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September 20, 2005
All,
Here is my response to Senator John Andrews, former president of the Colorado State Senate, and his call for a restoration of the military draft which ran in last Sunday's Denver Compost.
Doug Newman
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Senator Andrews, Before you call for the restoration of the military draft, why don't you go door to door in your district looking for volunteers? And, if you have kids, do they have any plans to go over and put their lives at risk in Iraq?
As a veteran, do you have any plans to do like Colorado Treasurer Mike Coffman did and go back into the military yourself and perform a tour of duty in Iraq?
It is oh so easy to talk about such concepts as war, a return to the draft and "increased troop strength" as long as it is someone from Limon or South Central LA who you will never meet who is doing the actual fighting and dying.
Doug Newman
Aurora
Storekeeper First Class, US Naval Reserve, Retired
http://www.tfot.us
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. -- Hosea 4:6
-- backboneco@aol.com wrote: Dear Friend: I don't usually do a large email distribution on my Denver Post column, which runs every other Sunday and is archived at www.backboneamerica.net. The most recent piece, however, is one of the most urgent and heartfelt I've ever done in almost 40 years on the political battlefield. So I wanted you to see it, and as always, I welcome your comments.
Yours for self-government - John Andrews
IT'S WAR, AND WE MUST WIN
By John Andrews
Former President, Colorado Senate
Fellow, Claremont Institute
www.backboneamerica.net
Why not victory? The question haunted me all day on Sept. 11, the fourth anniversary of Islamofascist military attacks against America's seat of self-government, Washington, and our crown jewel of liberty, New York. We are a nation supposedly at war, yet the enemy is not identified, the definition of winning is vague, the national will is weak. The war itself is misnamed and undeclared.
In my town, Centennial, which firmly supports President Bush and the Republican Congress, not one house in 20 flew the flag last Sunday in memory of the Sept.11 heroes, or in token of the will to avenge them and secure our freedom by defeating the global jihadist enemy. At my church there was but passing mention of the World Trade Center atrocity, and no mention of the unfinished conflict it ignited.
That Saturday I was at two gatherings where the national anthem was sung, a statewide conservative conference and the Caulkins opera house opening gala. Little of the somber tone of wartime was felt at either of them. You can bet that on Friday, the day before, imams in countless mosques around the world -- including many right here -- were revisiting the glories of destruction on that fall day in 2001, and inciting the faithful to further bloodshed for Allah.
But the Twin Towers and Pentagon anniversary was largely crowded off weekend front pages by Katrina coverage in both the Post and the News. The Post did find room for a story headlined, "Muslims say fear lingers." The Gulf Coast hurricane and the Islamist act of war were paired as twin "tragedies" in a Rocky headline on Sept. 12.
Look, storm devastation compounded with human failings is a tragedy -- but a sneak attack on our homeland by foreigners bent on killing us by the millions and subjugating America to Muslim theocracy is not. It is, or should have been, a fearsome warning to mobilize this mighty land militarily, diplomatically, economically, and spiritually for total self-defense and ferocious counterattack, never slackening until the enemy is crushed.
Tragedy, hell. This is war, and not just a war on "terror." Certain Muslim groups and Muslim countries are out to break the U.S. and its free-world allies, dating from at least 1979 when they hit us in Tehran. Their side is bent on victory. Our side, up to this point, clearly is not.
Coping, managing the problem, at most swatting the enemy, seems to be the extent of our objective. While Bush has been far better than Clinton, cleaning the Taliban out of Afghanistan and removing Saddam, the latter-day Hitler, from Iraq, he hasn't done nearly enough.
What else should the President and our leaders be doing? Here's my "Why Not Victory?" list:
1. Address Congress and call this what it is, World War IV.
2. Send another 50,000 troops to Iraq.
3. Increase the defense budget by $200 billion.
4. Institute a draft for the armed forces.
5. Declare war on Syria.
6. Put Cheney over a task force to find Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi.
7. Name a Democrat, perhaps Lieberman or Bayh, as Homeland Security secretary.
8. Militarize the Mexican border.
9. Summon the leaders of Muslim nations to the woodshed in Washington.
10. Assemble democracy activists from Muslim nations at Independence Hall.
11. Intensify FBI surveillance of Islamofascist front groups in the U.S.
12. Break relations with the Palestinian Authority.
13. Speed up Saddam Hussein's trial and urge his execution.
14. Indict Kofi Annan and notify the United Nations to relocate overseas.
15. Convene a Warsaw summit of the democracies toward replacing the UN.
Katrina was horrific, to be sure. But so were the 1918 flu epidemic and 1943 race riots, little remembered today. What then mattered most was winning the first and second world wars. What matters supremely today is winning this world war. America again stands in mortal peril. Statesmen, defined recently by Post columnist Paul Johnson as "selfless leaders" seeking the common good," are greatly needed. Their stark challenge to all of us must be: Why not victory?
Freely Speaking: Essays by Doug Newman
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