Piano World Home Page Forums General Discussions 9/11 - - Never Forget On a day like this.........

Ok. One more post but I think it might be the last for me, at least for a week or so. I found after leaving last night that I don't really have an appetite for this sort of debate right now. I feel laden from all the sorrow around me and want to concentrate on that for now. Maybe I'll check in later, maybe not. Anyway in a week or so I might feel more up to it.

Parting thoughts:

jgoo, I hear you but I'm not persuaded. I would never kill the innocent to get to the bad, as long as there is any time. If I were confronting the terrorist holding up the child as hostage on one side of a field with his trigger on a detonator that was capable of immediately blowing up 10 other children on the other side, it might be a different story. But there is some time, albeit, we don't want to put it off (and we're not) but we do have time to think through our response.

To Dt,

I am really touched by your apology and really didn't expect it. Thanks a bunch for your consideration.

I have been paying attention to what you've been saying. I happen to think that America has been humble enough, so humble that we have been weakened to concentrate on our feelings rather than building up or brains.



No, I don't. It's more complicated than you know. Their own people in Africa were paid to chase them onto the slave ships. Times and perceptions have changed. In any event the price was paid as I have suggested by the casualties of the Civil War; 625,000 dead and over a million and half injured. In any case, there will never be enough reparations for some people.



And it was a damn good thing we did too, else the Soviet Union would have built a military bass down there so they could shrink their supply lines and strike at us from closer range. Best you get a grip of real political realities; this hemisphere is OURS as long as we have the power to make it so. Our security, mine and YOURS depends on it. Here's another tidbit for you. Remember President Ferdinand Marcos of The Philippines and his silly wife, Amelda, with her 6,000 pairs of shoes? After they were deposed we took them back to Hawaii and made sure they were taken care of real well. Know why? Because she had a lover who was a high ranking KGB officer. We wanted to overhear pillow talk. The Soviets were interested in displacing us in the Philippines and building a big submarine base there. We have our reasons for playing in the real world. It has been the bleeding heart idealism of social idealist fools that has hobbled our intelligence to the point that we can no longer do what needs to be done to adequately protect ourselves from the scum of this world who would bring us down to their miserable level.



Great! I for one am GLAD that the Soviet Union is no more. Sounds like you are sorry. Maybe you should have gone there. As I said in an earlier post, we USE people. Everyone does. Bin Laden and the Taliban were on strings. Most governments around the world are on strings. Go read my website, The Polar Bear, and get an education. Bad things happen when people we use get free of their strings. It isn't just us. The British have lots of people on their strings as do the Russians, Israelis, Chinese, Japanese and every other country. The real world works through balances of power. When these balances get off balance, bad things happen. If you don't happen to appreciate the opportunities and freedom this country offers, there are many others you can try out. I've been to a few others and yes they have things to offer, but I've always breathed a sigh of relief when I got back on American soil. Think about it.

Let's nip this "blaming of America" talk in the bud please! All of us, just as Americans have done in previous wars, need to come together and feel a common purpose and brotherhood. We all must abhor these evildoers, and we (and our numerous allies) must penetrate and ahhihilate their mounting terrorist cells. Some of these are in our own country, for God's sake! This is no time for America-bashing, is it? Think of all the burnt and crushed and frightened victims...Americans. We must present a common front...no, we HAVE to present a common front to these barbaric people.

Pique and Bernard,

Just a quick note to let you how much I appreciate your recent posts. After all the ugliness and sorrow of recent days, I appreciate your thoughtfulness at this time of unspeakable loss.

As for David Burton, please take your political pamphleteering elsewhere --at least spare us your arrogance until you've outgrown your diapers.

David Burton is a very honourable man.

He's the kind of guy I can remember from Check Point Charlie,Friedrichstrasse, Berlin.

The time, when others that came behind him,

weren't quite there yet.............

........or in DIAPERS THEMSELVES!

[ September 15, 2001: Message edited by: Norbert ]

Bernard

I'll make a deal with you. I see by your post you live in New York City. When Larry's refrigerated trucks get there, you go and while they are loading them shout your message. "The people that did this are innocent, they were forced by the United States to do it. We should now embrace them and show them love". If you are able to come back here and post after that, I will apologize to you and even kiss your a**.

These people are about to be embraced, real tight, and they will see a lot of love. The love of Americans for their country. At least 94% of Americans.

It's funny. In the past, I've had severe disagreements with posts made by lb, over things that now seem as substantial as cobwebs. Today, I stand together with him as a brother.

