[Drjones]

A Little Bit of History Repeating?

Thursday, February 20, 2003

By Neil Cavuto



Time for a lesson about a leader who gets panned. He wants to take on a bully. But trouble is, not many agree he is a bully.

They call the leader clueless.

The French foreign minister calls him reckless.

A Belgian diplomat says he risks ruining world order.

Opposition leaders at home call him a warmonger.

The bully himself says he not a bully and takes out ads in newspapers assuring the world he has no hostile intentions.

Those same newspapers call the leader arrogant. That he's wrong about the bully and that the leader's not in sync with the civilized world.

The Swiss pan him.

The Germans say they're offended.

Even regular folks in the leader's country say the leader's nuts. One newspaper calls him paranoid. Another, a "bellicose boob."

The leader is shunned. He won't go far, says one headline. The wrong man at the wrong time fighting the wrong war.

But this leader had it right. The bully had lied and the bully did attack. And this leader -- of an opposition party -- became the leader of a country.

You might have heard of him. His name was Winston Churchill. And the bully was Adolph Hitler.

Funny thing... history.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79135,00.html


:banghead:

[Airwolf]

Interesting timing.

I told my girlfriend the other day that lots of things about NOW are very reminiscent of the pre-WWII days, late 30's. The waffling of European governments, name calling, the resistance of the media and the left in seeing the handwriting on the wall.

History does repeat itself. Problem is the left/socialists don’t believe in studying or learning from the past, only responding to their immediate feelings and needs like some sort of plant or single cell organism. It’s left a shrinking number of people like us to raise the alarm. And, just like in countless past cycles, we will be ignored, shouted down with the particular epithets of current language and vilified as though our warnings create events rather than foretell them.

After it’s all over the left will firmly replace its head in…. the sand… and continue unabated as though nothing unusual took place.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t know as much as I do. Life is sometimes easier when you’re naive.

[Azrael256]

My personal view is that we should have leveled Mecca after the Beirut bombing. For all the brutal savagery that the Romans engaged in, their solution to the terrorism of the day was effective. Kill everything that moves, and nothing will attack you. I vote we go mess 'em up real good ASAP, and we won't have to worry about this again (at least not there... well, until we have to go mess 'em up again in 60 years.)

That being said, Bush is NOT Churchill.

[CZ-75]

Problem with leveling Mecca, or Medina, is that you've just made over a billion enemies.

Not that the terror value of the threat couldn't be useful. Should a US city get nuked by death cultists, it might warrant being employed, possibly even followed through.

[Ian]

Azrael256 - Can you explain to me how levelling a city full of innocent civilians in order to scare a handful of terrorists into behaving isn't blatant terrorism on our part?

Secondly, can you explain how flattening a city would do anything to stop terrorist attacks on us? It seems to me that such an action would just make them madder. Imagine if Osama had nuked all of New York - would it make us furious and eager for blood, or would it scare us into submission? Now, why would the effect be any different when it's us nuking them?

[Azrael256]

I don't want to scare anybody. I've really stopped caring about making people behave. They want to mess with us? Fine, they ALL die. I am sick of the ideas of "measured response," and "assymetrical warfare." We're out for blood because they blew up our buildings, with our people inside (repeatedly). It comes down to the question of who's lives you value more. Innocent Iraqis/Saudis/Afghans or innocent Americans. Without provocation, I would never consider attacking anybody. That is the difference.

Flattening a city might not stop all of it, but it will stop it from the flattened city. When the next one happens, we flatten that city. Anything after that, we flatten another city... you get the idea. This is not to say that vaporizing every city is such a great idea (I don't much care for nukes), but some kind of "salt the earth" policy would work. Each one might make them madder. I don't really care anymore. The madder they get, the easier they will be to spot.

It's not about deterrence anymore. It's about killing them before they kill us.

[Pilgrim]

"It Is Much More Secure to be Feared, Than it is to be Loved" - Niccoló Machiavelli

[LawDog]

"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear."
- Heinrich Himmler.

LawDog

[4v50 Gary]

Adolph certainly believed in terror and ordered that the Me-262, the world's first operational jet fighter, be built as a "blitz bomber" instead.

Terror doesn't win wars and our enemy isn't even a legitimate government. It is an underground organization that seeks not a seat at the bargaining table but to destroy the bargaining table itself. Yes we must kill them, but not the innocents if we can avoid it.

[BigG]

Terror doesn't win wars I beg your pardon? Read a little bit about the Romans. Unless you are meaning WARS (big bureaucratic mish moshes) instead of wars (effectively kicking the snot out of somebody until resistance is quelled). You can cow the ever-loving caca out of people using the right tactics. What do you think that cross was for? Insurrectionists and other "enemys."

Nero also said, "Let them hate me so long as they FEAR me." (Suetonius) Believe me, a lot of people, even his closest associates, feared Nero. :eek:

The fact that our countrymen have by tradition eschewed going that barbaric route does not mean it is not a heckuva fine way to crush your enemies.