As we approach the celebration of our hard fought independence just a few weeks away, I have been pondering how far we have come in the past 233 years. We successfully threw off the tyranny of England and forged a new form of government never before seen on the face of the Earth and forever changed the future of this planet.

For years our young country still struggled with many of our own difficulties. Small wars for territories, westward expansion and a bloody civil war to preserve this fledgling nation and end the stain of slavery all plagued us within the first century. Growing out of these struggles emerged a strong industrial nation. We emerged a nation not only capable of defending ourselves, but we were a nation capable, if not always willing, to stop global threats and liberate millions of people from oppression. Twice this past century we stood against massive global threats and by our sweat, blood and tears entire nations were freed. We survived great depressions and financial recessions always emerging a stronger, more capable nation. This nation has pioneered the fields of medicine, manufacturing, science, engineering and so many others. Our might has brought forth terrible weapons of war, but our compassion has tempered their use only to protect and liberate. Our feet first touched the soil of another planet and our ingenuity gave birth to much of the modern digital world. Our arts, music, television and music lead the modern world in creativity, beauty and skill. Our farms feed the hungry nations of this world, while our medicines heal the sick an injured.

In less than a quarter of a century, this young county of ours has grown to be the greatest nation in the world, comprised of the most generous of people and representing the strongest force for good this world has ever known.

I fear for this nation as our Independence Day approaches. We have abandoned the principles that shaped this nation into what it has been over the past quarter of a century. Today we move farther from the dreams of our founders and we betray their ideals with massive government expansion, government ownership of and interference in private industry and the usurpation of the rights of the States and the citizens by an overly powerful central government. We no longer stand for liberty and freedom. We are no longer willing to protect and liberate the innocent. We no longer have the will to stand against global threats for our own protection nor that of others. We have become a weak shadow of our former selves and we allow our fear of what others think of us to paralyze us into inaction.

Today, citizens of Iran die in the streets while they call for freedom and liberty much as we did just over two centuries ago. We sadly turn our eyes away from the horror, too cowardly to even condemn the actions or voice outrage against this oppressive regime. After years of telling these people to throw off their oppression and rise against this totalitarian government, we turn our back on them when they finally do. We, who possess strongest, most advanced military in the world, cower in the face of public opinion and let innocents suffer at the hand of a brutal government, just as we did in Somalia and Darfur.

Is it because we are so focused on the possible nuclear threat posed by the rogue nation in Asia who threatens to launch a weapon towards one of our states this very Independence Day? No, unfortunately not. Once again, when we face an open, hostile threat toward the peace and security of this nation and her allies from a unhinged, uncontrollable rogue state that potentially has the capability of delivering nuclear weapons to the continental United States, we cower and do nothing. We stand by and wait for them to act, at which time it may be too late. Just as before with the horrible attacks of Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center, we want to avoid conflict at all cost while our enemies plot our destruction. If we have learned nothing else from our past, the one thing we should have learned is that appeasement of our enemies is the fastest way to cost more American lives than was necessary. It failed with Germany. It failed with Japan. It failed when Israel had tried it with the Palestinians. It has failed when we have tried it with the terrorist threats we face today. Appeasement is weakness.

I fear for the future of this nation, her citizens and all those worldwide who depend America’s benevolence, compassion and strength. What exists before your eyes today is a shadow of its former self, an echo of its strength and a pale reminder of its purpose and will. I will celebrate this Independence Day with some sadness in my heart as I realize, this could well be one of the last ones we celebrate, lest we offend some other minor groups of people who hate us no matter what we do.

Once again the United Nations has shown that it is a worthless and wholly inept entity, incapable of meaningful action against threats to global security.

With a deafening whimper, the UN leveled sanctions against North Korea in protest to the nuclear test conducted on October 9, 2006; with the promise of swift and precise… uhm… hmmmmm… let me see here… Review? Monitoring? More sanctions?

Wait a minute! There is no promise of anything other than a possibility of more sanctions and that the UN will keep watching what North Korea is doing. Well guys, I hope you were watching closely because North Korea just gave the UN Security Council the international one finger salute.

Two days after the UN introduced this resolution which is laced with good intentions, but reinforced by no treat of military action; North Korea’s response was to call the sanctions and act of war. In comments from Pyongyang we can see the true intent of North Korea to provoke an international incident:

“The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war” against the North, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The North warned it “wants peace but is not afraid of war” and that it would “deal merciless blows” against anyone who violates its sovereignty.

The communist nation “had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons,” the statement said. “It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state.” – N. Korea Says U.N. Sanctions Are ‘Declaration of War’, By Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press, Tuesday, October 17, 2006; 8:30 AM

Ok. So what now? They are obviously going to ignore the resolution and continue their development and testing of nuclear weapons. So what is the UN prepared to do about it? NOTHING.

