GETTING RADICAL WITH THE RADICALS, The New Art of War

America is being messed with by the bullies of the Muslim world and not taking it like a man. Instead, the United States is turning into a bunch of sissies more worried about doing the ‘right-left’ thing than in doing what is truly best for our national security interests.

Al Qaeda has America on the defensive to their offensive. Since 9/11 it’s almost as if we’ve been cowering on the playground of their world.

It may be that former President George W. Bush and Co. went too far, at best astray, in their response to that fateful September day. What President Obama and Co. seems to want to do is to take a different but equally misguided tact.

W was and O is a boy on the hostile world playground. One became the bully in response to being bullied. That’s W. The other becomes the appeaser. Guess which one. Obama’s is not a conquering mentality, but rather one of make friends with the enemy. One wonders of the childhoods that led each president to their chosen modus operandii.

In reality, W and O aren’t really all that different. Both men operate from a position of insecurity. Maybe it’s the need to triumph over an insecure nature that becomes a part of the audacity that makes a man seek the highest office in the land.

Neither temper seems to have served our country; both are based on cowardice, a characteristic that doesn’t lend itself to the strong leadership skills or the extraordinary ingenuity that is needed at a time when the enemy we face is like none that we’ve faced before.

Now with yet another near miss in which a misguided American hater was willing to blow-up his man-parts in his hatred for America, our government rings not the New Year in, but rather wrings its hands in anguish. A staggering breach in the system allowed someone who had been identified on many fronts as a danger to American interests to board an airline and nearly blow the plane to smithereens.

In the aftermath, we struggle with the question of how to plug the hole in the system?

Up against the notion of blame, as such is the nature of our current politics ~ neither political party can bear to miss the opportunity to score political points against the other even when American lives are at stake ~ the powers that be seek answers.

Certainly, searching for the solution to the breach in the security system is important. But it is hardly the only consideration concerning our losing war on terrorism. In fact, with President Obama’s decision to move more troops into Afghanistan in his escalation of the war against terrorism, the question must be explored: Are the conventional standards we are using to fight the terrorists the proper protocol in these unconventional times?

America appears to be operating with one hand tied behind its back, hampered by an antediluvian set of international rules defined by the Geneva Convention when countries were our enemies not individual gangs who themselves honor no rules of engagement. Even General MacArthur agreed you cannot fight a war with one hand tied behind your back.

In this sense, America is its own worst enemy with its adherence to antiquated international laws further weakened by its need to be politically correct.

In America’s War on Terrorism there is a noticeable absence of ruthlessness, an underlying fear of consequences not necessarily the result of action. What America needs is a sincere change in the manner in which it fights. After all, a basic rule of war is to fight fire with fire ~ not only firepower!

As we remain bound by our adherence to convention, the terrorists laugh. Whose idea was it to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) because it is an unpleasant place? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker who was willing to blow himself up because of his hatred of America was trained by men released from Gitmo thanks to the absurd bellowing of the left for ‘politically correct’ unreasonableness.

It is time for America to stop worrying about convention, the Geneva or otherwise. It is past time for America to stop playing by rules that are stacked against it.

Does the vast and conventional American military industrial complex have too much influence, impeding innovation in the way we proceed against our Twenty-first Century enemy?

Why are we reluctant to use racial profiling when our enemy is so well-defined? For those who argue that racial profiling only increases the hostility of the hostile, ask how can you possibly further increase the hostility of the likes of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and company? Those Muslims who are our friends should be willing to do what they must to protect against the radicals and their reputation as a people.

Certainly we need to review the absurdity of the spectacle to be created by trying the captured enemy in civilian courts.

And squabble about our rights to privacy when a simple scan could be the difference between 230 people blown into the universe or not? Beam me up, Scotty!

The fact is that no matter how unpleasant, the United States must be willing to do anything and everything necessary to stop the terrorists. Such talk may not be politically correct, but it is correct ~ and the only way to proceed against our unconventional enemies.

Halli Casser-Jayne is the author of A YEAR IN MY PAJAMAS WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA, The Politics of Strange Bedfellows. You can read more of her opinions @ The CJ Political Report dot com.