The Surge Is Working!

by Thomas R. Eddlem

The constant repetition over talk radio that "the surge is working" has convinced me that the surge in Iraq has worked. No longer do I ask: "Working compared to what?" Additional American casualties are fewer in Iraq today than a year ago, and that’s enough for me. No longer do I ask: "Fewer than if we pulled out of Iraq?" or "When will the casualties end?"

No, the surge is a rousing success.

There’s infallible logic, there’s invincible logic, and then there’s the far more powerful logic of repetition. Repetition is a wonderful thing, and I’ve therefore decided to become a neo-conservative.

Here are my new beliefs:

* I believe the U.S. Constitution only applies to Americans … except, of course, to illegal aliens, and to foreigners who give so much as a hangnail to one of our embassy personnel or citizens abroad. Those foreigners have no rights, but the Constitution does apply when it comes to kicking their butts out of the country, or frying their butts, respectively.
* I believe aliens do not possess our inalienable rights under the Constitution. God only gave rights to Americans, and Thomas Jefferson was mistaken in the Declaration of Independence about "all men" possessing "inalienable rights" from God. Foreigners aren’t really "men," but rather are sub-human. The Germans had a good word for it a few years back: untermenschen.
* I believe terrorists don’t deserve trials or habeas corpus, even though murderers, child molesters and rapists clearly deserve trials and habeas corpus. The latter are so clearly a better class of people and have obviously harmed far fewer of my countrymen.
* I believe that if we give just one trial to some towel-headed Muqbar, Islamofascism will take us over and impose Islam on my family. I believe this most sincerely even though I repeat every hour – on the hour – we have the best, most powerful and most technologically advanced military in the world, a military that sits on a pile of nuclear weapons.
* I believe people who oppose indefinite detention without trials want the terrorists to win. Those people who insist upon trials will allow the Islamofascists to impose a tyranny upon us, and the liberals who support trials would rue the day they win because that coming Islamofascist tyranny may not even allow trials.
* I believe the Founding Fathers never envisioned our rights being extended to aliens abroad, and that they had ample opportunity to explain the rights of foreigners if they had wished. That’s because I also believe that the liberal media has hidden from the historical record the hundreds of foreign wars our Founding Fathers waged abroad. You can bet the Founders didn’t Mirandize all millions of towel-heads they detained, nor did they give a trial to the spies they caught like John Andre. (That’s a link to a liberal media lie, I’m sure.)
* I believe that all of those detained by our military on a chaotic battlefield are guilty, hardened terrorists, and those handed over to our forces by sweet, well-intentioned bounty hunters are all equally guilty. None of those detained are innocent, not that we should care about those rag-heads anyway.
* I believe that when our soldiers interrogate detainees and use as a guide a chart which claims to explain "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions," that our interrogators will extract only truthful information that is vital to our safety. We should base our whole national security policy upon this information.
* I believe the jurisdiction of the U.S. Constitution does not reach outside of the geographic United States … except in cases where the President wants our military to strike, which is just about everywhere.
* I believe people who support the Bill of Rights are living in a September 10th worldview.
* I believe the Constitution is not a suicide pact, so we must do away with all that Constitution stuff about trials, torture, habeas corpus and prohibition against warrantless surveillance.
* I believe we must strike the right balance between liberty and security, which means we should err on the side of security and strike out liberty. Clearly, we can not have both liberty and security. Ben Franklin was just as wrong as Thomas Jefferson.
* I believe in the Founding Fathers’ concept of limited government, but only when the Republican Party leadership and Fox News Channel (or do I repeat myself) tells me to do so.

Yes, I have evolved. I believe what I hear.

Repetition is all. I have to end this column now, because Sean Hannity is about to go on the air.

July 29, 2008

Thomas R. Eddlem [send him mail] is a freelance writer who never thought he was that bright. But he has been published in more than 20 periodicals, and his essays have been re-published in five books. Recently, he has written the introduction to William Norman Grigg’s latest book, Liberty In Eclipse, and has also contributed a chapter to an upcoming biography on Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Ron Paul: A Life.

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