How many times does it take for the UN to realize that passing nonsensical resolutions such as this without any teeth to back them up, will not work.

I however have a solution that will. China, the DPRK’s most staunch ally, does not want certain things to come to pass within its sphere of influence in Asia. Some of those things include the arming of Japan, Taiwan and South Korea with massive amounts of offensive weapons. Therefore I say we go to China and tell them that if they cannot control their little progeny then we will immediately begin supplying arms to those countries. All three are current United States allies whom we have sworn to defend against aggression and all have robust free economies which are more than capable of paying for the weapons. We should begin immediate deployment of AEGIS class and MIM-104 Patriot PCA-3 ballistic missile defense systems. After fully supplementing their existing defensive capabilities, we should immediately begin rapid deployment of offensive weapons to our established military bases in these countries and immediate sales of offensive weapons to these nations.

This method has been proven effective and has worked before to stave off aggression and even to collapse totalitarian regimes. President Ronald Reagan used this method throughout Europe to strangle the Soviet Union. We spent them into the ground with military armament of Western Europe and modernization of our military.

Remember: Peace through Strength.

The only thing heard lately from the Democratic Party is failure. During hearings yesterday Senator Hillary Clinton grilled Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and accused this administration of practically screwing up the entire Middle East. “We hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the Administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy,” she said. Ok, Senator let’s compare this administrations success in dealing with terrorist and fascist states against you husbands. This tirade continued on throughout the day culminating in the calling for the resignation of the Secretary of Defense by several key Democraps.

This administration stands up to unruly dictators and removes them from power.
Your hubby gives them nuclear capabilities and billions of our dollars in aide.

This administration hunts down terrorist in their neighborhood to bring them to justice.
Your husband turned down the chance to take Osama Bin Laden when The Sudan practically gift wrapped him for us.

Enough of this, I think you can clearly see where it is leading.

Let us approach this by comparing it to history. There are many reasons people claim we have failed in Iraq, there are more reasons why we have been immensely successful. If we take a look at some of the reasons for failure and compare them to our history, you will see quite a different picture unfold.

One of the reasons people claim we have failed in Iraq is that things did not go as planned. For any of you with military experience you will undoubtedly recognize this as the norm in military operations. A smart general once said, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” War and combat in general are very fluid things. You plan as best you can, but once engaged; you adjust, adapt and try to anticipate the changes coming at you at lightening speeds. The ebb and flow of any military operation depends on thousands of variables, most of which you cannot control. One of the biggest is the nasty habit of the enemy to not cooperate and follow your plan of action. What these morons on the left of The Hill do not realize is that we are fighting a living, breathing enemy who in their best attempt to defeat us does the very same things we do: adjust, adapt and anticipate. The advantage they have is that they can meld into the shadows and play by their own rules.

If we were to compare this operation to the liberation of Europe during World War II, we would see that it is no different. Massive mistakes were made during the Normandy invasion. Some that scattered entire airborne divisions all over the coast of France, most no where near their intended drop zone or their fellow division. The 82nd and 101st were scattered to the winds during the drop, but they managed to pull together coherent fighting groups and accomplish their missions. There were under estimations of German strength, time when we did not have enough men and times when advancing units commandeered the ammo from retreating units because that was all there was to be had. During the Battle of the Bulge, in places like Bastogne and Liège, Allied soldiers were dying as much due to the lack of supplies as due to actual combat. There was not enough plasma, bandages, socks, cold weather gear, ammunitions, morphine or shelter for the troops stranded in the frozen forests. Yet they held the line. Soldiers that fought at Bastogne were relieved to see the Allied counter attack that broke the German line in early January 1945, but to this day surviving members adamantly state that they did not need to be “rescued” from Bastogne, they were doing just fine.

War is fluid and ever changing. We could easily look back on many examples in World War II and say our commanders made mistakes, they underestimated this or that, and they misread, miscalculated and misinterpreted intelligence. All these things would be true. It does not make them incompetent. It makes them human. In war there are mistakes and things do not go as planned much more often than they do.

Another point of perceived failure is that it is taking to long for (insert stated goal here) to happen. Once again, if those pesky enemies would just cooperate with us then I am sure this could be addressed. Let’s see, what has taken too long?

Is it the three free elections with over millions of people able to vote? Well, if you would compare how long it took Iraq to beat us in voter turnout percent per capita, they accomplished that in an amazing amount of time. A much higher percentage of Iraqi citizens voted in their last election than Americans voted in our last presidential election.

Has it taken too long for them to draft a constitution and have it ratified? Well, they did that in less than three years while faced with vast religious and cultural differences between political parties. It took us over eleven years to do the same thing and we were pretty much all on the same page.