Mourn the dead.

Dwain

I don't know what to say. I most certainly did cry several times in the last few days. My cousin narrowly avoided being killed (he changed jobs a few months ago - he worked on the 96th floor of the WTC). This is a most disgraceful act of carnage and a most despicable act of evil. But words aren't enough.

As to Pique and Bernard, I'm not a violent person, but I'm also not naive. I'm proud to live in a country that supports the USA unequivocally in their hour of need and also in whatever action they choose to take. People don't realize how lucky they are that the major power in the world is a free and democratic country. Just consider how bad it could be.

And frankly the time for sweet talk is over.

Dwain
Thanks, that meant a lot. There is no right or left now, only the middle, and most Americans are there together with the world behind them.

lb

Wow. I almost gave up reading through all of this. I haven't had the time/energy/desire to keep up with the forum this week.

Wow. I'm truly overwhelmed.

To anyone still trying to follow these discussions, my pov. There is room in America, even an America at war, for differing points of view, even those so very different from our own that we find them abhorrent.

Many pacifists during the Vietnam era found a non-combatant support role when drafted to be an acceptable compromise. Many dodged the draft and fled the country.

The pacifists have the right to their beliefs, and there are many with pique and bernard who will object to the military actions to come. I pray that they are heard clearly to temper the few who are extremely blood-thirsty elements among us.

I pray that all of us will come together to support our President and country in the tough times to come. Support does not always mean complete agreement. They, not we, will make the hard choices, and our servicemen and women and their families will bear a cost equal to that being paid by the families victimized this week.

In the last few posts I've made myself quite plain to everyone. There are very few things left in this world that make me genuinely angry. What was done last week in New York and Washington was way beyond the pale. It was an act of war pure and simple and WILL get a response in kind. The lines are being drawn right now. Sides are being chosen, even in the Arab world. I am NOT happy when I hear about Arabs or Moslems being harassed or their mosques destroyed, not at all! I think I've made it clear that we are dealing with a very complex situation into which we have been drawn. We cannot automatically jump to the conclusion that EVERY Arab or EVERY Moslem is somehow responsible for what's happened. As I have said again and again, it is the EVIL IDEA that motivates evil action and for us to prevail, that EVIL IDEA must be identified and wiped out from civilized company.

I like the quote above, it's really correct. Most Americans are in the middle. I've made it pretty clear how I feel about the left; at best their merely silly, at worst they're dangerous, particularly now when our national resolve is being tested. Interesting how I was immediately castigated for my views, which proved that they my views were accurate concerning the true nature of idealism. But leftist idealism isn't the only kind around.

Here's another thing that really gets me mad; people daring to speak for God. Even though he tried to apologize for his stupid remarks, which proves that he really said them, the Rev. Jerry Fallwell, sounded just like pique, Bernard and others who say that we deserve what we got, except that he blamed the excesses of the left for it and said that God had answered these excesses. See the full article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28620-2001Sep14.html
These people are fools, maybe worse than fools. If I had been there myself I would have walked up to him and spit in his face! How dare he or anyone dare speak for God in this way? This must stop.

One thing I hope that the times ahead will do is rid American society of the LOUD VOICES of the radical left and the radical right and replace them with the QUIET reasonable voice of the kind and generous American middle.

War is a cleansing thing. In it a nation finds out what is really worth saving and what is fit to be disposed of. We will come through this and we will change the face of the world of our enemies for years to come. Our own face will be changed in the process. This conflict is NOT about getting even, it IS about compassion. The evil must be removed before the healing can occur, not before. The evil has met us in the skies above New York and Washington. It is time for those who hate us to meet our vindication in the skies above Kabul, Baghdad and other places around the middle east.

Skies?

500 sidewinder missiles are waiting.

Convential enemies with convential weapons?

I think not.

netizen wrote on September 14, 2001 06:53 PM:

Pique and Bernard,

Just a quick note to let you how much I appreciate your recent posts. After all the ugliness and sorrow of recent days, I appreciate your thoughtfulness at this time of unspeakable loss.

