And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?

Today there was a big attack on a U.S. military installation in Iraq following a fairly bloody weekend of civilian bomb deaths. You see, the Iraqi elections are coming up soon and the terrorists (Sorry, I won't refer to them as insurgents. That gives them too much legitimacy.) are ramping up their merciless attacks in an attempt to get them stopped or so ineffective as to be deemed illegitimate. Already the weak among us are lamenting the cost of our efforts in Iraq. There have been over one thousand Iraq War dead. Put a thousand people in a room and it looks like a lot. Compare it to other wars in terms of what has been accomplished and it is miniscule. We have to come to the realization that this is unlike any other conflict. This is a battle in which a loose confederation of a very few non-military people can inflict great numbers of casualties to both U.S. forces and Iraqi and foreign civilians alike. I just wish people would get as pissed off as I am. Maybe they are, but a few lily-livered whiners seem to get more attention. Rather than respond with a sense of outrage and retaliation for such acts, the reaction of the weak-willed is one of cowardice and retreat. The big picture eludes them. Americans have fought and died to liberate people all over the world. We are doing it again. There is always a cost. It remains to be seen if that cost will produce the desired result, but we should give our soldiers and the Iraqi people the chance to sow the seeds of freedom in a region that is sorely lacking. The intense media coverage as created a multiplier to the casualty numbers. Each soldier's death seems to be multiplied by one hundred. We have experience so few casualties considering the successes and many of the deaths in the past year have been the result of terrorist attacks. But we are a fat and lazy nation with no concept of sacrifice. Our prosperity gives us nothing else to be very worried about. The events of September 11, 2001 have faded into a hazy memory. We just want to crawl into a fetal position and hope the world turns out okay. Sorry, folks. The threat that faces the globe is greater and more insidious than ever before. No amount of closing our eyes and ears can make that go away. In fact, a display of weakness will only make things worse. There is very little that we ordinary American can do in this war effort. Re-electing George Bush certainly helped, but beyond joining the armed forces which isn't for everyone, what is there? It is a good thing that we are not fighting bands of terrorists on the streets of America. If we were, what would be your reaction? I've never killed anyone. I've never even thrown a punch in anger. But I would have no problem taking up arms and killing a terrorist who threatens any of us. Anyone with me?

And I thought we would have learned from Vietnam that the way to lose a war is to run it with a political mindset with a healthy dose of an opposition media. This war is being forced through the grinder that is the American political machine. Some Iraq War opponents are the ordinary anti-war pacifists who oppose any war. Fine, whatever. But I see the vast majority of them as Bush haters who cannot see fit to support the man as he tries to accomplish a great feat. Complain about the media and flag-draped coffins. Complain about Rumsfeld and the signatures on condolence letters. Complain about "atrocities" in Abu Gharib or Guantanamo. What was it that George Patton said about not ever winning a war by dying for your country but by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his? It's time to start fighting this war like a war. The terrorists (who are not fighting for any country but for an evil idea) know we won't because they are fighting a wholly different type of warfare, one that hides behind innocents. But the interim leader of Iraq should come out in the media, including Al Jazeera, and say that any time there is an attack on Iraq or coalition forces coming from a certain area of town, that part of town will no longer exist. We have been trying to surgically pick out the bad guys from a larger group of people in an attempt to save innocent lives. A lot of bad guys live on to do more damage because of it. Under the new plan, the bad guys will die. Some good Iraqi guys will die as well. If they know what's good for them they will turn in the bad guys and save themselves. Or better yet, they can kill the bad guys. As long as they are passive in the attempt to root out the terrorists they should be seen as complicit. Eventually we will be left with Iraqis who want a peaceful free Iraq, not Iraqis who are just waiting to see who wins. "Sure, that's easy for you to say in the comfort of your home." Yes it is. But would you just sit by if your neighbor was shooting at innocent people and blowing up policemen or would you help the law in their efforts to capture or kill them? Hey, Joe Iraqi, if you aren't helping us, get the hell out the way. There just might be a missile whistling past your ear.

And another thing...

Noted old bag Susan Sontag died yesterday, December 29, 2004. I really could not care less about this death more than any other. To be honest I feel much sadder about the passing of thousands upon thousands of south Asians I never knew from the tsunami than this hag biting the dust. But I am interested in the media's description of her. From the Associated Press: "Author and social critic Susan Sontag, one of the most powerful thinkers of her generation and a leading voice of intellectual opposition to U.S. policy after the Sept. 11 attacks, died on Tuesday at a New York cancer hospital." When I first heard the news on the radio, she was called an author and intellectual, as if being an intellectual is a job of some sort. I got to thinking about intellectuals. We keep hearing about them, especially with the Iraq War and their opposition, but what exactly is an intellectual? Well let's take a gander at the dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines it as "given to study, reflection, and speculation" via the "creative use of the intellect", which is "the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will". Hmm, that sounds about right. How about intelligence? Well, the dictionary defines that as "the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations" and "the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria". Do you see the difference? An intelligent person uses reason to deal with things that happen. An intellectual thinks about things but does or produces nothing. I'd say that's spot on. When you think of intellectuals, leftist professors, authors and activists usually come to mind. These are people who produce little more than the wonders of what they think is their contribution to society, their thoughts. Whoopee! How about actually doing something for society? I know what you are thinking. I included activists in my list of intellectuals. An activist by the very nature of the term is active in doing something. Well not necessarily. While some activists do things like operate kitchens for the poor or run other kinds of charities for the downtrodden, they would not really be called intellectuals. Intellectual activists tend to be called activists because they are actively opposing something. That active opposition usually comes in the form of a protest march or an editorial in the New York Times or some other ineffective use of their superior intellect. They can usually be found in a little crowded office somewhere with books stacked in no particular order on every wall, thinking about ways things could have been done. Not in the practical world mind you, but purely in theory. Socialists tend to be intellectuals. Socialism does not work in the cold harsh light of the reality, but they cling to it because it looks good on paper. And wouldn't it be grand if it did work? I would much rather leave important decisions to intelligent people that to intellectuals. Social Security and tax reform, fiscal and foreign policy, you name it. President Bush and to some extent conservatives on the whole are roundly criticized by the intelligencia for not being like them, for not being thinkers. Intelligent conservatives (and intelligent liberals for that matter) do things in the real world. They do not simply dream up grand theories and utopian ideals that run counter to reality. Thinkers whose thoughts have practical application such as scientists, mathematicians, and so on are intelligent. Thinkers whose thoughts have no practical application beyond the imaginary sterile laboratories of a university sociology department or a publishing house are intellectuals. Well anyway, today there are fewer of them than yesterday.

And another thing...

Take me back! or I'm running out of clever ways to say "Go to the next page"