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  • Nanny 911 On The War On Terror

       July 11, 2005

    The other day I compared Islamofascists to toddlers having a temper tantrum. That got me to thinking about how the nannies from Fox's Nanny 911 would deal with unruly terrorists. Is it possible to apply their 11 Commandments to the War on Terror? Well, I'm going to give it a try.

    1. Be Consistent
    On 9/20/01, President Bush, like a good parent, laid out the expectations for the Arab world.

    Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

    Of course, it's not just enough to say what kind of behavior you expect. Those expectations have to remain consistent. Nations like Iran or Syria have to understand that we will deal with them eventually. Oh sure, it'd be easier to just slack off after all the hard work we've done in Iraq and Afghanistan, but all that does is send the message to our enemies to wait until we get tired and lazy, and then they can go to town.

    2. Actions Have Consquences
    Otherwise known as the carrot and the stick. Throughout much of the 80s and 90s, we turned a blind eye to bad behavior from the Islamofascists. Not surprisingly, lacking adequate punishment, they continued to test their limits.

    3. Say What You Mean And Mean It
    Like a parent, America is, in many ways, the center of the Islamofascist's world. When we open our mouths, they listen. So, we have to choose our words carefully. We can neither be glib and say foolish things like "Bring it on!", nor can we embolden their cause and cut ourselves down by comparing our own behavior to, for example, Saddam Hussein's or the Nazis or Stalin or Pol Pot. You don't give a misbehaving child another justification for their bad behavior.

    4. Parents Work Together As A Team
    This is important. We can't have the President being the bad guy and the Democrats (or the Europeans) playing the role of Disney dad.

    5. Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep
    We can't promise the Arab Street prosperity. We can't promise them equality. We can, however, promise them greater freedom.

    More tactically, this also means we have to keep the promises we already made. So, for example, we'll need to stay in Iraq until she's able to take care of her own security. If we don't, we've just shown the Islamofascists that they can get their own way if they just keep crying fighting long enough.

    6. Listen To Your Children
    While part of this really is a Clintonesque "I feel your pain" thing, another part is truly listening to what the Islamofascists fear and hate. What they truly fear is democracy. They're afraid that a free people will turn their backs on their twisted version of Islam. What this means is that we could end all of our military and financial operations in the Middle East tomorrow, and they'd still hate us. You can't control such an unruly enemy until you really understand what they want.

    7. Establish A Routine
    Routines provide a feeling of safety. Our very presence in Iraq provides that feeling. If Iraqis are able to go to work and school without getting killed, they'll be less likely to harbor terrorists in their midst and more likely to start to believe that working with America is the way to go.

    8. Respect Is A Two-Way Street
    Take this a couple of ways. First, we need to respect the Islamofascists' intentions. What I mean is that we need to realize that they do exist and they are a threat. We need to respect that threat. But, second of all, we also need to respect the people of the Middle East and believe that they have the same desire for freedom and the same capability for democracy that we do and that the great majority of them basically want to be able to live their lives and raise their families in peace.

    9. Positive Reinforcement Works Much Better Than Negative Reinforcement
    The news on the War on Terror seems to be unfailingly bad. Americans read about it everyday, but Muslims do too. A terrorist-to-be reads all about how bad things are and about how America's resolve is about to crumble. Think about how empowering that is to him. But, on the other hand, think about what it would be like if positive news from Iraq and Afghanistan was more widely disseminated. Regular folks would realize that fighting the terrorists in their midst wasn't a lost cause. They could take pride in what their countries have been able to accomplish and may even start to want to take part in those accomplishments.

    10. Manners Are Universal
    We can't only be upset when terrorists hit New York or London. We need to understand that a terrorist attack in Mosul is just as damaging as one in Madrid. Stopping terrorism outside the home, if you will, doesn't stop it completely, and, it also creates a homelife that's nothing but a breeding ground for ever more terrorism.

    11. Define Your Roles As Parents
    Ultimately, it's not the job of America to police the world. Really. We need to create conditions that foster freedom and discourage terrorism, but ultimately, it's up to each individual in the Middle East to choose the kind of life they want to live. Hopefully we do our job well enough that they make the right choice.


    Posted by at July 11, 2005 11:32 PM

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    Comments

    #  July 12th, 2005 4:09 AM      jonts
    Karl Rove!

    I see this right wing blog has adopted a "this is not happening, i wont include it on my blog and hopefully it will go away" approach to the rove outing of a CIA operative case.


    Alternatively, those republ. blogs that have addressed this issue: Its fun to see republican bloggers arguing thats its OK for Government officals to be leaking the identity of CIA operatives to the press.


    So much for giving maximum protection to the CIA and protecting our own forces in the "war" on terror

    lol  
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 5:29 AM      dwford
    I love the comment by the above, er... Dummocrat

    As Bill Bennet said not 5 minues ago,
    "Boy does this seem like small potatoes..."

    These sharks smell blood in the water
    (Press secretary McClellan got 41 questions in 30 minutes on the Rove issue) and they are moving in for the kill.

    Compared to REAL issues like, say, the future of western civilization, this is nonsense.

    But Rove is the favorite of conspiracy theorists, liberal crazies, and barking moonabts in general - so to them this is BIG news.

    so "lol" to you too, jonts, "lol" because Rove is no baby seal, and the focus of the liberal media on this issue only serves to expose their bias even further.



     
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 5:33 AM      jonts
    "to expose their bias even further."

    Yes i am biased against government officials who leak the name of covert CIA agents- if this is something you condone then i wonder which side of the war on terror you are on....

    Oh, and didnt bush say (twice) last year that hed fire anyone in the white house who leaked this info?

    And yesterday, from the white house, silence...

    lol

    pass the pop corn  
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 7:39 AM      kris
    jonts,

    this is my blog. i write about what i want to. you are here all the time and by this point i would have expected that you'd notice that we certainly don't profess to be a newspaper. we're not covering all the stories of the day.

    For example, have we posted about the Supreme Court opening? No. Have we posted about talks with North Korea? No.

    We're under no obligation to "cover" anything.

    If you want to bitch about what we're NOT writing about, post it in General Chat or send us an email. Don't hijack a thread because it really pisses me off.  
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 8:27 AM      james
    don't even bother explaining yourself to trolls anymore, kris, just delete off-topic comments like that. if they keep up we'll ban him. i used to think that jonts added a dimension to the conversation, but i've clearly been proven wrong. it's gotten to a point where i think i could write a "jonts comment generator" that randomly spews crap and no one would be able to tell the difference.  
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 9:50 AM      jonts
    Kris

    Fair point. And i have to say that your blog is not a typical republican mouth piece- you seem more of a traditional small government, libertarian republican:
    Your blog is way more interesting than most republ. blogs for this reason..
     
     
    #  July 12th, 2005 9:57 AM      kris
    jonts,

    i'm sorry if i seem overly harsh, but you've got to remember that bloggers have actual real jobs and lives outside the blog. sometimes it's just hard to even keep up on the news beyond a few things that catch your eye.

    sometimes we get overwhelmed, well, at least I get overwhelmed.  
     
    #  July 13th, 2005 10:50 PM      Dana
    Great post. I think you hit the nail on the head.  
     

     

     


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