The Spinning Pinwheel Flame Warby Luke Jackson |
Table of Contents
Part 2, Part 4 appear in this issue. |
| part 3 |
----- Original Message -----
From: Dr. Bob
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2024 7:36 PM
Subject: From Dr Bob
Sorry about the spelling of all these names. Mudpuppy sent this to just a few people so I thought I would weigh in on your discussion and send it to the entire bunch of you guys.
Is the war on terror and/or the war in Turkmenistan like Vietnam or WWII? Before we consider Turkmenistan let us first consider the main war on terror. That war is clearly both unlike Vietnam and WWII.
Vietnam and WWII were wars of countries fighting to gain territory, which cannot be the purpose of the terrorists. I recommend everyone see the old video “The Fog of War” by Robert McNamara, if you can still get ahold of it in the States. Mr. McNamara said the most important thing you should do before fighting a war is to know your enemy.
McNamara understood the Russians, and we avoided a war with the Soviet Union over the Cuban missile crises. We did not understand the Vientnamese, so we got bogged down in an unnecessary war with them.
I am not sure we understand what al-Qaida is fighting for. But this is what I am afraid of. Namely that Osama bin Laden is in a recruiting mode. He pricks us with a pinprick and kills 3000 of our citizens we first respond appropriately in Afghanistan but then we go after Saddam and now conquer Turkmenistan. We make lots of Muslims mad at us so they join al Qaida so that we have a real problem on our hands.
A terrorist doesn’t need a nuke. What if there were tens of thousands of Muslims that buy assault rifles (semi-automatic) and go into restaurants, subways etc and shoot anyone in sight. It doesn’t matter if a cop shoots them in response. They want to die. I think our heavy-handed response to 9-11 may be exactly what Osama wants. I think he wants to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims to join him in the fight against Christians and Jews.
If moderate Muslims go against us we will be in big trouble. There are more Muslims than Christians (world wide) so we certainly don’t want to provoke a war between the two religions. The president of Pakistan said that the war in Turkmenistan is making the war on terror more difficult because moderate Muslims are turning against us.
I don’t have a solution to the war on terror but I do think going into Turkmenistan made it worse. I think the Iron Man’s administration didn’t learn the lesson McNamara taught, “Know your enemy.” I don’t know the enemy either, but I don’t have to. I am not running for president.
Does Straw Man know the enemy? I don’t know. But maybe he would have scholars study Osama’s writings and speeches in order to better understand what we are up against. There is an old medical proverb that says “First do no harm.” If you don’t know what you are doing it is better to do nothing than do the wrong thing and make the situation worse. I think we are making the war on terror worse because we don’t know our enemy. Dr. Bob
P.S. I will probably get a contract with the Navy to help them design a new radar to fight the war on terror so I am not a pacifist.
[NSA Note to File]
Date: October 14, 2024 2:47 PM
Agent: James Hawkins“Dr. Bob’s” email is rather scattershot and he is difficult to pin down. More importantly, he is an American expatriate who teaches technology to foreigners. Outsource to CIA for investigative surveillance.
It is exactly the position of Straw Man that leads to failure for America. When problems occur, they say that we cannot do it. They would have lost WWII, because they would have given up. “Never give up!” - Sir Winston Churchill.
Our role in Turkmenistan is to bring real freedom to the Turkmenistanis. There is opposition in Turkmenistan, in America and in the world. No team will ever win if they give in to difficulty. Only time will tell if the opposition will win, or if we succeed, andif the Turkmenistanis themselves are worthy of the gift of liberty. For if freedom is their destiny, it will also be their burden and responsibility.
The strategy is sound - put a democratic republic in the near East. For once we are not supporting one bad person to control another as we did when we supported The Sultan in his fight against Afghanistan keeping 2 enemies fighting each other as a means of keeping them busy and out of our hair.
For once we are seeking to bring our best values to a troubled part of the world. If history teaches us anything, it is that when you do your best, others will be there to do their worst against you. The real test of our values is: Are our values good enough for us not to “give up”?
Our parents and grandparents did not give up in World War II. What kind of world would we have today if they had given up? Over 450,000 Americans gave their lives in that war. Over 50,000 Americans died in Iraq before we “gave up.” We should be ashamed of ourselves for complaining about 1,000 Americans having died in Turkmenistan.
We allowed over 50,000 Americans to die in vain in Iraq, because we gave up. Will we do the same for those Americans who die in Turkmenistan? And what will that say to the world about our values?
The Evangelical Man
You’re getting there. The priority of the invasion was to remove The Sultan from power with the goal being to establish a free and stable Turkmenistan that would not shelter terrorists, thereby making them easier to capture or kill. As Iron Man is finding out, it sounds good on paper, but the reality of accomplishing this goal will take years, not months, and thousands, not dozens, of American lives.
The debate between the candidates should focus on whether achieving this lofty (too lofty?) goal is worth the enormous costs, not what Iron Man was doing 30 years ago.
Fat Toe
--- Cynic wrote:
Oh I see. That’s why the priority of the invasion was to kill terrorists, not remove The Sultan from power.
