Friday, October 08, 2004

Numbers Game

A question for all those opponents of the war who offer as proof of U.S. unilateralism the percentage of troops in OIF provided by the U.S. as compared to ODS:

During the 12 years between the wars, while we were enforcing UN sanctions, what percentage of the aircraft and personnel enforcing the No-Fly Zone were U.S.?

Survival

Recently I've been conversing with a Canadian friend about the Iraq War. While he agrees that Hussein needed to go, he questions whether or not we exhausted all diplomatic options before we went to war. In the course of this conversation, I thought of the following analogy, and thought I'd share it with my readers:

You are lost in the wilderness. You've been lost for weeks, and have run out of food. You don't know if anyone knows that you're missing, or if anyone cares. Rescue might be on its way, it might not. You've now been without food for days and are growing weak. You know how to hunt and gather, and have the wherewithall, but to do so requires you leave your shelter. You know that the best way to be found is to stay put, and that in this wilderness, the more you travel, the less likely rescue. But if you stay in place and are NOT rescued, you will starve to death. So which do you do? Who is more foolish -- the man who stays put and starves to death, or the man who goes hunting and is never rescued? Who is wiser -- the man who stays put and is rescued, or the man who goes hunting and survives because he found food? Hindsight is, as they say, 20/20. Furthermore, there reaches a point at which you can no longer choose -- you must start hunting by day x or you will be too weak to hunt. You can only lie there and wait for either rescue or death. If you're going to hunt, you must act before then.

And to those of us in the US who support the president, that's the point we feel we were at. Sure, the immediate threat of an attack by Hussein was not that great. But we were watching what he was doing, and how the world was reacting, and it appeared apparent that the rest of the world's willingness to stick it out until he caved. And it was further apparent that he was going to ride out the sanctions and then go back to his old ways. Now maybe we were wrong -- maybe help was on the way, maybe the world would have grown a spine and stood up to him with us. But how were we to know? And how long could we wait to find out, and when would it have been too late? I for one, am glad that we did somehting before we no longer could.

A Little Too Close to Home

Thanks for the Memory to local GOP-Man Joe Peterson:

A while back I blogged on the loss of my bumper sticker. I've blogged about violence against Republicans all across the country. Well, now it's happened here:

Republicans asaulted in Lane County


For Immediate Release
October 7, 2004


Republicans under Attack
Feldkamp response to negative ads at press conference; acts of violence,
vandalism and assault continue against Eugene-area Republicans


Eugene, OR - The political climate in Eugene gets hotter with each day as
the election gets closer and closer.


Today, Republican 4th District Congressional candidate Jim Feldkamp held a
press conference at Lane County Republican Headquarters to respond to the
latest ad being aired by Democratic incumbent Peter DeFazio.

In his ad, DeFazio claims Feldkamp is "lying" about the incumbent's record.
A recent Feldkamp ad had called DeFazio on his weak record on defense, and
included specific House bill numbers. However, DeFazio's ad didn't produce a
shred of evidence to back up the claims made against Feldkamp.

"Disagreeing over policy issues is one thing, but personal attacks are quite
another," Feldkamp said. "I have pretty thick skin, so I can take it, but I
think Mr. DeFazio has just cheapened the level of political discourse in
this race."

As Feldkamp held his press conference, the Lane County Republican office
received reports of College Republicans being assaulted at the rally held
for Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

CR and Feldkamp intern Anthony Warren, 21, was admitted to Sacred Heart
Hospital in Eugene Thursday afternoon after being punched, choked and pushed
at the Heinz-Kerry event. He suffered from contusions and minor injuries.

"I was absolutely swarmed and completely bombarded," Warren said. "And I was
forcibly removed against my will."

Warren, a student at the University of Oregon, said he was merely trying to
participate in the democratic process and exercise his Constitutional rights
of freedom of speech and expression.

"I'm just a college kid trying to experience America, and I got thrashed
on," Warren said. "A flyer for the event said it was free and open to the
public, unless you're a Republican. Then you get assaulted."

At around the same time, a report was filed with the Springfield Police
Department regarding the theft of campaign signs.

Thursday morning, a white car with one male and one female was driving
around Springfield claiming to be campaigning. Instead, they were stealing
Bush and Feldkamp campaign signs.

These incidents come on the heels of another similar act of vandalism.

Wednesday, Feldkamp intern Seth Robbins had his car door vandalized while he
was delivering signs in Linn County. Robbins' door was kicked in, and his
windshield was covered in Kerry and DeFazio stickers.


This is getting scary. And it's getting more common. This weekend I will be cleaning out my garage. On November 2nd, in the evening, I will be parking my car *IN* the garage and spending the evening removing mt Bush stickers. They'll have served their purpose, and I'm really afraid of what might happen to the car or my wife if one of the thugs that apparently make up the local Democratic constituency decides to target her.