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August 10, 2005

For the Record

This Cindy Sheehan story has me going a bit, although I dont believe my parents would ever do something like that to me because they know how I feel. However, I wanted to go on the record because by writing this blog, I have become sort of a public figure and someone may try to dig through my archives here or at my old site at Virtual Sanity and do just that sort of thing online.

I feel we are doing the right thing. I will be adding a "best of" page where you will be able to read my 9/11 and other postings. When I enlisted, there were many reasons which led me to the Army, but in the end, had 9/11 not happened, I would not be here. Despite the hysterics you hear on some MSM sources about IEDs and VBIEDs and our military members being injured and dying, we are better off today than had we done nothing. The 9/11 commission may not have been able to find an explicit connection between Iraq and the 9/11 operation, the MSM neglects to mention that they did find numerous connections between Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda: safe harbor, training, financing, etc. Since we have gone in, Iraq has indeed become a magnet for terrorists. GOOD. I would much rather go there myself: trained, expecting to be targetted and having the ability to fight back, than have them come here and target my unprepared family and friends.

We went to Iraq for more than just WMDs, although some would have you believe that is all the President spoke of in that now-famous state of the union address. Among other reasons, he also mentioned removing a training-ground for terrorists and removing the man who gave $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

In the end, we freed about 50 million people from tyrranical regimes and history will determine if we have done it well. Unfortunately, we live in the right here, right now information age and even after a week after the war started, there were reporters calling Iraq a quagmire. Please. Get a little perspective. We still have troops in Germany and Japan.

This is not something I want to do, but I feel it is something I have to do. All I have to do is think of my oldest niece, who was born 2 days before I left for basic. Someday, I hope to have children of my own and I would rather face what might happen to me now than have to live with what could happen to them, and know I did nothing.

The people we are fighting understand only 1 thing: might, and the only way to defeat them is to destroy them. Negotiation is a sign of weakness in their eyes - you need not look farther than Israel where each time they make a concession, violence increases against them.

Iraq is a hornets nest that we are removing. When you first start to spray the hive, the bees go nuts and swarm and are indeed quite frightening - but not for long. Eventually, most of them die and the nest can be removed. Sure, some get away to build again, but this is our first real anti-terrorism action since November 1979. If we remain vigilant, the smaller nests will be a lot easier to remove.

Posted by TJ at August 10, 2005 04:37 PM

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