Conspiracy

I spent some time this past weekend at Wrestlemania with my good friend, Doc.

Doc was, actually, the first of my little circle of friends in high school to start listening to Rush, back in 1989. Back then, Rush was just as edgy, feisty, and revolutionary as ever. He was taking the country by storm, filling the vacuum for conservative thought that left when Reagan left office. At the time, I was apolitical at best, and a populist at the worst. My intellectual rebirth wouldn't occur for another three years, and while Rush was entertaining, most of what he said just sort of passed over me.

Well, the last 20 years or so haven't been the kindest years to Doc. He's been through quite a bit, and has come out the other end a survivor who's ready to move forward. On balance, he doesn't seem too worse for the wear. He looked healthier this weekend than I've seen him in close to a decade. He's talking about going back to college, and about quitting drinking. He's being an extremely responsible father to his little guy. However, something has gone horribly awry.

Doc has become a liberal.

Now, something you need to know about Doc is that he's always liked to live close to the edge. He likes to say things that make people squirm, at least a little bit. He's always joked about conspiracy theories, such as the Catholic church being responsible for Kennedy's assassination. The more outrageous, the more he liked to talk about it. I always thought it was a joke.

So, imagine my chagrin when we were discussing the Iranian hostage situation and he said, "well, the British shouldn't have been in Iranian waters. They knew what they were doing, they deserve whatever the Iranians do to them."

I asked, of course, what he thought of the GPS data that showed that the Brits were in Iraqi waters. He said, "What makes you think we can believe that? Who put out those numbers? The British government, who are trying to cover their asses. I don't blame the Iranians one bit, after everything we've done to their neighbors in the last couple of years."

I knew the conversation was about over. I asked, plainly, "so, you believe that there is a British conspiracy to hide their soldiers' true activity?" A "yes" answer later, I knew that there was no reasoning with him on this one, and that it was time to talk about Wrestlemania.

I've found you just can't argue with someone who is dedicated to a pet conspiracy theory, no matter how many facts you throw at them.

What the Brits Don't Get

Tony Blair has suffered major political fallout for his willingness to stand up against Sadaam's regime of terror. As such, we know that the UK is pulling troops out of Iraq, and won't be there much longer at all. In the minds and words of many liberal anti-war activists, being in Iraq only makes the UK a target for terror. So, if the UK pulls its troops from Iraq, terrorists will not target the Brits.

But the don't get it. Radical fundamentalist Islam is, at the end of the day, a movement that attacks based not on a demonstration of strength, but a demonstration of weakness. The Iranians capturing British soldiers, detaining them, and, one assumes trying them and eventually killing them (if London doesn't do something drastic). No, this move to take troops away from the War on Terror only makes the UK look more vulnerable.

The same thing happened with the train bombings in Madrid. It was obvious that Spain was on the edge about whether or not it would stand up against these thugs and murderers. Radical Muslim extremists blow up a train and the next thing you know Spain is out, AND they have a new shiny socialist government.

It's the same thing that Bin Laden figured would happen on 9/11. It's been well publicised that Bin Laden saw the U.S. as a "paper tiger" that would fold under pressure. But, the opposite happened, at least initially. And thank God for George W. Bush's steadfastness in the war on terror, too.

Of course, now the Democrats in the house are trying to fulfill Bin Laden's prediction, if a bit late. They are demanding we get out of Iraq, and are, like much of the rest of the world, demanding that a millitary solution to Iran's nuclear crisis be taken off of the table.

Look, appeasement didn't work when we tried it with Hitler. It didn't work with Stalin, either. These maniacs don't respond to guestures of kindness; they only respond to a show of force. If we back out of Iraq and refuse to disarm Iran of its' nuclear program, that will send a clear signal to the terrorist organizations, as well as rogue states, that we don't have the will to see it through. We will have many more 9/11's, and eventually one of them will be nuclear.

Why the Dems want a timetable

Democrats want us out of Iraq. That's not news. A millitary withdrawal would make for the ultimate black eye on any administration. Just ask LBJ's ghost, he can tell you all about that.

But, this timetable thing is especially interesting. Hillary, of course, previously said that Bush shouldn't leave Iraq for his successor to clean up. That would mean, then, that we should be out of Iraq by January of 2009, right? Nope. The Democrat timetable for the pullout of Iraq is August, 2008. Why?

It is simple. The Dems don't want the war on terror to be an issue in the 2008 campaign. The fact of the matter is that, unless Lieberman decides to run for prez as a Dem, they don't have one candidate on the block that is strong on defense. And the Republicans are overflowing with them. And, while I don't personally like McCain because of his encroachment on free speech (which was initiated and executed by the Democrat Feingold, by the way), you damn well better believe I'd rather have him at the helm during war than Barry or Hillary.

The Democrats know it. Even if support for the war is at an all time low, none of their candidates can get elected if we've got troops deployed in an active conflict zone.

This is also, by the way, the same reason the Dems want to negotiate with a guy who denies the holocaust ever took place. God forbid that we should be in active conflict with Iran in August of '08, just three months before the presidential elections.

Since when should any particular diplomatic option be off the table?

It amazes me, truly. What exactly is it that Blair and the democrats (minus Lieberman) in the US think that it is that will stop Amacrazynutjob? Sadaam, for all of his bravado, was more dedicated to Lenin than to Allah. If UN threats couldn't move him, they won't move Iran. Especially if there is no threat of force.

TR would have invaded Iran by now. Actually, if TR had had nukes, there probably wouldn't have been an invasion, but instead the newly liberated Iraq would have a brand new parking lot, albeit a glowing one.

Reagan bombed Lybia (Qadaffi, actually, was the target) for blowing up ONE disco. Lybia now has no problem cooperating with UN rules about WMDs.

We know now that the Iranian millitary has been supplying bombs to terrorists in Iraq on many occasions. Why is Ahmadinejad still alive? I want to see pictures of this clown on my TV either inside of a pine box, or at least with a bruise above his left eye and a blood-soaked turban on his head, just like Qadaffi in 1984.

The vast majority of Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq based on the "faulty" WMD intel. Now, of course, they tell us they were duped by the President, that they never would have voted for the war if they had known that there were no WMDs.

Meanwhile, today, Iranian president Akillinfidelsismyjob admits that Iran is pursuing NUCLEAR (not chemical, not biological, but freakin' NUCLEAR) capabilities. Iran is run by kooks who are far more radical than Sadaam, and probably guilty of even more crimes against humanity than he was.

OK, the question for the day for all of my liberal friends is this:

If democrats supported the invasion of Iraq because of suspicion of WMDs in the light of Sadaam's thumbing his nose at the UN Security Council resolutions, why are they so anxious to prevent any action against Iran?

What do YOU think? Yes or no? Should we give Iran the full-court press, up to and including an invasion?