Is Terrorism a Mortal Threat?

Truth-Bringer

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Is Terrorism a Mortal Threat?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

It may have been politically incorrect to publish the thoughts on the sixth anniversary of 9-11, but what Colin Powell had to say to GQ magazine needs to be heard.

Terrorism, said Powell, is not a mortal threat to America.

"What is the greatest threat facing us now?" Powell asked. "People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?"

History and common sense teach that Powell speaks truth.

Since 9-11, 100,000 Americans have been murdered – as many as we lost in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq combined. Yet, not one of these murders was the work of an Islamic terrorist, and all of them, terrible as they are, did not imperil the survival of our republic.

Terrorists can blow up our buildings, assassinate our leaders, and bomb our malls and stadiums. They cannot destroy us. Assume the worst. Terrorists smuggle an atom bomb into New York harbor or into Washington, D.C., and detonate it.

Horrible and horrifying as that would be – perhaps 100,000 dead and wounded – it would not mean the end of the United States. It would more likely mean the end of Iran, or whatever nation at which the United States chose to direct its rage and retribution.

Consider. Between 1942 and 1945, Germany and Japan, nations not one-tenth the size of the United States, saw their cities firebombed, and their soldiers and civilians slaughtered in the millions. Japan lost an empire. Germany lost a third of its territory. Both were put under military occupation. Yet, 15 years later, Germany and Japan were the second and third most prosperous nations on Earth, the dynamos of their respective continents, Europe and Asia.

Powell's point is not that terrorism is not a threat. It is that the terror threat must be seen in perspective, that we ought not frighten ourselves to death with our own propaganda, that we cannot allow fear of terror to monopolize our every waking hour or cause us to give up our freedom.

For all the blather of a restored caliphate, the "Islamofascists," as the neocons call them, cannot create or run a modern state, or pose a mortal threat to America. The GNP of the entire Arab world is not equal to Spain's. Oil aside, its exports are equal to Finland's.

Afghanistan and Sudan, under Islamist regimes, were basket cases. Despite the comparisons with Nazi Germany, Iran is unable to build modern fighters or warships and has an economy one-twentieth that of the United States, at best. While we lack the troops to invade Iran, three times the size of Iraq, the U.S. Air Force and Navy could, in weeks, smash Iran's capacity to make war, blockade it and reduce its population to destitution. Should Iran develop a nuclear weapon and use it on us or on Israel, it would invite annihilation.

As a threat, Iran is not remotely in the same league with the Soviet Union of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, or Mao's China, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan, or even Mussolini's Italy.

And why would Tehran, which has not launched a war since the revolution in 1979, start a war with an America with 10,000 nuclear weapons? If the Iranians are so suicidal, why have they not committed suicide in 30 years by attacking us or Israel?

What makes war with Iran folly is that an all-out war could lead to a break-up of that country, with Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis going their separate ways, creating fertile enclaves for al-Qaida recruitment and training.

Yet, while talking common sense, Gen. Powell himself reverted to cliché. "America could not survive without immigration."

But this is nonsense. From 1789 to 1845, we had almost no immigration, before the Irish came. Did we not survive? From 1925 to 1965, we had almost no immigration. Yet, we conquered the Great Depression, won World World II, became the greatest power on earth and ended those four decades with an Era of Good Feeling under Ike and JFK unlike any we had known before.

Was the America of the 1940s and 1950s in which Colin Powell grew up in danger of not surviving for lack of immigration?

In our time, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Czechoslovakia have split apart. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia have broken up into two dozen nations. Terrorism had nothing to do with it. Tribalism had everything to do with it.

Race, ethnicity and religion are the fault lines along which nations like Iraq are coming apart. If America ends, it will not be the work of an Osama bin Laden. As Abraham Lincoln said, it will be by our own hand, it will be by suicide.

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Another conservative gets it right. Again, this is why guys like Colin Powell leave the Bush administration. It's not that Bush won't allow people to voice disagreement, it's that he ALWAYS ignores those who disagree with him.
 
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Truth, I appreciate you trying to create some fodder here but you've got to try and tone down these thread-starting binges. Get out there and contribute to some of the already existing threads in addition to starting new ones.
 
