Re: Do Not Participate in the Ill Considered "Peace" Rally

[PhilCooper@webtv.net (P C)]

Duncan, I applaud you.  Thought I might share the article below.
Lengthy but very well written and to me was worth the read.

Phil Cooper

Subject: A British View of the US Post-September 11

Andrew Sullivan in the London Times

No eloquence can match the impact of their evil.

Americans' critical weakness in the past two decades has been their
reluctance to shed blood for their goals. They believed they could
construct a huge military and never have it fight real wars and suffer
real casualties. They thought they could
alter history and advance their interests from the air alone. With the
exception of the Gulf War, which they hesitated to finish, they have
shrunk from the fight. When the current enemy struck again and again
throughout the 1990s, Bill Clinton responded without real credibility,
struck back without real endurance, enraged the terrorists without truly
hurting them. We are now living with the consequences of his
appeasement, and of his refusal to
challenge Americans beyond what the polls said they already wanted to
do.
Whoever launched this war on Americans has now accomplished the task
Clinton
didn't dare embark on. America has been bloodied as it has never been
bloodied before. I would be a fool to predict what happens next. But it
is clear that Bush will not do a Clinton. This will not be a surgical
strike. It will not be a gesture. It may not even begin in earnest soon.
But it will be deadly serious. It is clear that there is no way that the
United States can achieve its goals without the cooperation of many
other states -  an alliance as deep and as broad as that which won the
Gulf War. It is also clear that this cannot be done by airpower alone.
As in 1941, the neglect of the military under Bill Clinton and the
parsimony of its financing even under Bush must now not merely be ended
but reversed. We may see the biggest defense build-up since the early
1980s - and not just in weaponry but in
manpower. It is also quite clear that the U.S. military presence in the
Middle East must be ramped up exponentially, its intelligence
overhauled, its vigilance heightened exponentially. In some ways, Bush
has already assembled the ideal team for such a task: Powell for the
diplomatic dance, Rumsfeld for the deep reforms he will now have the
opportunity to enact, Cheney as his most trusted aide in what has become
to all intents and
purposes a war cabinet. The terrorists have done the rest. The middle
part
of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly
ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not
dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column. But by
striking at the heart of New York City, the terrorists ensured that at
least one deep segment of the country ill-disposed toward a new
president is now the most passionate in his defense. Anyone who has ever
tried to get one over on a New Yorker knows what I mean. The demons who
started this have no idea about the kind of people they have taken on.
But what the terrorists are also counting on
is that Americans will not have the stomach for the long haul. They
clearly
know that the coming retaliation will not be the end but the beginning.
And
when the terrorists strike back again, they have let us know that the
results could make the assault on the World Trade Center look puny. They
are banking that Americans will then cave. They have seen a great
country quarrel to the edge of constitutional crisis over a razor-close
presidential election. They have seen it respond to real threats in the
last few years with squeamish restraint or surgical strikes. They have
seen that, as Israel
has been pounded by the same murderous thugs, the United States has
responded with equanimity. They have seen a great nation at the height
of
its power obsess for a whole summer over a missing intern and a randy
Congressman. They have good reason to believe that this country is soft,
that it has no appetite for the war that has now begun. They have
gambled that in response to an precedented terror, the Americans will
abandon Israel to the barbarians who would annihilate every Jew on the
planet, and trade away their freedom for a respite from terror in their
own land. We cannot foresee the future. But we know the past. And that
past tells us that these people who destroyed the heart of New York City
have made a terrible mistake. This country is at its heart a peaceful
one. It has done more to
help the world than any other actor in world history. It saved the world
from the two greatest evils of the last century in Nazism and Soviet
Communism. It responded to its victories in the last war by pouring aid
into Europe and Japan. In the Middle East, America alone has ensured
that the last hope of the Jewish people is not extinguished and has
given more aid to Egypt than to any other country.  It risked its own
people to save the Middle East from the pseudo-Hitler in Baghdad.
America need not have done
any of this. Its world hegemony has been less violent and less imperial
than
any other comparable power in history. In the depths of its soul, it
wants its dream to itself, to be left alone, to prosper among others,
and to welcome them to the freedom America has helped secure. But
whenever Americans have been challenged, they have risen to the task. In
some awful way, these evil thugs may have done us a favor. America may
have woken up for ever. The rage that will follow from this grief and
shock may be deeper and greater than anyone now can imagine. Think of
what the United States
ultimately did to the enemy that bombed Pearl Harbor. Now recall that
American power in the world is all but unchallenged by any other state.
Recall that America has never been wealthier, and is at the end of one
of the biggest booms in its history. And now consider the extent of this
wound - the greatest civilian casualties since the Civil War, an assault
not just on Americans but on the meaning of America itself. When you
take a step
back, it is hard not to believe that we are now in the quiet moment
before the whirlwind. Americans will recover their dead, and they will
mourn them, and then they will get down to business. Their sadness will
be mingled with an anger that will make the hatred of these evil
fanatics seem mild. I am reminded of a great American poem written by
Herman Melville after the death of Abraham Lincoln, the second founder
of the country:
                "There is sobbing of the
strong,
                And a pall upon the land;
                But the People in their
weeping
                Bare the iron hand;
                Beware the People weeping
                When they bare the iron
hand."