Yeah, that's what the tighty righties always say about Iraq, as they cower under their bedsheets in terror of Teh Brown. Thing is, I remember yet another time when we had to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here". Except the place was Vietnam. And we really did have terror cells "over here", Communist front groups devoted to "bringing on the revolution." And yeah, they managed to blow up a little shit here and there too.
So how did we defeat "them" (actually, us) over here, even though we didn't defeat "them" (actually, the Vietnamese people) over there? Simple. The FBI infiltrated these groups so heavily that if four radical activists got together to plan an action, three of them were probably FBI informants. The CIA was in on the action too, reporter Walter Pincus of the Washington Post got his start as a CIA operative by infiltrating student groups for example (probably he still is a CIA operative, he tends to break the CIA side of any story in Washington, but what the hey that's how it works in Soviet America). In other words, law enforcement. Duh. And it worked, mostly, until the terrorism started coming from the right-wing (Unibomber, Oklahoma City, abortion clinics, Osama) rather than the left wing. Official Washington was a bit in denial about the possibility of right-wing violence, after so many decades of fighting "the commie threat"=, and did not devote law enforcement resources to infiltrating and neutralizing such groups, instead preferring to go after ill people and people who like viewing videos of kinky sex.
So anyhow, I've heard the latest tighty rightie rhetoric before. Iraq-Nam. Like Viet-Nam, except in urban jungles rather than rural jungles. And you know something? Once we left Vietnam, guess what the VIetnamese people did -- did they follow us over here? Uhm, no. They settled down to rebuilding their country after the many decades of war. Which is exactly what the Iraqi people will do once we leave. But hey, that's drawing on the lessons of history, and tighty righties neither know history, nor care about history. All they care about is their fear of Teh Brown and whatever their political commissars on talk radio and Faux News tell them. Alrighty, then!
-- Badtux the History Penguin
Sometimes I think that the reason that we have not had any more terror attacks by right wing fundamentalists (other than trying to bomb their own funerals and churches) is that they don't need to resort to terrorism as all of their demands are being met: Those 10 amendments in the bill of rights are just fluffers for the important one: Number Two. Since the second amendment is being held sacred, libbie scum can choke on the others.
ReplyDeleteThe corollary is that the reason Al Qaida hasn't attacked again is that their demands are being met too, and much quicker than they could have imagined: GW is destroying the country.
And you know something? Once we left Vietnam, guess what the VIetnamese people did -- did they follow us over here? Uhm, no. They settled down to rebuilding their country after the many decades of war.
ReplyDeleteA more accurate statement would be that a lot of the Vietnamese people DID follow us over here, but not to retaliate -- they came here as immigrants and refugees, and are for the most part assimilating fine.
We had about 20,000 Vietnamese settle on the Gulf Coast and they tended to go fishing and open restaurants, rather than carry out terrorist attacks.
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