I have long been a fan of Colin Powell, and have great admiration and respect for him. It was a shame the way he was treated in his service to this President. I think Powell would have made an excellent President himself. He is right, and I hate to admit it, but I also agree with Pat Buchanan. I would point out under fear, we have allowed our lives to be changed somewhat and our liberties to be put in jepordy. If on 9/10/01 one would tell OBL that 6 years after the act, he would still be an alive, free man, with Americans dying daily in Iraq, with thousands to this date, and probably a trillion dollars spent as a result of this all. He wouldnt believe it would have had the effect it has.
 
Truth, I appreciate you trying to create some fodder here but you've got to try and tone down these thread-starting binges. Get out there and contribute to some of the already existing threads in addition to starting new ones.

Never seen a forum where posting less than 3 topics per board was deemed excessive. What is the official rule for number of posts per day, by the way?
 
I could give a twat about Colin. His talent was being a yes man and he became a wealthy millionaire for doing that. However, I have watched a mania concerning Islamic terrorism. Kind of funny coming mostly from cowards who wouldn't go over to Iraq and help contribute to the screw up we have wrought.
 
I would disagree with those sentiments Hun. Powell fought bravely for this country in Vietnam. He was a leader among the officers that tried to change the mentality in the military during the Vietnam years. His doctrine for going to war is successful when it is listened to, Bush 41 got it right, junior didnt listen. Also why are you looking down on him for being successful? After 25+ years as a military officer, raising to the highest post in the military possible. I think he deserves at least a token amount of respect from every American.
 
I would disagree with those sentiments Hun. Powell fought bravely for this country in Vietnam. He was a leader among the officers that tried to change the mentality in the military during the Vietnam years. His doctrine for going to war is successful when it is listened to, Bush 41 got it right, junior didnt listen. Also why are you looking down on him for being successful? After 25+ years as a military officer, raising to the highest post in the military possible. I think he deserves at least a token amount of respect from every American.

Colin's bravery in Vietnam was being a paper pusher who tried to conceal the My Lai massacre. Rising in rank in the military is a combination of who you know, who you blow, and how well your lips are sealed. I've dealt with too many retired career officers to offer respect for their sociopathic, inept talents. I reserve my respect for the officers from World War II prior. (though I give kudos to those 1950s ones who took on the flurry of sci-fi monsters)
 
Hun, although I sometimes disagree with you, I still have respect for your posting. But I must say that is an absolute cheap shot at Powell. It was 5 years before My Lai that Powell was serving as an advisor in Vietnam, and was wounded in action as a result of it. IIRC Powell wasnt even in country when My Lai happened, he was supposed to look into the allegations. I wont sugar coat what he said, and I think he knows that it was wrong. One thing I mark as a good and honorable person is thier ability to admit thier wrong and take action to make it as right as they can. He did do that. His actions in the first gulf war I think speak for itself on that issue. War is a nasty creature, nobody likes it, it is horrible.
I am quite curious as to why you save your respect for military officers from before WWII? Makes little sense to me. It was in those days that the difference between a officer and a soldier was very arbitrary. The appointment to military acadamies was not largely based on merit but instead who you know. But also, I think few would disagree that there are much fewer human rights violations especially on a large scale in modern times than at any other in history. Would you have more respect for aristrocratic, based on who you know appointments and commissions, and often they went to people who were underqualified, disinterested or simply butchers.
 
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Bunz,

I don't believe we have had honorable justification for war since Korea. Our military has become a part of the very thing President Eisenhower warned us about. I believe the Gulf War was a farce. The Bush I adminstration did not indicate to Saddam that by his invading the Kingdom of Kuwait that we would object. It was as if he was set up for how we responded. Powell was nothing more than a bureaucrat while Swartzcoff was the frontline manager.

Between Colin's sweetheart, Buffalo television station deal that made him wealthy and his spawn's crooked tenure at the FCC, I have no respect for him.

He lied when he presented bogus evidence that helped to start this entire Iraq invasion. Please don't tell me he was duped. If he didn't know early on as to Bush's devious, dishonesty as a person, then I would add that he was stupid and likes to consort with trash.
 
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