Saturday, January 21, 2006

It seems that Osama Bin Laden, like George Bush, believes that those who are angry at Bush are Osama's allies. I say they both are seriosuly mistaken.

The speaker said Bush should have paid attention to polls that showed most Americans want U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq instead of saying that it's better to fight the terrorists on their land rather than on American soil.

I was one of those inclined to think Bush was mistaken in his decision to invade Iraq. After seeing some of the successes we have had because of military initiatives on a lower level, sometimes despite the Bush administration, I suspect I may have been wrong. Not that there aren't other things we could do to undermine Bin Laden which we should have started trying before resorting to war in Iraq - but none of those were advocated by the Democrats either.

Osama directed two of his four murderous hijacking teams at New York State, two at Washington DC, and none at Waco Texas - or even Houston Texas. If he's forgotten why, that is his mission accomplished banner - his empty declaration of victory.

Liberals need to remind him why he feared the twin towers. So how should a Democratic president strangle Osama once in for all?

Even some otherwise sane people somehow seem to think Osama is a voice for Arab pride and dignity. It is amazing how deep this sort of feeling can reach - many North Korean refugees who left to feed their families still seem to have some sort of idea that their former 'dear leader' is a hero for standing up to the USA. The next US President should lavishly praise the leadership of Dubai - old and new - for the economic achievements of their nation. Too many nations, like Iran, seem to believe owning a nuclear bomb is the best route to international respect.

A Democratic President would be free to frankly state that Bush drastically underestimated the difficulty of the task before him. We should be prepared to keep troops in Iraq for periods comparable to Japan and Germany. This would be tricky - but I believe that if John Murtha were treated with respect and included in classified briefings it could be done. We should start increasing the size of the military. It should no longer be considered patriotic to hate the US government (big or small) or to desire to 'starve the beast'. If we can rebuild Iraq we can rebuild America.

We need to seriously improve the efficiency of cars and trucks. Not that much oil is used to generate electricity now, so that is the major area in which waste can be eliminated. Iran funds terrorists almost openly - and few outside Saudi Arabia would deny a great deal of money makes it's way from there to Osama's organization. If the price of oil went back to thirty dollars a barrel both of these would continue - but the funding cut would still be a heavy blow.