| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Calling All Assassins
“On November 2, the entire civilized world will be praying,
praying Bush loses. And . . .he’ll probably win, thereby
disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will
endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted
bloodshed . . . John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and John
Hinckley Jr.--where are you now that we need you?” --- Charlie
Brooker, humor columnist for the Guardian Unlimited
newspaper in Britain. The Guardian later apologized for his
“flippant and tasteless” comments which were intended as “an
ironic joke, not as a call to action.”
As assassins go, I’d settle for an unknown street punk to
whack this sniveling Charlie Brooker. Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean
to be flippant or tasteless, nor was that a serious call to action.
Call it an ironic joke within the context of a humor column.
Still, let’s stick with this Charlie Brooker thing for a moment
because he epitomizes so much of what is wrong with
contemporary Europe.
When Saddam Hussein was using rape, torture and mass
murder to control Iraq, was Charlie Brooker concerned in the
least about “unwarranted bloodshed?” How about when
Saddam was waging wars against neighboring countries, killing
roughly a million or more people in the process? Well then,
what about when Saddam openly bragged of paying $25,000
bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who kill
Jews?
If Charlie Brooker was capable of speaking intelligently
about “unwarranted bloodshed” then he might make some
small mention of such things. He might also mention, as well,
the Islamo-lunatics who have declared war on the civilized
world and whose blood-mad barbarity knows no bounds.
But Charlie Brooker is yet another of a seemingly limitless
horde of Bush-hating Euro-effetes who have gone soft in recent
decades in a climate of stifling, pacifistic nanny-statism that is
modern Europe. It’s not so much unwarranted bloodshed in
the Middle East they’re worried about. They couldn’t care less
how many Arabs are killed over there as long as it has no
negative effect on them.
What they’re worried about is that because America, under
the leadership of George W. Bush, has gotten serious about
fighting terrorism and taken the fight to its source region, al
Qaida and others may become so inflamed that they perpetrate
9/11-style catastrophic hits against them, particularly Britain,
who has helped America the most. It’s all about not rocking
the boat and hopefully keeping terrorism to a “nuisance” level.
Which is why they so desperately want John F. Kerry to win
the election. They know that Kerry will never, ever, ever wage
the kind of serious war against terrorism that the hated cowboy
Bush is doing. And maybe, just maybe, Kerry can somehow get
the crusading infidel armies out of Iraq and the world can go
back to the way it was when we didn’t go around unnecessarily
antagonizing irritable and aggrieved terrorists.
You probably remember those bygone days of yore, the ‘70s,
‘80s and ‘90s, when terrorists scurried about hither, thither
and yon, murdering a handful here, an odd dozen there, just
being a general nuisance that, while decidedly unpleasant, was
nonetheless tolerable since there had yet to be a single
catastrophic attack. Kerry remembers it all through a sweet
gauzy nostalgic haze, and he wants to take us back there, like
some cool reunion show on Nick At Nite.
The problem with reunion shows is, they’re never as good
the second time around. The actors are old, the plots are stale
and the whole thing is embarrassing. If Kerry is elected and
takes us back to pre-9/11, it could be worse than embarrassing.
It could be deadly. There’s nothing the terrorists like more
than weakness and retreat, which is why they’re praying to
Allah for a Kerry victory.
See, if ever there was a man who is skeptical of the use of
American military power, it is John Kerry. The record is there
for all to see. Yes, he once went to war, but as soon as he got out
after four months and three superficial wounds, he went back
home and soon became an ardent member of the antiwar left.
He eventually spoke before Congress and branded every
American who served in Vietnam a war criminal.
Later, after he became a senator, he opposed every Reagan
policy that, as it turned out, won the Cold War for our side in a
breathtakingly short period of time, a mere decade after the
Carter years of malaise during which the new orthodoxy had
become that we just had to find a way to coexist with evil.
Then, the first Gulf War came along and even though his
“global test” for legitimate military action was passed with
flying colors, he still voted against it, providing the usual
tortured and nuanced explanations.
Now, in order to get elected, he insists that he will hunt
down the terrorists wherever they are and kill them. But you
should believe that like you believe that cripples will leap out
of their wheelchairs if he is elected, a fantasy which John
Edwards alluded to in one of his loopier pandering moments.
Kerry also insists he’ll bring all our alienated former allies
back on board. The problem is, the only way to unalienate
them is to back down from the war on terror. It is folly to
believe that Kerry is going to sweet-talk the Eurotopian do-
nothings into suiting up and wading into Iraq to help out.
They’re simply not made out of that kind of stuff.
Any allies who want to be on board with us in any
meaningful way already are. The rest of them are either gutless
cowards, had selfish and corrupt reasons for wanting to
maintain Saddam’s dictatorship or are simply unwilling to
take risks for a potentially safer and better world. John Kerry
can no more change them than I can change the sour soul of
Charlie Brooker, columnist unextraordinaire for the Guardian
Unlimited.