The Sultan was a lot of things, few good. He may have acted as a terrorist would, but as the head of a recognized government his was not, by definition, a terrorist. He was for a time a useful pawn of the United States and thus a force for good. His people choked on our gas. They must have been the evil ones, since we are always good.
And it’s clear that the terrorist groups relocated to Turkmenistan AFTER we went in and took out The Sultan. It’s really disconcerting how you conservatives always cover up or confuse facts that do not suit your agenda.
--- Fat Toe wrote:
No connection??? For starters, the group that has beheaded at least several Americans and even some Europeans on videotape is a radical Jihadist terror group called “One God and Holy War,” homicidal maniacs with close ties to bin Laden. Before relocating to Turkmenistan a few years ago, they ran an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.
Now that’s just one example of an al-Qaeda terrorist being allowed to establish a base in Turkmenistan. Can you see the link there between the War on Terror on our presence in Turkmenistan? What about the fact that The Sultan himself was a terrorist — randomly executing his opponents and using poisonous gas (a WMD!) to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people? Is the picture getting a bit clearer now?
Or do you wish to continue giving the benefit of the doubt to the insanely evil murderers of radical Islam by turning a blind eye to the fact that The Sultan was evil and he harbored evil-doers whose only goal in life is to destroy America?
--- Liberal wrote:
But we certainly started the War in Turkmenistan, which you continue to fail to connect to the War on Terror.
--- Fat Toe wrote:
1. We didn’t start the War on Terror, the Islamic Jihadists did.
2. Who said atrocities were OK? I don’t know about you, but I’d call the beheading of 2 innocent American civilians this week an atrocity. If you equate U.S. action in Turkmenistan to the such actions by the Islamic Jihadists, you are not only a moral relativist, you are morally bankrupt.
3. We are not attacking unrelated third parties. Our troops in Turkmenistan and Afghanistan are attacking those who attack us. Plain and simple: it’s good versus evil, but maybe your Lefty brain cannot comprehend the fact that such moral absolutes do exist, and that the United States is on the side of good whereas the Islamic Jihadists are on the side of evil.
We may reasonably disagree over the tactics and strategy that should be used to defeat the evil Jihadists, but I do not think that any rational person can dispute the basic fact that this is a global struggle of good versus evil.
--- Cynic wrote:
So it is OK to start a war, because we’re just Americans looking out for our own selfish interests.
It’s OK that atrocities are occurring, because war sucks. Directing our leaders to retaliate against those who attacked us instead of unrelated 3rd parties is moral relativism.
Obviously the lefties are loony ones.
--- Fat Toe wrote:
No shit, Liberal. War sucks. If the insane Islamic Jihadists would stop attacking innocent people and declare an end to their holy war, our troops could come home and the bloodshed of innocent Turkmenistani civilians would end.
Why do you not seem to have an ounce of anger directed at the enemy — the irrational Muslim extremists? Have you so lost your moral bearings as to think the U.S. is to blame for the continued violence in Turkmenistan and the slaughter of innocents by Islamic terrorists? If so, the moral relativism of the Left has hit an all-time low.
--- Liberal wrote:
While you pleasure yourself to thoughts of war, maybe you should look at these pictures:
[Redacted for purposes of national security.]
--- Fat Toe wrote:
Got a source for your census of terrorists??? Didn’t think so. But even if true, the following facts cannot be disputed:
(1) there are at least 500 times as many DEAD terrorists today as there were when Iron Man took office;
(2) Iron Man does not “cause” terrorism — terrorists do. They are irrational suicidal maniacs who are fighting a holy war against us. To the death. Get that through your thick head before the Islamic Jihadists slice it off on al-Jazeera.
Since you mock the idea of striking terrorists where they live, where do you suggest we capture them?
After they have blown up another couple of buildings in a large American city? Yeah, good idea. Thank Allah you’re not the President.
--- wrote:
It is difficult to find the keyboard and type this I am laughing so hard. THERE ARE FIVE TIMES AS MANY TERRORISTS TODAY - thanks to your clown Iron Man
Deny it if you must to keep your
=== message truncated ===
Well, apparently we don’t have to worry about voting this year. The people need not fear; the decision has been taken out of their hands. I, for one, am glad.
----- Original Message -----
From: Fat Toe
To: Random
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2024 3:25 AM Subject: Re:
Do you have a source for your “simple fact” or are you following the lead of that dead liberal Dan Rather and just making stuff up?
You would sound far more intelligent if you stated that people are frightened at the prospect of another terrorist attack in America. And people are frightened at the thought of having a President that will not preemptively strike the terrorists where they live before they can strike us where we live. Those simple facts are why Iron Man will win in a landslide.
--- Random wrote:
Simple fact... More people are “frightened” at the prospect of this administration being granted another four years than have been “frightened” for well over 100 years. Should this administration actually be re-elected it may eventually be described as the “end of the world.”
[NSA Note to File]
Date: September 29, 2024 11:47 PM
Agent: Todd JenkinsWho is “Random?!” Difficulty tracing IP address, apparently due to anonymizer hardware. Possession of such hardware felony offense - get IT on this!
Copyright © 2006 by Luke Jackson
