*** ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED ***
THE WAR ABROAD AND THE WAR AT HOME - By Edward L. Daley
July 12, 2004
With the early handover of sovereignty by American forces to the new
provisional government in Iraq, a tremendous landmark has been reached
in our war against terrorists and the countries that support them. This
event is clearly an important victory for the United States and for
freedom loving people worldwide, something which no sane person can
deny. Of course, sanity is not always the order of the day when one
regards the 'but-monkeys' of that new flat-earth society oft' referred
to as the mainstream media.
What's a but-monkey you ask? Pay attention to the spelling there,
because it's not what you may have first suspected. According to radio
talk show host, Laura Ingraham, a but-monkey is the kind of journalist
who seems incapable of ever reporting any positive news about the war on
terrorism without tainting his remarks with a great big,
negativity-ladened BUT! She didn't put it exactly that way herself, but
that's the gist of the thing.
You see this all the time these days in newspapers like the New York
Times, a thriving haven for but-monkeys and Bush-bashers alike. For
instance, in an article recently published by the "newspaper of record"
titled 'A Secretive Transfer in Iraq', the author of the piece writes,
"Moving the transfer date was a sensible precaution against anticipated
insurgent attacks. BUT it underscores how arbitrary the original date,
June 30, was all along." People like this just can't bring themselves to
ever give credit where credit is due... when the credit is due
Republicans, that is. I counted seven of these 'but' statements in this
one, brief article, each of which undermined the positive aspects of the
story, spinning the whole thing irrevocably toward some imagined doom
and gloom scenario.
Now, I'm not suggesting that simply using the word 'but' is a bad thing,
BUT when it's used over and over again for the purpose of accentuating
the most negative aspects of our war effort, while simultaneously
glossing over the more positive developments in that regard, the people
doing all the 'but'ing need to start 'but'ing out! You see, but-monkeys
are one group of people in this country who have decided to place their
allegiance to a particular socio-political philosophy above any
consideration for the well-being of their fellow countrymen.
They are, sadly, not the only group of this kind though. Even a relaxed
glance at a television newscast nowadays will expose you to several
more, from out-of-control activist judges to loudmouth, drug-addled,
Hollywood phonies who couldn't think their way out of a paper bag
without the assistance of a professional director. Smarmy propagandist
weasels like Michael Moore, who mask their contempt for common decency
by screaming 'freedom of speech' every time they are called to the mat
for their perversions of the truth, would fit into the latter of these
two groups, although Mr. Moore himself might well constitute a separate
group all on his own.
By any means, thanks to these and other parasites, as well as our
government controlled institutions of lower learning, America is fast
becoming a country of professional whiners, welfare junkies, litigious
crap-shooters, smut merchants, illiterate know-it-alls, and propaganda
peddlers of the basest sort.
That having been said, at least the U.S. as a whole has not sunk to the
depths of countries like modern-day (Vichy) France, which has done more
in recent years to further the causes of tyranny and injustice around
the world than most full-blown dictatorships have. I happen to think
that Jacques Chirac is almost as despicable as Saddam Hussein, but
that's just me. Granted, we've got our own governmental embarrassments
to live down, like the treasonous Congressman Jim McDermott and the
ever-contemptible Senator Robert (KKK) Byrd, however, when the chips are
down, most American politicians are still able to recognize pure evil
when they see it, and are usually prepared take action against it. That
does not seem to be the case where the French are concerned.
And, unfortunately, millions of people in the United States as well,
either cannot or will not see evil for what it is. That is as great a
threat to our survival as evil itself, in my opinion, yet the
but-monkeys and their ilk constantly attempt to draw moral equivalences
between us and the barbaric murderers who've declared war on our
country, often heaping criticism upon our leaders and our soldiers in
the field, while they understate the horrific acts of our enemies. Heck,
most of them won't even call the bastards what they are... terrorists!
These equivocating hacks habitually refer to the vicious cretins we're
fighting as "insurgents" or "militants", adopting a sort of Orwelian
newspeak that makes me want to hunt them down, one by one, and thrash
them to within an inch of their lives with the tightly rolled sports
sections of their own rag newspapers.
And, as if having to deal with the menace of the 'fourth estate' weren't
enough of a burden, we also have to contend with exasperating rulings
from the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the same day that the Iraqis
took charge of their own country, a majority of the high court's
justices decided that enemy combatants being detained at Camp X-ray in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba should be allowed to use American courts to contest
their captivity and treatment. Well isn't THAT special! I'm sure that
none of these poor, misunderstood fellows or their chums in the ACLU
would ever dream of exploiting this situation in a way that might
jeopardize our national security. *sarcasm off*
Since when do a bunch of non-uniformed belligerents from afghanistan (or
God knows where else) have the right to challenge the decisions of the
U.S. government in our own courts? That's a rhetorical question of
course, because the answer is all too obvious... since Monday, that's
when! I guess what I should have asked is what the hell were these
judges thinking?
You know, if we put half the effort into destroying terrorists that we
do into making sure the ones we catch are well treated, people like
Osama Bin Laden would be history right now. Sure, we can sit around all
day, every day immersing ourselves in the grayer areas of our laws as
they pertain to the treatment of enemy combatants, opining about who
gets what rights, and how much power should be afforded our president
during times of war. We can debate these things until the cows come
home, but eventually we are going be forced to confront the fact that
not all of the peace-time laws we've taken for granted in the past
necessarily apply since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
That's not a pleasant pill for any American to swallow, I know, but if
we aren't willing to accept narrowly applied exceptions to one or two of
those laws now, as we have on more than one occasion in the past, we may
find ourselves facing a situation wherein our government suspends,
indefinitely, more than just a few of our most basic rights. Don't think
it can happen here? Think again. The imposition of martial law is not
beyond the realm of possibility in the U.S., and if just one of the
people currently being held in a cage down in Gitmo is released because
he's able to use our own laws against us, and then later he manages to
detonate a nuclear device in midtown Manhattan, you can say good-bye to
a whole bunch of rights you probably never thought you could lose...
like the right to walk outside after dark without being shot.
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Edward L. Daley is the owner/operator of the news website The Daley Times-Post.