Strong Leadership in America

Folks say Donald Rumsfeld went out in disgrace. I don't see it that way. I applaud the man for attempting to win the war on terrorism mainly on strategy and technology while minimizing the unnecessary loss of life.

The old way of aerial warfare was carpet bombing and even though some may believe it is still the strategy we should embrace, I beg to differ. For every “bad guy” killed by saturation bombing, non-combatants fell in droves. With a few exceptions, targets are now annihilated where they set and often by a single bomb. This leads to spectacular demoralization of our enemies. Don’t think for a second that it doesn’t.

There's no telling how many lives on both sides are spared by fighting this way. Donald Rumsfeld is the main force behind this philosophy. Rumsfeld has been a very strong leader, especially to our enemies, as has Bush.

No one bats one hundred percent in the decision making department. An old rule of warfare says “make plans for everything and then toss them out after the first shot is fired, because they won't work in that particular situation anyway”.

In this country, if you take second place...you are a loser. NBA all-star Karl Malone once said "Yesterday, they loved me, today, they want me fired". In this country, we mock our leaders and slander our politicians using the excuse of free speech. Well, I have yet to see a bunch of folks standing up with the answers, but a whole lot with nothing more than criticism towards our leaders. Reactionary politics won’t save our country.

Partisan politicians can complain all they want, but if they don't have a solution, it's all hot air, in my opinion. I think Secretary Rumsfeld did the best he could and when he held firm in his tactics, he shouldn't be viewed as a loser by Americans, but one who did the best with what he had. I do however think it was time to try something else and I’m glad we are.

After 9-11 Americans were screaming at our government to “do something”. Dick Cheney asked what the chances were of Al Qaeda using a nuclear device inside our country and the answer was one percent. This became known as the “One Percent Doctrine” and anytime a perceived threat popped up, if there was a one percent chance of it happening, our leaders decided the American people would want them to see it as a credible threat.

If I as a father thought there was a one percent chance of someone abducting my children, would I dismiss it and still be called a good father? If my kiddos were taken, would my justification be reasonable when I stood before a judge and swore I didn’t think it was enough of a threat to take seriously?

The enemies of America want to see us fail in Iraq. Economically competing countries want to dampen American domination. Everywhere our military goes, a journalist and a video camera record the event. Some well-meaning Americans sit on their couches and point fingers at our troop’s decision to shoot a fallen enemy, instead of rendering first aid. Never mind that five minutes earlier, this same fallen insurgent was shooting and trying to kill our boys. We hobble our military with our demand for up to date war news. When the Israeli’s go to battle, they boot the journalists out and we need to do the same. Don’t call me a jingoist; I’m a realist AND a Veteran.

I’ll be honest here folks and tell you that war dictates we violently kill the enemy and if the threat is still real, we should shoot them again. It’s time to shut off the video cameras. Our terrorist enemy videotape their “kills” and use the footage to inspire more terrorists, but our videos are sterilized to be politically correct and thus, show nothing, or worse, show our soldiers and Marines doing something wrong. I am against war crimes, but shooting a fallen enemy to make sure they are truly dead is called war and I personally would not fault our soldiers, if they did it.

I voted for George Bush and I am appalled that it has become chic, hip and cool for folks to make him look inept. Leadership at that level is extremely difficult and when the cameras are pointed at a person 24-7, there will be times when they say something that can be taken wrong. President Bush gives ample ammo to critics, but our enemies are counting on us making him ineffective as a leader. We should not confuse parody with reality.

As scary as it sounds, we are probably in the fight of our Country’s life and many of us are totally clueless. Partisan politics are more important than security at home, accumulating possessions, team sports, and hobbies take a front seat in our thoughts and all the while, someone somewhere is thinking about bringing us down.

That is all they think about and will continue to do so until we fall. Allahu Akbar…