Except for his stance on abortion and health care, Rudy is at least saying some of the right things. But I guess they all are at this stage. Some quotes from a speech yesterday:
"You face bullies and tyrants and terrorists with strength, not weakness."
"A lot of what the Democrats are doing is like looking in the rearview mirror. They want to take the country back to where it was in the 1990s," he said.
I think Fred needs to get his ass in gear.
5 comments:
If Rudy ends up winning the nomination, I will have no problem supporting the man. I just want people to understand there's a hell of a lot more to conservatism that just "being tough."
FDR was a tough guy no doubt. He was also nothing short of a socialist.
How much tougher on terror can Rudy be than we are now? I feel like there is no way to go further on the offensive. All this tough talk going on with candidates seems to highlight that fact that we seem to specialize in giving any terror group in the world great press. Everyone is obsessed with looking "tough" and this works wonders for all the crappy, underfunded terrorist groups in the world.
We can be a hell of a lot tougher.
We're five and a half years into World War 3 with an ideology that wants to destroy the West as we know it and everywhere you look the good guys are in retreat -Afghanistan and (if the Dems have their way) Iraq. The world's largest state sponsor of terrorism (Iran) continues to gain strength and no one, including Bush, has the balls to stand up to them. Iraq will turn into an Al-Qaeda hub if we pull out.
We won the second world war in 4 years. We need the same kind of bi-partisan commitment we had then to win the third one. We don't have it.
Now of course some of you are thinking "Gee, Patrick, if you're so tough why don't you enlist?" But the fact is we don't need soldiers any more to fight wars. We have nukes. They worked against Japan and they would work again.
The world we face today is not as dangerous as the days of WW II or the Cold War. There is no Germany or Russia aligned against us. Nobody in their right mind wants to pull out of Iraq, but we have certainly failed in our mission there. Throwing democracy at Iraq has produced a disaster.
Iran is a poorly run insecure state. It is far from going nuclear. Instead of amping up threats and toughness and isolating Iran we need to engage the state and let capitalism and commerce work (China,Vietnam approach opposed to the Cuba approach).
The War on Terror needs to be declared over and won so that every terrorist attack in the future(which will happen) is not considered a victory for them. Continually harping on the War on Terror galvanizes every crappy group and gives them a sense of belonging around the world. We are essentially empowering the terrorists. Let's use every asset we have available to focus on the long term sources of terror instead of threatening rhetoric.
I'm not sure negotiating with an administration that says it wants to create an Islamic caliphate, acquire nukes within 3 years so it can wipe Israel off the map, and calls for the complete destruction of America and the West would be very productive.
We tried the peaceful coexistence approach with N. Korea in '94 and it failed miserably.
I'm convinced the world we live in now is at least as dangerous, if not more, than the Cold War-era one. The great thing about fighting athiest communists is there's no 20 virgins they're willing to die for. Today, all it takes is a nuclear weapon from the Iranian military to make it into the hands of one of the countless jihadist groups, cross our borders, and destroy a major city.
The War on Terror won't be over and won until fanatical Islam no longer exists. Extreme statement? Probably. But the only way to punish a disloyal dog is to break its leg. Otherwise we'll just go back to the days of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue. 9/11 proved that the Clinton response (lobbing a few scud missiles into a tent in Sudan in the middle of the night and see what happens) won't cut it. The Bush doctrine (if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists) needs to be reinstated.
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