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The US is No Longer a Paper Tiger

By Amber Pawlik 

Those plotting the destruction of American and Israel have been pushing our buttons for several decades.  They pushed and watched, while we did nothing.  The effect of our appeasement culminated in the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.  Here is a small list of terrorist activities and the United States’ response to it. 

In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini kidnapped 52 U.S. diplomatic personnel in Iran and held them hostage. Carter's reaction was stumbling inaction. 

In 1996, nineteen U.S. soldiers were killed in their barracks in Saudi Arabia – evidence showed that Iran sponsored the attack.  Clinton did nothing as he wanted to “improve relations” with the mullahs running the Iranian government. 

Osama bin Laden’s actions have included but are not limited to the following:  the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which killed 6 and injured 1000; the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5000; and the 2000 bombing of USS Cole, which killed 17 and injured 3.  Clinton promised that those who were responsible would be hunted down and killed.  But, as observed by Rush Limbaugh, Bill Clinton “hunted down” Bill Gates harder than he did Osama bin Laden. 

This ugly history of US appeasement came to a halt with the new Bush administration and especially on December 14, 2003 with the capture of Saddam Hussein.  We sent a message to the world:  we mean business. 

And, indeed, this message was heard all over the Middle East.  Last Friday, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi decided to renounce all weapons of mass destruction, and admitted he had worked with Iran and North Korea on a nuclear program.  Let me translate Gaddafi’s actions for you.  He was saying: “Please, please, please don’t come after me next!”  So much for Howard Dean’s assertion that taking down Saddam doesn’t make America safer. 

Leonard Peikoff said in It’s Time to Declare War:  "Most of the Mideast is ruled by range-of-the-moment thugs who would be paralyzed by an American victory over any one of their neighbors."  He said this two years ago:  can you name anything more insightful? 

Peikoff is completely right.  Indeed, there is little doubt in my mind that most of these “range-of-the-moment thugs” will simply fall over and becoming utterly obsolete after we took down one of the most brutal, homicidal psycho paths in the Middle East. 

Bush was right to go after Saddam Hussein.  This is a war on terror.  Eliminating Saddam Hussein, who even the UN has acknowledged is a threat to the world’s security, is an elimination of an established terrorist.  I’m not sure what part of gassing one’s own people and neighbors and potentially building up weapons to inflict further damage isn’t “terror.”  Saddam Hussein is the most visible monster over in the swamp known as the Middle East.  We can see today what taking him down means:  it means that most dictators over there are going to crumble over and die.  We killed about a dozen birds with one stone.  They know we are not paper tigers. 

However, there is one regime that Peikoff, correctly, makes an exception for:  Iran.  “Iran is the only major country in the region ruled by zealots dedicated not to material gain (such as more wealth or territory), but to the triumph by any means, however violent, of Islamic fundamentalism. This is why Iran manufactures the most terrorists. […] What Germany was to Nazism in the 1940s, Iran is to terrorism today.” 

The war we are engaged in is a war on terror.  It is not a war on only Osama bin Laden.  For all intents and purposes, as Peikoff also pointed out in his article, Osama bin Laden doesn’t matter.  If we wiped out the Al Queda network tomorrow including Osama bin Laden, another one would pop up to take its place.  They will pop up because one government: the Iranian government will manufacture them.  

We may have gotten rid of the tentacles, but we still have to go after the head.  Unless the Iranian regime is toppled, the United States will not win this war on terror. 

The Iranian people do hate their government, and there is nothing they would like more than for this regime to be toppled.  The Iranian people are not our enemy.  The mullahs running their thug government are.  The Iranian people should be considered an asset against a common enemy – but not the only asset.  Bush needs to start talking and acting – taking measures to once and for all rid this world of terror. 

We are not the paper tigers we used to be; let’s not stop here.   

 

Amber's Website

Independent Women's Club Website

 

 

 

 

 

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