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John Has A Long Moustache

President Bush received a mandate at the completion of the election. Not the one in November, but the one that happened three days ago. Once again, President Bush is using his own script, rather than the one prepared for him, and those who are still reading their version of the script are mystified at how he operates.

After 9/11, the European and American left mindset said we should look into our hearts and see that it was in fact our own fault. It was our support of Israel that caused the violence; it was our capitalist system that resulted in our own deaths.

President Bush decided to do something else. President Bush decided to set different parameters for the game in which all presidents since Carter had stepped into and failed to resolve. Sure, the left gave us our blood lust for Afghanistan, but only on the condition that we “get Osama Bin Laden”. Despite the actions of the Taliban and their horrible track record with human rights, the left insisted that we leave them alone, insisting that any atrocities that occurred in Afghanistan were only carried out in our name by warlords that we controlled.

The left and their puppet media outlets told the world that we were in a “Vietnam-like quagmire, three weeks into the war. They told us the Arab street would rise up and we would be slaughtered in the hills of Afghanistan. They told us not to attack during Ramadan, as it was a holy time, and that Masar-al-Sharif was a holy city and we could not attack it or enter it.

After we were successful in routing the Taliban, they then told us we could never pacify the Afghans. They told us it would degrade into a “civil war” and that only Kabul was under control and that drug warlords really ran the country, and they, of course, were controlled by the CIA.

They told the world we would never support an independent government, that President Karzai and his government were simply “puppets”, doing what they were told.

Then, elections came. People stood in line in defiance of all the threats of violence, all the predictions of low turnout, all the racist claptrap that said, “Islamic people don’t want to vote”. They did it without the help of ex-president Carter, and his merry band of UN observers.

And with the reality of elections in one of the most backwards places in the world, a place that has ground up empire after empire, the media packed up its camera bags and ran out of there so fast they quickly forgot about all of their predictions of disaster. There would be no “mea culpa” from those who had predicted disaster. No bad news is not good news to the media, its simply news that hasn’t happened yet. They still wait today for the “civil war” that never came. They still wait for the refugee disaster that never happened.

They simply rolled up their microphones and video equipment and their hackneyed half assed reporting and encamped in Kuwait, to report the story of Americas next great attempt at empire building, Iraq.

The “Arab Street” however, could not be reached for comment.

Iraq, it was said was the home of the vaunted Iraqi Republican Guard. It was said that Saddam controlled great and powerful military that could cause America to become bogged down “just like Vietnam”.

7 days into the invasion, Media pundits began to use the word ‘Vietnam-like quagmire” to describe how the US military had become slowed by the terrain of Iraq. They said we could expect the defense of Baghdad to resemble the defense of Stalingrad by the Russians in World War II.

They winced when American flags were seen waving from tanks. They gasped at the sight of Iraqi citizens began to welcome in no uncertain terms Americans into cities and towns all across Iraq.

In a state of near panic, the left and their puppet media began to change the story from liberation and freedom for the Iraqi people to one of imposed degradation of the poor 3rd world people of Iraq under American occupation. America and her illegal invasion caused the looting; America caused the lack of electricity, caused the lack of water. America itself was responsible for the insurgency that was growing. Before Americas invasion, Iraq was like a pastoral exhibit in Disney’s EPCOT; all happy people living under the aegis of the benign sovereign leader, the beloved Saddam, who opposed America, and thus, was wholly virtuous in the eyes of the left.

They said we would never give up control of the 2nd largest oil reserve in the world. They said we would never ever allow free elections that may elect an Iranian friendly government.

We did. We never blinked; we just went ahead with what we had always planned to do, what we always said we would do. And that was the most shocking thing to some people, that the government of the United States meant what it said, and said what it meant, upsetting thousands of years of international behavioral understanding between states.

The people of Iraq responded, braving bullets and bombs and voted to form the government that will make its own constitution. A government formed by the will of the people and based, not on heredity or title or revolution, but law, formed on a written constitution. The people of Iraq by taking this simple act now understand that there might be a few terrorists, but there are far more people who are on their side.

And yet once again, the “Arab Street” could not be reached for comment.

But quietly in the souks and backstreets of the Islamic world, the “Arab street” is noticing. Europe chooses to look the other way, or to openly mock the United States, but the Arab and Islamic world is beginning to take notice.

What they understand is this, President Bush says what he means and means what he says.

Tonight, President Bush said something that is ringing like “a fire bell in the night” across the dinner tables of the Arab world. I had to read it in the transcript three times to be sure that what I thought I heard was real. He said:

The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.

This is the equivalent of the Babe Ruth “called shot”, and yeah, President Bush did hit it out of the ball park, because he then said this:

And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.
Ka-Blam, right out over the fence and into the parking lot. My god, do you realize what this has to sound like to the ears of the Shia in Iran? Let’s understand something, they just heard the man who leads the United States say “if you rebel against your masters – we will support you”. That may not have been the message that the President sent, but that is sure as hell the one that was delivered to the people of Iran.

Iran shares its borders with two countries that have been liberated by America. Iran is a country run by a mullah-cracy that established its power by attacking the US in its institutions and its culture. Unfortunately for the mullahs of Iran, but fortunately for us, the country with the largest expatriate Iranian population is, The United States of America. Now that very same country has decided to call openly for their overthrow. Poor Mullahs, they are soon to be out of a job..."Great Satan" indeed...

If that is the message he wanted to send, we had all better get ready for one hell of a busy spring. If you think that things are going to calm down for awhile, I got news for you, its my guess that the next four years are going to make the first four years look like the heady days of the Coolidge administration all over again.

Terrorism is at its heart, a system of extortion. In Dune, Frank Herbert described it this way “ He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”. Terrorists have been using extortion against their host governments as a way to generate revenue. For a given amount of money each year, the terror groups would aim their organizations away from the host governments. The host governments could use the terror groups as an effective “cutout” by which they could impact the foreign policy of other countries, which would normally not give them the time of day without any possibility of retaliation.

President Bush has discovered the one thing that terrorists live in fear of, not death or defeat at the hands of the infidels, but the removal of friendly host governments, both as a source of revenue, and as a way to receive safe passage. Democracy, far from being shunned by Arabs is apparently all the rage. If Arabs will brave death to place a simple vote, in places as far apart and different as both Afghanistan and Iraq, who can say that Islam doesn’t really support Democracy.

President Bush has retrained the Islamic “dogs of war”, and sent them after their masters.
In the past year, we’ve all been speculating if it was going to be Iran or Syria next on the Presidents agenda. I think the Presidents answer to that question is a clear one word answer:

“Yes”.

I suspect Syria will negotiate, but watch Iran. I’ve got a feeling it’s about to explode. I think President Bush just lit the fuse with tonight’s speech.

Posted @ February 02, 2005 10:42 PM | Current Affairs

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