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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Wednesday, April 17, 2002
13:38 - No point in wasting time...
http://instapundit.blogspot.com/?/2002_04_14_instapundit_archive.html#85014332

(top) link
I'm getting less and less patient with people who urge patience-- about taking care of business in Iraq and other such places. Like the WAMM (as mentioned in Lileks' bleat today) and the other peace-activist groups who think we should just wait, negotiate, and dispose of all our military weapons. "Weapons kill and injure people, pollute and destroy the environment, fuel hatred, divert funds better spent on domestic needs, devastate families and communities, and create a false sense of security." Uh, yeah, and your point is what?

Let's have some WAMM member's daughter get blown up in a coffee shop, or have their headquarters get firebombed and grafitti'ed, and we'll see how evil and unnecessary they think weapons are.

But what gets me is this idea that we should solve these problems by waiting and thinking. As though that's helped any in the past 6,000 years. As many have noted lately, the longer we wait and do nothing, the closer Iraq gets to having nuclear weapons and citywide-deployable anthrax. But that's okay, as long as we don't provoke them, right?

Uh huh. Tell that to Lower Manhattan.

These are the same people-- or people with the same attitude-- as the ones who "appeased" Hitler, and who let the Microsoft antitrust case drag on for five years while their monopoly grew more and more unbreakable-- to the point where even if the case had turned out to rule against Microsoft, any punitive action they could take would be utterly meaningless. (Oh wait-- the courts did rule against Microsoft? Why, so help me, I never even noticed! How could I have overlooked all the damage Microsoft suffered as punishment?)

I can only assume that when the government drags its feet on some issue like this, it's because they're taking their time to ponder and think and make sure everybody will be happy. They're weighing all the options, building a case, gathering the troops, and making sure they have complete justification for everything they plan to do. Government action is often slowed down so much by negotiation and politics that they're brought to a complete standstill, while the issues they're arguing over trundle on by.

Presumably there's a reason why they do this. Presumably they legitimately fear a backlash if they were to act rashly.

But I have to ask this: When was the last time the government ever suffered under accusations that it was acting too quickly and boldly?


In the case of Iraq, scuttlebutt at InstaPundit is that we're waiting only as long as it takes us to rebuild our weapons supply:
We still have a lot of bombs to build before we take out Iraq.

At the end of last year, people noticed that we had greatly diminished our stockpiles of smart bombs and non-nuclear cruise missles in Afghanistan. I recall (but do not have a citation) that the general guestimate was Sept/Oct of this year to build enough ordinance to drop on Saddam.

In the mean time, the US is playing the Israel/Palestinian game to make the rest of the Arab world go nuts. The US supports Israel, plays with Arafat, and hopes to rope a bunch of dopes into our sights when the bombs start dropping. Until we have the bombs we need to end this quickly, we're going to do what it takes to keep the Middle East and the numerous maniacs that inhabit it looking like the evil idiots that they are.

Once we have enough bombs, we'll know who to drop them on and this will come to an end.

Well, we'll find out soon enough whether that's the case.

WAMM opposed the war in Afghanistan, before it began-- presumably because it was to involve weapons. Now, naturally, they oppose any action against the Palestinian suicide bombers, because that would obviously make us "executioners" (and dynamite belts don't count as "weapons" because they're not military, I assume).

Yeah, if I were bin Laden, and I saw that a hated oppressor nation had people in it who talked like this, I'd attack it too.

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© Brian Tiemann