Election Made Simple

While surfing through my usual set of blogs and sites, I’ve been seeing quite a few comments on the election tomorrow. Most are somewhere from the middle of the road to so far off the left shoulder that us passing motorists can only see the skid marks where they left the highway. I know and like all of the people involved. They are all very bright folks in the own way. I like them and respect their opinions. I even listen when my attitude is right. Most of all, I'm glad we can all have our own opinions.

Not that anybody asked, but here is my take on this election.

We are at war. There is a large group of well funded terrorists in this world that want to see us out of there part of the world. A smaller group of those people(like Al Qaida) want to see us and our way of life dead. The first group believes that anyone who does not believe in their god as described in their book should not set foot on their land. It doesn’t matter to them that many of their neighbors encourage the presence of outsiders. They believe they are right and they will kill the innocent to make their point. This group is a problem, but at least they keep their problem in their own country which is a long way from anywhere I plan to visit.

The second group want me and you and any other Christian, westerner, non-Muslim dead. There is no room for negotiation for them. This is a much bigger problem as we found on 9/11/01. We should have learned when the USS Cole was hit, but that was a long way away, so it didn’t matter so much. We should have learned when our embassies were bombed in Africa, but again, that was over there. Before 9/11, I thought that Bin Laden was a straw-man set up by the Clinton administration to distract us from his lying and legal problems. I found out how wrong I was. (He was lying and had legal problems, but that's another post.)

So here we are today, fighting that war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It can be argued that Saddam had nothing to do with Bin Laden and that the reasons for going to war there had nothing to do with terrorism. Fine. I think you are wrong, but fine. That doesn’t change the fact that they are there now and they are fighting us. On yea, they are also dying, as they should.

Did Bush lie to get us in Iraq. It doesn't really matter because saying he did does not change the present. Let’s not forget that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. They have been found buried in the desert and reported in the major newspapers and in Senate investigations (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html for those who doubt), though buried far from the front pages. So he didn't lie about that. Were there other lies? If so, please point me to a democrat that stood up and said so before we went to war. You won't find any.

Let us also not forget that Saddam was paying Palestinian suicide bombers’ families $25000 per attack. You may have noticed that the number of bombers in Israel dropped just after our invasion. “Oh”, you may say, “but I side against Israel because (they asked for it/treat the Palestinian like dogs/fill in your own blank here).” Well I’m sorry you feel that way. Gandhi and King showed the world that you don’t need to resort to killing innocents to affect change. You need courage, and nothing more. So I’m always going to side against those who fight without uniforms and hide behind women and children and who use churches to store their weapons (Palestinian, Arab, Persian, American, whatever). These are acts of cowards. I don’t side with cowards.

Many democrats have advocated pulling out of Iraq. They bluster that President Bush when into Iraq without a plan. OK. So why is it better to pull out without a plan? I’ve yet to hear any plan from anyone wanting to pull out of Iraq. I think their only plan is to get elected. If you think that by pulling out of Iraq that Al Qaeda will make nice with us, then you need to visit lower Manhattan. It just isn’t so. They want us dead.

So if I don’t get to play on-line poker, so be it. Poker really isn't THAT important (there goes my WPBT card). If I don’t get to burn a flag to make sure more terrorists are killed, I’m willing to go for that. I may not like the inconveniences (I don’t). I may not agree with many of the changes that are taken with a goal of making us safer (I do disagree with many of the changes). But when I walk into the voting booth tomorrow and look at my choices, I have to go with the side that is killing the enemies that want to kill us and against the side who will give the other side exactly what they want. I prefer to holding my nose to arming my enemy.