So netizen, which post contained the most "thoughtfulness"? Was it when Pique called our president "foolhardy" just one day after the attack? Now that was thoughtful. Maybe it was her suggestion that any military response would be "shameful". Perhaps it was her demand that another poster submit their "mysterious credentials" in order to opine. Maybe you thought that her petition to make this whole thing a matter for the criminal justice system rather than to consider it an act of war showed great insight. Perhaps it was the neat little verbal pirouette she did when she stated that Eldon was guilty of making an " erudite (not) commentary" and then chastised him for making a personal insult. You must have been really impressed when she said "if no one else here agrees with me, and this forum is a good representative sampling of general public sentiment, which it may well be, i really fear for this country." Maybe you liked her position where those that favor sitting on their thumbs possess "more thoughtfulness than those who are posting here with bombast". (I surmise that the bombast people must be the ones that favor a military style form of retribution.) Maybe you liked it best when she accused me (after all her remarks so far) of "divisive partisan politics" and "knee-jerk intolerance"? Wow, did I ever feel like a whipped puppy after she said it "doesn't do you credit, doesn't serve this discussion, and is, i feel, especially inappropriate." Shame on me.

And wasn't it rich after those barbs, that we got to listen in on my favorite radio program: Weekly Sermonette. Here is the transcript:

in my community, though we have many different points of view, we also have tolerant, respectful, civil, and even loving conversations and exchanges of perspective across the kitchen table.

we are first a community. i have allowed those with views different than mine to influence my thinking, and i'd like to think i have also influenced theirs from time to time. i have learned a great deal from people who don't think like me at all, and i bet they would willingly say the same.

it is too bad we can't talk across the virtual kitchen table here without a few people indulging in mud slinging.

Of course, she had to amend the sermon later on with this addendum in a later post:

dave, your self-righteousness and hostility are breathtaking. however did you come to have all the answers and know the one, sole truth? your posts are truly among the most offensive i have ever seen on any forum. the particulars are beneath a response.

Netizen wrote later in the same post:

As for David Burton, please take your political pamphleteering elsewhere --at least spare us your arrogance until you've outgrown your diapers.

So people that express your point of view are "thoughtful" and people with whom you disagree are "arrogant" and immature, eh netizen? Let me guess. You and Pique and Bernard are all the same people. right?

I believe that David Burton pretty well covered this territory in my absence, but just to underscore his point: liberals do not think things, they feel things. That's why their responses are so visceral rather than substantive. And as David suggested, we can lay an awful lot of our social demise and defense deterioration at the hands of liberal hearts. The above post by netizen is just a microcosm of the liberally sourced name calling posts here. When their ideas are stomped on, they attack personally. My agressive responses to Pique dealt with her actions and her suggested remedies. The worst name that I called her was "liberal" which she took as a pejorative. I volunteered that I was a conservative, which pretty much made the labels nothing more than political labels and not pejoratives, yet she dismisses my remarks as personal attacks. Pique and Bernard and Netiquette et al are hypocritical and totally blind to it because they "feel" things rather than "think" things.

I hope the rest of the Forum readers pay attention to these exchanges in this context. I thank David Burton specifically for point ing out what should be obvious to all by now. Liberal thinking has significantly hampered our nations commerce, jeopardized our safety, and unraveled our moral fabric. These people are dangerous and the rest of us ought to confront them at every opportunity. Not by personal attacks, but by challenging their failed policies and programs and pointing out the falacies in their logic. Make it your mission.

Maybe I'm a little late to check in here. At the risk of everyone attacking me like you have all unmercifully attacked Pique (while saying at the same time that everyone has a right to speak their opinion -- as long as it's the same as your opinion!) I'd like to share this email I received recently.

Dear Friends,
>>The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an
>>Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I
know
>>in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his
>>take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
>>
>>-Gary T.
>>
>>Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
>>
>>I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
>Stone
>>Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean
>>killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
>>but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage.
>>What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing
>>whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
>>
>>And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
>>from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here (the US) for 35 years
>I've
>>never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who
>will
>>listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
>>
>>I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no
doubt
>>in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New
York.
>>I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
>>
>>But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
>>government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
>who
>>took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a
>>plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you
>>think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of
>>Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only
>that
>>the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the
first
>>victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in
>>there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international
>>thugs holed up in their country.
>>
>>Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
>>answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A
>few
>>years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled
>>orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are
>>millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in
>>mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all
>>destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan
>>people have not overthrown the Taliban.
>>
>>We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
>>Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make
the
>>Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn
>>their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
>>Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care?
>>Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the
>rubble
>>of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In
>>today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to
move
>>around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those
>>disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have
>>wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a
>>strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it
would
>>only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the
>>people they've been raping all this time.
>>
>>So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
>>fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with
>>ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to
>be
>>done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
>>needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral
>>qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the
sand.
>>What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some
>>Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's
>>hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to
>>Afghanistan, we'd have to go through
>>Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would
>have
>>to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm
>>going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
>>
>>And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants.
>>That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
>>there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
>>ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
>>West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west
>>wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing
>left
>>to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably
>>wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the
war
>>would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who
>>has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
>>
>> Tamim Ansary

Dave, I must say you put your case forward very well.