End the violence and bring home our troops, maybe? Well, let’s see… We were in Japan, Germany and Korea for years after the end of hostilities. Would it be better to pull out not while there still is instability and let Iraq plunge into a civil war. You see that great big dog just sitting there licking its chops? That is Iran just waiting for that very thing to occur so they can pick up the pieces. I guess the “Give Peace a Chance” crowd has chosen to ignore the lessons that Hamas and Hezbollah have taught us recently. Peace is not an option with fascist. The only option is utter destruction; either ours or theirs, and frankly I like me better.

So where have we failed in Iraq? Have we made mistakes? Of course we have. Could we have done it better, cleaner, more efficiently or any other million different ways? Maybe, but at least we did something. All I hear is rhetoric from the left about how they would have built a coalition, garnered international support and gotten the world behind us. And then what? Ask Mr. Hussein to very nicely surrender the hidden weapons and let us come back into your country to check if you have been a bad boy. You never hear any actual ideas about what they would have really done. Bush went to the UN and the larger international players. That did no good. France had its hands so deep in Iraq that they wanted us going no where near it. Russia was busy ferrying weapons of mass destruction out of the country and onto the black market. Germany was shaking in their lederhosen and hiding behind calls for patience and more worthless resolutions. The inept UN was on the take with the Oil for Food program and couldn’t successfully enforce a high school dress code, much less any sanction they have passed with in the last twenty years. So what would they have done?

I think that when you are in training to be a liberal there must be at least sixteen college hours devoted to deflecting questions so that you do not have to answer them, followed up by four semesters of talking while actually saying nothing. Hey it is a heavy course load when you consider the other requirements for majoring as a liberal:

Requirements:
Joseph Stalin 101, 102
Communism
Advanced Communism
Socialist Studies I & II
Partisanship 101, 102, 103
Political Maneuvering
Civil Liberties (for Supporters)
Suppressing Rights in the Name of Civil Liberties (for Opponents)
Separation of Church from Everything I, II,
III, IV
Darwinian Evolution
Judicial Activism 101, 102
Entitlement 101
Advanced Hypocrisy
Environmentalism I, II, III
Appeasement (Various Courses)

Electives:
Bush Hating, Deflecting Responsibility, Evading Criminal Prosecutions, Grandstanding, Obstructionism, Defamatory Accusations, Advanced Liberal Media Studies, ACLU Studies, Racial Tensions – How to Create, Racial Divide – How to Fan the Flames, Racial Accusations – How to Win and Argument and many other worthless endeavors are available.

Athletics:
Dodging the Questions, Avoiding the Issues, Rush to Judgment, Cutting & Running, Advanced Flip-Flopping, Backstabbing (taught this year by Joe Liberman), Race Card Playing and Chicken Hawk Spotting

I want to address the growing list of things that would not be happening if John Kerry were president. I will have you know that I voted against Kerry for Blithering Idiot of the Week before I voted for him.

According to John Kerry:

Israeli-Hezbollah Hostilities:
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel would apparently not have happened because he would have somehow evaporated Hezbollah’s decades long hate for Israel. He would have mysteriously calmed the tensions and magically made Hezbollah not buy thousands of rockets from Iran with the sole intent of launching them into Israel.

Iraqi Occupation Quagmire:
According to John Kerry, he would have gone into Iraq differently and we would not be in the situation that we are now. Now he doesn’t say what he means by differently, maybe marching in a solid line, holding hands with the European Appeasers all the while singing “We Are the World”? I bet that would have done it. I bet if it had been Kerry leading the charge, the insurgency would have seen the error of their ways and hailed the coming of the “Great Satan” with open arms and tea parties. I am sure that there would have been no bloodbath at Fallujah and no mistakes at Abu Ghraib. I am quite positive that the detainees captured during a Kerry administration would have hailed us as their saviors and not been assaulting our soldiers while having a tropical escape from jihad at Club Gitmo.

Iran Nuclear Weapons:
According to John Kerry, if he were President, Iran would not be actively trying to get nuclear weapons. Well, he may be right on this one. President Clinton proved it. That is right, folks, if John Kerry were President he would have long ago given Iran the capability to produce nuclear weapons and have stockpiles of them to give to the Kerry-made peaceful Hezbollah for self defense purposes only. The Clinton administration showed how to properly deal with uppity dictators who demand nuclear capabilities, you give it to them and make them promise to play nicely.

North Korea Overt Aggression:
Again he is probably right in saying that North Korea would not be throwing a temper tantrum because it was not getting its way and threatening to launch missiles at anyone who blinks. North Korea would have no reason to be throwing a tantrum if John Kerry were President. He would have given into their demands long ago and avoided the conflict entirely.

I am sure we would also have $1/gal prices at the pump, a 200% drop in violent crimes, children graduating high school at 100% and I bet those wonderful astronauts would have been saved because Super Kerry would have prevented the foam from damaging the Space Shuttle.

What a crock.

There he his. My vote for idiot of the week.