From: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Date: 2/7/08, 15:51 |
This isn't really from the internet, but it might as well be, seeing
as how it's today's big internet thingy, or something. Look, I don't
have to justify myself to you. Here's Mitt Romney explaining why he's
dropping out.
But there's an important difference from [sic] 1976. Today, we are a nation at war!
This is a strange thing for a genuine movement conservative to say; it is also strange thing for a phony movement conservative like Romney to say. Was the Cold War not going on? Did the Soviets not have hundreds of nuclear missiles pointed at our cities? Does the ZOMG ISLAMOCOMMIENAZISM crowd not consider the U.S. to have been in the midst of World War III at that time, just as they consider the current fight against Islamic terrorists to be World War IV? Who am I talking about?
And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq.
This is probably the first time in history that Hillary Clinton has been slandered as holding a clear position on an issue.
They would retreat! Declare defeat! And the consequence of that would be devestating! It would mean attacks on America launched from safe havens that would make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child's play.
A little hyperbole may be excused from a presidential candidate - or, in this case, a guy who was a presidential candidate yesterday - but one may well wonder in what manner Iraq could top Taliban-era Afghanistan. The Taliban banned kites and blew up statues, for instance. I mean, they pretty much did everything it is that a bunch of wacky Muslims could possibly do.
But perhaps Romney means that Iraq will make a better safe haven for radical Islamic terrorists than Afghanistan did. It won't. Afghanistan is in the mountains, which is about the safest place a terrorist can be aside from Venus. Even Alexander the Great had problems in Afghanistan, where he was shot through the lung with an arrow. The British got sick of trying to hold onto the country back in the imperial days, and the British weren't exactly squeamish. Afghanistan is such a safe haven for Islamic radicals that it remains a safe haven for Islamic radicals six years after having been invaded by the world's foremost military power and some of that foremost military power's closest and dearest friends.