Big Wars--Little Wars
By Dick O'Connor
November 3, 2001 (Web Today--) Isn't it positively stupid??
On one hand we are fighting a war against a bunch of skunks who
hide in caves in Afghanistan while at the same time we are threatening
the Daisy Air Rifle Company with the full force of government,
just as
we did to Microsoft. With air strikes and long range missals,
we are
blustering and promising destruction to the Taliban and daring Daisy
to
sell another gun. Wow!! What bravery!!
And we are trying to hold together a coalition of very reluctant Arabs
and
Muslims while at the same time demolishing Afghanistan, one of their
religious partners. And here at home, we are refusing to drill
for our own
oil, which would make the coalition unnecessary. Such wisdom
is the hallmark
of the Clinton administration State Department, which is now carrying
over to
the Bush administration State Department. Dollar diplomacy!
Anthrax hysteria is the foundation of all news reports, whether print
or
electronic. The Media has emblazoned this across our papers and TV
screens
for its own selfish reasons. Panic sells, and at the same time glorifies
the
Media. Nowhere is it mentioned that there are only four deaths attributed
to
the bacteria, and the result of the bio-terrorism plague must be considered
a
massive failure. As far as the psychological effect, the terrorists
must
thank the Media for its success.
But now the war news is fading. The Pentagon won't let the Media in
on their
plans, mostly because the Media will leak such classified information
to the
International Media and so on to the enemy. Consequently, we
are reading
stories about BB guns and the noble effort to take them away from our
youth.
It would be extremely gratifying to fire a BB through the monitor of
the
Consumers Product Safety Commission director, and through the monitors
of the
editors-in-chief of the New York Times and the Washington Post. We
should
also include the monitors of a few more liberals who have never fired
a BB
gun as a kid or a rifle as a man, and certainly have not been shot
at in
combat.
Perhaps the Taliban is right. We are too soft.
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©2001 WebToday
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