Anyone here has the right to speak their opinion. That right does not come bundled with the obligation for anyone else to agree with it. Posting an opinion invites commentary, positive or negative.

Pique understands this, having had no trouble in posting opposing viewpoints to the opinions of others. Pique also is quite adept at making personal attacks on others, while simultaneously crying foul, decrying "divisiveness" when others do the same in return.

I don't see in any of these posts where pique has been ganged up on. As far as I can see, she(?) has given as much as she got in return.

I don't agree with pique. I also don't tell pique not to post here. But stating a mere disagreement with one's opinion does not equal censorship. And demands for respect ring a bit hollow when the respect does not appear to be mutual.

Dwain

I want to thank both Gary T and Tamim Ansary for bringing this perspective to our attention. I am preparing to send copies of Mr. Ansary's letter to my congressman and senators as well as others I can get to in the Bush administration. I can't assume they have this perspective, but we are approaching a critical moment in world history. I want to reiterate some of the things I said in an earlier post concerning this coming confrontation with the monsters who perpetrated this great crime against not only the United States, not just the West, but against the entire civilized world, as there were in fact people from all over the world in those buildings. New York is after all perhaps the most cosmopolitan city on earth. Many European friends of mine have called it the capital of the civilized world.

I am assuming that Mr. Ansary is correct when he says,


I said in an earlier post that one of the things we must do is to be aware that in seeking retribution for what was done and what may still be done to us, we may be walking into a trap. Mr. Ansary and I are reading from the same page especially where he says that,



Ansary goes on to describe the utter destruction of Afghanistan that has already taken place. A Canadian journalist of my acquaintance was able to sneak in and out of Iraq after Desert Storm and reports much the same thing. The problem we are dealing with is not the people, except perhaps for the Palestinian Arabs who pretty uniformly feel that the Israelis are just the latest run of outsider oppressors.

People have asked why we didn't get Saddam Husein when we had the chance? For many reasons we didn't have the chance. I am aware of at least two reasons, one of which is enough to have made it difficult or impossible to make "getting Saddam" the prime objective of the Gulf War. For one thing there was at the time a power struggle going on in the disintegrating USSR. Had the UN mandate been exceeded, it would have strengthened the hands of the hard liners in the Kremlin who would have been persuaded that had the Alliance that fought the war against Iraq been given the chance to go after them, then they would have done so. This was the primary reason why we couldn't just get Saddam. We had to show restraint then, and we probably have to show restraint here as well, though of a different kind.

Now, ten years later, Saddam Husein may in fact be dying. He will be succeeded by one of his sons, probably the worst of them who is much worse than Saddam ever was, another Bin Laden.

So if as Mr. Ansary says, and I firmly believe him, that



This is precisely what Bin Laden and the son of Saddam and all the other Islamic radicals want. They are able to motivate sentiments among their people, EVEN THOUGH THOSE SAME PEOPLE ARE BEING RUTHLESSLY EXPLOITED BY THE BIN LADENS IN THE REGION, because these leaders are able to pull all the usual Arab and Islamic strings; "we are the dispossessed of the earth, everyone treats us like dirt, etc. It's time for us to make them pay."

Turn this around and let's suppose that instead of Islam these people were Christians or Buddhists. Would it matter. They are INSANE, driven by an idealism that sees everyone living under the yoke of radical Islam with themselves living off the rest. As Mr. Ansary says,



OK, a few points.

1) There is NO DOUBT that the rest of the world, the West, could if it wished indiscriminately crush out Islam in any pitched conflict. The kinds of weapons we have, some of which were demonstrated on the battlefields of Desert Storm resulted in the most lopsided victory in history.

2) Despite the breathtaking treachery done to us, which some actually believe is beyond the capabilities of Osama Bin Laden, and hence was orchestrated behind the scenes by other nefarious factors (none of which I suppose is correct), we stand to win nothing by a wholesale devistation of the populations of the middle eastern countries. What in fact is true as I said in my earlier post was that these subject Arab populations, and those non-Arab populations in Iran as well, are awaiting a liberation from their oppressors that they cannot pull off themselves.

