"Go get 'em! No--wait--STOP! But go get 'em! Hit 'em hard! NO--not THAT hard! Go easy but win! WIN WIN WIN! But be gentle!"
You can't win a war this way -- or anything else for that matter.
Imagine watching your favorite football team going one-on-one with a really, really determined adversary.
Now imagine that every time your team makes a play, you scream "STOP! You were too rough!"
Or when your team gains yardage: "Yeah, but we're going to lose the whole game. I just know it. They're more determined anyway. Look, our own team isn't even getting along. We'd better concede the game before we lose. Let's CONCEDE AND GO HOME FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
Another group is extremely solicitious toward our team's players: "They look tired. They need a rest. Bring them back to the locker room NOW! Bring them all back to the locker room!"
You also spend much of the game screaming at your team's head coach: "WAIT! STOP! Not that way! You IDIOT! You liar! You chimp! You are worse than Hitler!" Every play your coach makes is wrong. Besides, he's not a player on the field, so he's fair game, right?
Oh, and at various points throughout the game, and especially when victory appears to be in sight, fans of your team sneak over and grab parts of your team's secret playbook, and publish them on the scoreboard for everyone in the stadium to see. This is all done in the name of the fans' "right to know" and making sure that our coach doesn't violate any of the rules of the game.
But if anyone questions which team you're supporting, you get really, really mad "How DARE you?"
Now, imagine that this team you're supporting is the United States of America, and the consequences if you lose the game include a big giant mushroom cloud that annihilates your team AND all the fans on your side of the stadium, you and your kids included.
The differences are: 1. It's not just a game and 2. The other football team is completely ruthless and without conscience. The other team follows no rules of the "game" and in fact spends most of its time not playing on the field, but killing off fans in the the bleachers (beheadings, improvised explosive devices, rockets, a jet plane loaded with fuel aimed right at the bleachers, etc.). Meanwhile, it is making good progress on its larger plan to win the entire game with a big mushroom cloud "poof."
It's not a game. It's deadly earnest.
It started with a whole lot of individual terrorist attacks around the world throughout the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when the civilized world wasn't paying much attention. It began for America in earnest on September 11, 2001. And now it's underway.
There is no game clock, and there are no time outs. We either win or most of us will eventually die or live under totalitarianism.
But too many on our side still think it is a game. Not only that, but it's a game they think they don't have to play and can afford to lose.
They will keep thinking that way until the other team gets around to their section of the bleachers and their loved ones, and then of course what they think won't matter much any more because they will just be victims. It will be the worst pain they've ever known. And when survivors come to their aid, maybe they will say "I'm so sorry." Or maybe they will curse the rescuers too. "Why didn't you get here sooner? Why didn't you see this coming? Why did we lose? Why is my child dead?"
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More food for thought at Iowa Voice
Excellent parallel. It's scary to think how blind people can be.
Posted by: Jim | December 27, 2005 at 03:35 PM