Well, when I said “Bad Iran!” the other day I predicted it was going to be a harsher punishment than the UN would deal out on Thursday (the “deadline”). Looks like I’m even at least two weeks ahead of them now: http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8466 As a parent, I know that giving my kids a “deadline” and then being told “no” ahead of the deadline, telling them I’m serious about the “deadline” and then, at the “deadline”, showing up in my kid’s room (Kofi went to Iran on Saturday) and saying we’re going to have a big talk about this in two more weeks… Let’s just say it isn’t the best way to change their behavior. Here’s a little something I found that may be good advice for both Kofi and George Bush: In order for something to be a goal:
- It has to be important to you, personally.
- It has to be within your power to make it happen through your own actions.
- It has to be something you have a reasonable chance of achieving.
- It must be clearly defined and have a specific plan of action.
Number 4 is where it all seems to fall apart for these guys. One of the reasons the UN is in Iran this weekend is for “clarification talks.” If we back up and look at these goal points relating to Iraq we find perhaps “It” was important to us (US) personally, that “It” was within our power (although hard to tell with all the not winning we are doing for the past 3 years), “It” was something we had a reasonable chance of achieving but, back to #4 – I can’t for the life of me tell you what “It” actually is… Just like a company, this country needs to have a mission statement. “Mission Accomplished” is not a mission statement, nor is “Desert Storm” or “Iraqi Freedom” (as they generally want to be freed from us). To be fair, the government does try to sort of have a game plan, as can be seen in the latest White House release on the subject: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/ In his radio address this week, as he often does, Bush said: “Yet this war is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation — the right of all people to speak, worship, and live in liberty. On the other side are those driven by tyranny and extremism — the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest.” The extremists seem to have a similar view of us: “When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. … If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [tax]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.” (Sahih Muslim 19.4294) So what do we do when our policy is to protect the right to worship and their religious philosophy amounts to “convert, pay tribute or die.” Should they or shouldn’t they be free to pursue their religious beliefs? This country needs to have a serious discussion about this some day! Osama Bin Laden has goals too. In a pre-9/11 interview he said: “I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion.” Speaking about “free and Democratic” elections (in May ’98) in which religious parties were defeated, he said: “If the people have elected those governments in the latest elections, it is because they have fallen prey to the Western media, which portray things contrary to what they really are. And while the slogans raised by those regimes call for humanity, justice, and peace, the behavior of their governments is completely the opposite… The hostility that America continues to express against the Muslim people has given rise to feelings of animosity on the part of Muslims against America and against the West in general. Those feelings of animosity have produced a change in the behavior of some crushed and subdued groups who, instead of fighting the Americans inside the Muslim countries, went on to fight them inside the United States of America itself… – Allah willing. It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to squander his efforts on other activities.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html Is it any wonder the Clinton White house was having fits about this guy? http://philstocks.blogspot.com/2006/08/this-will-knock-your-socks-off.html Bush says: “We are using every element of national power to defeat the terrorists. First, we’re staying on the offense against the terrorists, fighting them overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. Second, we made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you’re as guilty as the terrorists, you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account. And third, we have launched a bold new agenda to defeat the ideology of the enemy by supporting the forces of freedom and moderation in the Middle East and beyond.” Doesn’t this sound like exactly what Osama said we were doing in the first place? The forces of “freedom and moderation” are exactly what they object to! Osama says: “Today however, our battle against the Americans is far greater than our battle was against the Russians. Americans have committed unprecedented stupidity. They have attacked Islam and its most significant sacrosanct symbols … . We anticipate a black future for America. Instead of remaining United States, it shall end up separated states and shall have to carry the bodies of its sons back to America… The fate of any government, which sells the interests of its own people and, betrays the nation and commits offenses, which furnish grounds for expulsion from Islam, is known. They shall all be wiped out….” I don’t know who writes the President’s radio speeches but please stop saying things like “We are using every element of national power” while Osama is running around in the desert and his people send in weekly videos – it make is look like our “national power” isn’t up to snuff! Back in May 1998 Osama stated: “The American government is leading the country towards hell. … We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests not the interests of the Jews. If the present injustice continues with the wave of national consciousness, it will inevitably move the battle to American soil, just as Ramzi Yousef (the first WTC bomber) and others have done. This is my message to the American people. I urge them to find a serious administration that acts in their interest and does not attack people and violate their honor and pilfer their wealth. …” So I guess 9/11 was Osama’s way of saying he wasn’t happy about the elections… Not that he would have been happy with Gore, as he already tried to assassinate Clinton, there’s just no pleasing some people. Speaking of pleasing, I came across an interesting passage in the book “Women in Islam” where Spanish Islamic Imam Muhammad Mustafa “recommends verbal correction followed by a period of sexual abstinence as the best punishment for a wife,” but does not rule out a beating as long as it is kept within strict guidelines… “to avoid serious damage, a husband should never hit his wife in a state of extreme or blind anger. He should never hit sensitive parts of the body such as the face, head, breasts or stomach. He should only hit the hands or feet using a rod that is thin and light so that it does not leave scars or bruises on the body. “The husband’s aim”, the writer said, “should be to cause psychological suffering and not to humiliate or physically abuse his wife.” Kind of like the carrot and stick approach with the carrot being mental anguish and the stick being an actual stick! So what are our national goals in dealing with radical Islam? Who are we fighting? What are we hoping to accomplish (really – not vaguely)? How do we know when we accomplish it? I agree with Bush, we can’t just pull out now. We are stuck with Colin Powell’s very prescient “Pottery Barn Rule” when he warned the President against going to war in Iraq. George didn’t listen and now we broke “IT” and we have to fix “IT“. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule The problem remains that we don’t really know what “IT” is and, if you remember from Clinton’s hearings, we’re not even clear on what “is” is either! Clearly something is broken and clearly something has to be fixed but, much like the people in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” who go zooming around the Universe looking for the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything,” we may find ourselves very disappointed when we get the answer. Because we don’t even understand the question!