3) People who are forcibly subjugated, starved, kept in ignorance, and fed the LIE that the rest of the world only cares about getting their oil from them but nothing more, are far more likely to follow any strongman who shows up and promises them even a particle of fake dignity. In the coming conflict, we have the opportunity to Americanize the common people in the region without denigrating their religion, without killing them off wholesale or "bombing them into the Stone Age." Guess what? Most of them are already living in the Stone Age and people like Bin Laden are telling them that we in the rest of the world are keeping them that way or telling them that somehow living in hopeless squalor is holy.

There is absolutely no question that a military solution must follow. It is also absolutely certain that ground forces will get a look at some of the most rugged terrain in which ever to fight a pitched battle or a prolonged guerrilla campaign (which is exactly what it will be).

4) We will need to isolate the Islamic radicals from the rest of Islam. This is a difficult matter but there are cleavages in the middle east that make this possible, except for the Palestinian problem which will complicate things until a solution is finally worked out that everyone in that region will be forced to accept, because obviously nobody there will be satisfied with anything less than all of what they want.

We are looking at a quagmire. We cannot succeed if we don't make it abundantly clear that we will accept nothing less than the total unconditional surrender of the Taliban and the capture or death of Osama Bin Laden and all of his henchmen. We must make it clear TO THE PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST that there will be SEVERE retaliation for aiding these terrorists, but that just as we did in Germany and Japan, we WILL bring about a change in middle eastern societies.

We are looking into the future and seeing a lot of blood, a lot of intense conflict, but after the monsters are overthrown, we have the opportunity to reconstruct these societies as was done after World War II by the Marshall Plan and SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

I'm sorry that at this point in time I cannot see the wisdom of putting America on the defensive by forcing her and us to accept recriminations for the evils we may have been responsible for as some have suggested here and elsewhere. In the balances of human affairs, America has given more to more people around the world than any other nation in the history of mankind. This is without question and is even acknowledged by most honorable people around the world. It seems that the business of the future is upon us, this terrorist attack has roused America to action. We will not stop until we have made the people responsible pay for this. But after we are through, we had better take care of the widows and orphans, and there will be many.

[ September 16, 2001: Message edited by: David Burton ]

Dave Andr. and Dwain for the record I consider myself to be liberal minded. Liberal people are not all idiots. I know where I stand on what happened recently, and what should be done about it.

Diarmuid posted September 16, 2001 08:54 AM :

Dave Andr. and Dwain for the record I consider myself to be liberal minded. Liberal people are not all idiots. I know where I stand on what happened recently, and what should be done about it.

The word I used was "dangerous". Nowhere does the word "idiot" appear in any of my posts. And while it is not necessary for me to speak for Dwain, I think you will find that his posts have shown incredible restraint and respect to a number of people here that have not reciprocated.

If you would care to advance your ideal US response to the attack, I'm listening. It would be a refreshing change to have a liberal discuss the issue in specifics rather than broad generalities with vituperative ad hominem attacks.

Diarmuid, I've not called liberals dangerous or idiots. Neither side of the political spectrum has the market cornered on either of those descriptions.

I was, and am again, only pointing out that I didn't think that anyone was particularly "piling on" pique, or trying to deny her(?) the right to say anything. All that I saw was people exercising their equal right to disagree. I also pointed out that pique used certain tactics in her writing/argument style, then tried to assume some moral high ground, criticizing Dave for using the same styles of argument. I haven't said either of them should or should not use those forms of discussion. I haven't told either of them to shut up. I'm just saying they're both grownups, in a grownup disagreement. All I've pointed out is that a person can't take some righteous position of superiority or victimhood for getting back only the same as they have given.

I happen to agree far more with Dave than with pique or Bernard. But I haven't called them names, or told them to get lost.

Right now, I'm not picking up sides based on liberal vs. conservative, north vs south, young vs. old, urban vs. rural, or even American vs Arab. My only distinction is, are you with us, or against us? There is no escaping the choice.

People will quibble over this thing that the US did that hurt this group, or this thing that the US didn't do that hurt someone else. But these arguments are just puff, and entirely not the issue today. Everyone needs to look at the overall balance sheet. Is the world better off because of our actions, or worse? Has the concept of freedom and peace been spread to more of the world, or less because of our involvement?

Everyone has to decide who has a better track record, us or our enemies, toward betterment of the world condition. Who is it better for the world to have win this struggle, the US, or its enemies? No one is perfectly one thing or another, but on balance, who more closely represents good, and who more closely represents evil?

It is now time to make that choice, and to also realize that no matter how hard we want peace, it must periodically be paid for through force, and sacrifice. Wishing it otherwise just doesn't make it so.

Dwain