Chief
01-13-2004, 01:31 AM
This was sent to me a few minutes ago. Most intelligent piece I've read in quite some time.
For those who don't know General Hawley, he's a newly retired USAF
4-star general. He commanded the USAF Air Combat Command [our
front-line
fighters and bombers]. The Command headquarters is at Langley AFB, VA.
General Hawley is now retired and no longer required to be politically
correct.
His short speech is very much to the point. The following are
excerpts:
"Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such
surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them
too.
Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully:
We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me now and
free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean,
"We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country has,
with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be the
greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in
history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what
happens.
2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid
you
usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it.
Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already:
Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp, panicky,
half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully
thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to
more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all
dead.
That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "reeducated," not "nurtured
back
into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E --Well, you get the idea.
3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community have failed
us."
For 25 year s we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the
ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not
protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee
Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided
that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy
satellites. "After all, (they reasoned,) you can see a license plate
from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a
license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding
humans
is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we
bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the
really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans
into the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks
like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a
coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to
meet
that bin Laden fella. "Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving
the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.
4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're
angry
at us." Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a
desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer
than
Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor
helpless
people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay
in
power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes
into the killing grounds is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew
this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads
marching against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who
grabbed any cause they could think of to get out of their final papers
and spend more time drinking. It's the same today.
5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here, the
Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an
article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin
Laden
family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff,
never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm
crushed. Please come back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World"
for
a minute and think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor
in the back of a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt. Rushmore and
turn, grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn't
offend them."
SO HERE'S what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our murdered
brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with their
immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political
science professor says, we didn' t start this. Have you seen that
bumper
sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas"? I wish I had one that says,
"No
More Pearl Harbors."
For those who don't know General Hawley, he's a newly retired USAF
4-star general. He commanded the USAF Air Combat Command [our
front-line
fighters and bombers]. The Command headquarters is at Langley AFB, VA.
General Hawley is now retired and no longer required to be politically
correct.
His short speech is very much to the point. The following are
excerpts:
"Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such
surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them
too.
Here they are:
1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative."
Listen carefully:
We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me now and
free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean,
"We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country has,
with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be the
greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in
history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what
happens.
2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid
you
usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it.
Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already:
Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp, panicky,
half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully
thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to
more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all
dead.
That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "reeducated," not "nurtured
back
into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E --Well, you get the idea.
3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community have failed
us."
For 25 year s we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the
ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not
protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee
Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided
that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy
satellites. "After all, (they reasoned,) you can see a license plate
from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a
license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding
humans
is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we
bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the
really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans
into the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks
like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a
coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to
meet
that bin Laden fella. "Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving
the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years.
4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're
angry
at us." Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a
desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer
than
Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor
helpless
people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay
in
power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes
into the killing grounds is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew
this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads
marching against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who
grabbed any cause they could think of to get out of their final papers
and spend more time drinking. It's the same today.
5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here, the
Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an
article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin
Laden
family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff,
never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm
crushed. Please come back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World"
for
a minute and think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor
in the back of a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt. Rushmore and
turn, grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn't
offend them."
SO HERE'S what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our murdered
brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with their
immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political
science professor says, we didn' t start this. Have you seen that
bumper
sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas"? I wish I had one that says,
"No
More Pearl Harbors."