woman, and child lives or not in those nations is not with them or their governments but with the American people who, thankfully, are not a bunch of "stupid cowboys who are the rubbish of the world". Because Americans don't have to futilely burn symbols of enemy nations, they can do the real thing. That they don't speaks of their humanity and restraint.

on Sep 24, 2006
"THEN the US government will be forced into doing something....major."

This made me think back 20 or so years ago.

Remember Col. Moammar Quadaffi? Was he the dictator/leader of Libya in the 80's...something about oil.

I was to young to care about such things, but I do remember the acts of Libyan terror being on the news...all the time. I remember hearing talk about assassinating Quadaffi and how illusive he was.

What I remember most was hearing on the news that Col. Quadaffi's palace was bombed by American forces. His infant daughter killed and hospitalizing all seven of his other children.

This seems like a pretty major move, and what could be said of consideration for those caught in the cross-fire?

It is unfortunate, but its human nature to preserve what is yours.
on Sep 24, 2006

Libya has little to no oil that I know of. It got attacked because it sponsored terrorism and was caught planning a specific attack against service men in a restraunt in Europe that resulted in the deaths of many people including several Americans.  Reagan retaliated -- rather effectively.

I don't think that "the world" needs to solve Islamic terrorism. The Islamic world needs to solve Islamic terrorism. They have far more at stake than the rest of the world.

on Sep 24, 2006
Libya has little to no oil that I know of


it's on top of about 40 billion barrels or oil and more than a trillion cubic meters of natural gas; libya produces about 1.5 million barrels of oil daily.
on Sep 24, 2006
That they don't speaks of their humanity and restraint


thank god for that!


I don't think that "the world" needs to solve Islamic terrorism. The Islamic world needs to solve Islamic terrorism


Send this small piece that says soooooooo much to the United Nations. The Islamic world needs to be told this in no uncertain terms. Well said.
on Sep 24, 2006

it's on top of about 40 billion barrels or oil and more than a trillion cubic meters of natural gas; libya produces about 1.5 million barrels of oil daily.

I stand corrected.  Though totally irrelevant to why the US bombed it.

on Sep 24, 2006
Though totally irrelevant to why the US bombed it.


True. Not to be misunderstood, I was not eluding that oil was the purpose behind Libyan terror, but simply a way that I remembered our old buddy Qadffi.

As a youngster, I had no idea about oil and politics. I studied Geology in college, and am pretty aware of what Libya has for petrolium resources.

It turns out that what made Qadaffi semi-famous was when he took over Libya, he threatened to nationalize Libyan oil fields unless the other OPEC nations met a financial demand.

Many terrorist attacks were made from this point on. The final straw was as you say, Libya "
sponsored terrorism and was caught planning a specific attack against service men in a restraunt in Europe that resulted in the deaths of many people including several Americans.


And the point I was hoping to deliver is summed up well when you say>
Reagan retaliated -- rather effectively.


It seems the author understood my point, but others did not?

Its been said that America is slow to anger, but when it does....

I think the attack on Qadaffi's palace is a good example of how far America can go if it's backed up against the wall. It also illustrates what type of regaurd there can be for those "caught in the cross-fire".
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