“On November 2, the entire civilized world will be praying,
praying Bush loses. And . . .he’ll probably win, thereby
disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will
endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted
bloodshed . . . John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and John
Hinckley Jr.--where are you now that we need you?” --- Charlie
Brooker, humor columnist for the Guardian Unlimited
newspaper in Britain. The Guardian later apologized for his
“flippant and tasteless” comments which were intended as “an
ironic joke, not as a call to action.”
As assassins go, I’d settle for an unknown street punk to
whack this sniveling Charlie Brooker. Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean
to be flippant or tasteless, nor was that a serious call to action.
Call it an ironic joke within the context of a humor column.
Still, let’s stick with this Charlie Brooker thing for a moment
because he epitomizes so much of what is wrong with
contemporary Europe.
When Saddam Hussein was using rape, torture and mass
murder to control Iraq, was Charlie Brooker concerned in the
least about “unwarranted bloodshed?” How about when
Saddam was waging wars against neighboring countries, killing
roughly a million or more people in the process? Well then,
what about when Saddam openly bragged of paying $25,000
bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who kill
Jews?
If Charlie Brooker was capable of speaking intelligently
about “unwarranted bloodshed” then he might make some
small mention of such things. He might also mention, as well,
the Islamo-lunatics who have declared war on the civilized
world and whose blood-mad barbarity knows no bounds.
But Charlie Brooker is yet another of a seemingly limitless
horde of Bush-hating Euro-effetes who have gone soft in recent
decades in a climate of stifling, pacifistic nanny-statism that is
modern Europe. It’s not so much unwarranted bloodshed in
the Middle East they’re worried about. They couldn’t care less
how many Arabs are killed over there as long as it has no
negative effect on them.
What they’re worried about is that because America, under
the leadership of George W. Bush, has gotten serious about
fighting terrorism and taken the fight to its source region, al
Qaida and others may become so inflamed that they perpetrate
9/11-style catastrophic hits against them, particularly Britain,
who has helped America the most. It’s all about not rocking
the boat and hopefully keeping terrorism to a “nuisance” level.
Which is why they so desperately want John F. Kerry to win
the election. They know that Kerry will never, ever, ever wage
the kind of serious war against terrorism that the hated cowboy
Bush is doing. And maybe, just maybe, Kerry can somehow get
the crusading infidel armies out of Iraq and the world can go
back to the way it was when we didn’t go around unnecessarily
antagonizing irritable and aggrieved terrorists.
You probably remember those bygone days of yore, the ‘70s,
‘80s and ‘90s, when terrorists scurried about hither, thither
and yon, murdering a handful here, an odd dozen there, just
being a general nuisance that, while decidedly unpleasant, was
nonetheless tolerable since there had yet to be a single
catastrophic attack. Kerry remembers it all through a sweet
gauzy nostalgic haze, and he wants to take us back there, like
some cool reunion show on Nick At Nite.
The problem with reunion shows is, they’re never as good
the second time around. The actors are old, the plots are stale
and the whole thing is embarrassing. If Kerry is elected and
takes us back to pre-9/11, it could be worse than embarrassing.
It could be deadly. There’s nothing the terrorists like more
than weakness and retreat, which is why they’re praying to
Allah for a Kerry victory.
See, if ever there was a man who is skeptical of the use of
American military power, it is John Kerry. The record is there
for all to see. Yes, he once went to war, but as soon as he got out
after four months and three superficial wounds, he went back
home and soon became an ardent member of the antiwar left.
He eventually spoke before Congress and branded every
American who served in Vietnam a war criminal.
Later, after he became a senator, he opposed every Reagan
policy that, as it turned out, won the Cold War for our side in a
breathtakingly short period of time, a mere decade after the
Carter years of malaise during which the new orthodoxy had
become that we just had to find a way to coexist with evil.
Then, the first Gulf War came along and even though his
“global test” for legitimate military action was passed with
flying colors, he still voted against it, providing the usual
tortured and nuanced explanations.
Now, in order to get elected, he insists that he will hunt
down the terrorists wherever they are and kill them. But you
should believe that like you believe that cripples will leap out
of their wheelchairs if he is elected, a fantasy which John
Edwards alluded to in one of his loopier pandering moments.
Kerry also insists he’ll bring all our alienated former allies
back on board. The problem is, the only way to unalienate
them is to back down from the war on terror. It is folly to
believe that Kerry is going to sweet-talk the Eurotopian do-
nothings into suiting up and wading into Iraq to help out.
They’re simply not made out of that kind of stuff.
Any allies who want to be on board with us in any
meaningful way already are. The rest of them are either gutless
cowards, had selfish and corrupt reasons for wanting to
maintain Saddam’s dictatorship or are simply unwilling to
take risks for a potentially safer and better world. John Kerry
can no more change them than I can change the sour soul of
Charlie Brooker, columnist unextraordinaire for the Guardian
Unlimited.