Self-contradictory presidential statement

In his speech on the eve of 9/11, President Obama made a statement that is blatantly self-contradictory. It struck me that way when I first heard it, but I thought I would let it lie for a few days and see if anyone in the media picked up on it. But alas, I haven’t heard anyone on CNN or Fox News mention it, nor have I read about it in any online news source. So here I go. The statement was, “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”

The particular part that is self-contradictory is his assertion that ISIS/ISIL “has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” My question is: all who stand in its way to do what? The very fact that ISIS is “on its way” somewhere indicates that it has a vision. But what is that vision? It seems to me they have made it quite clear. In fact, this vision is expressed in its name. If we use the name Obama prefers, this terrorist organization calls it’s the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This indicates that its vision is to establish a state governed by a caliph where Shariah law is administered. Moreover, the territory of this state will consist of Iraq plus Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, and the Sinai Peninsula (the Levant).

To describe the vision of ISIS/ISIL as merely slaughtering people is like saying the vision of an offensive line is to block the defensive line. No, the vision of an offensive line is to enable the guy with the ball to get a touchdown. The vision is scoring and ultimately winning. Blocking is merely the means to an end. For the president to tell the American people that ISIS/ISIL has no end game and cannot see anything beyond its current murderous rampage through Iraq is dangerously deceptive.

Here is the speech I would have given: “My fellow Americans, ISIS has a vision of turning the entire area that currently consists of Iraq, Syria, Jordan Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, and Sinai into an Islamic state under Shariah law and they will stop at nothing to accomplish this. As far as they are concerned, anyone who opposes them is expendable and should be killed in a horrific way, thus instilling fear in all others who dare to oppose them. And because they will stop at nothing to achieve their vision, I say they must be stopped. And to do so is going to require overwhelming military power.

"Now I would be glad to have the assistance of other nations, especially the Europeans, but if no one else is willing step up, then America will go it alone. Why? Because these people take the Koran literally and believe they have a solemn responsibility to bring the entire world under subjection to Allah, which has been the ultimate goal of Islam from its founding. After Muhammad died in 632, his Islamic armies swept across Arabia, north African, and the Middle East, spreading Islam at the edge of the sword. The only thing that stopped them from taking Europe was Charles Martel’s victory at the Battle of Tours in 732 and the intervention of John Sobieski and his Polish army in 1683 at the gates of Vienna. But our European friends better wake up and realize that the Muslim world has never given up on their goal of conquering Europe for Allah. ISIS has already announced that one of their immediate goals is taking Italy and Spain. My fellow Americans, once Europe has fallen, we will ne next. They are already encouraging their jihadist brethren to attack us right here in the homeland. It’s just a matter of time.

"This is why ISIS must be stopped now. Every day that goes by they become more entrenched in the territory that have already taken, which is an area about the size of New England. And even though they have recently had a couple of setbacks, they have nevertheless had enough victories to attract thousands of new followers. Since this past spring their army has grown from around 800 to over 30,000. Folks, time is of the essence. These people have shown that in there minds there is no such thing as a civilian. They have beheaded two Americans who had nothing to do with our military, and they have killed thousands of Syrians and Iraqis solely because they stood in the way of achieving their vision. Therefore, when we attack them, we will do it from the position that there are no civilians. We will attack them with overwhelming fire power. This is what we did in Dresden to defeat Naziism and this is what we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring the Imperial Japanese army to its knees. Sadly, the cost of destroying an evil ideology is often the death of many people who never really bought into it.

"I confess to you today that I should have left a strong residual force in Iraq, but I can’t undue my mistakes of the past. So my fellow Americans, it’s back to Iraq we go. And by the way, I am also instructing the Army Corp of Engineers to immediately begin constructing an impassible fence across our entire southern border. I am also ordering increased surveillance of our northern border, and I’m asking Congress to double the size of our Coast Guard. Furthermore, I am beginning an immediate process for deporting every person within our borders who did not enter our country through proper legal channels. Let the whole world know that from this day forth, if you enter the United States illegally, you will not receive one penny of assistance and you will not be welcome here."

         

OK, it's time they change their name

Yes, it's high time that the owners of the New York Yankees change the name of their team. Here is why.

According to Wikipedia: The origin of the term is uncertain. In 1758, British General James Wolfe made the earliest recorded use of the word Yankee to refer to people from what was to become the United States, referring to the New England soldiers under his command as Yankees: "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance".[5] Later British use of the word often was derogatory, as in a cartoon of 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" soldiers.[5]

The word Yankee is a variation that could have referred to the Dutch Americans.[7] Michael Quinion and Patrick Hanks argue that the term refers to the Dutch pet name Janneke[9] or Janke[10] ("Johnny"), which – owing to the Dutch pronunciation of J as the English Y – would be Anglicized as "Yankee". Quinion and Hanks posit it was "used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times" and could have grown to include non-Dutch colonists as well.[9]

H. L. Mencken derived it from the slur "John Cheese", applied by the English colonists to the Dutch – "Here comes a John Cheese"[11] – owing to the importance of their dairy cultivation, which introduced the black-and-white dairy cow from Friesland and North Holland to America in the mid-1600s. The modern Dutch for John Cheese is Jan Kaas but this would be spoken Jan Kees in some dialects.[10]

According to Cecil Adams: “The origins of "Yankee" have been fiercely debated throughout the history of the Republic, and to this day the Oxford English Dictionary says the source of the word is "unascertained." Perhaps the most widely accepted explanation was advanced by H.L. Mencken, the well-known newsman-scholar (and don't tell me that isn't an unusual combination), who argued that Yankee derives from the expression Jan Kaas, literally "John Cheese." This supposedly was a derogatory nickname bestowed on the Dutch by the Germans and the Flemish in the 1600s. (Wisconsin cheeseheads can undoubtedly relate.)

The English later applied the term to Dutch pirates, and later still Dutch settlers in New York applied it to English settlers in Connecticut, who were known for their piratical trading practices. During the French and Indian War the British general James Wolfe took to referring derisively to the native New Englanders in his army as Yankees."

Why should the New York baseball team continue to use a name that is so disparaging to the Dutch settlers of New York state and their descendants. To hell with the legacy of Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle, and Jeter, I demand that the Yankees change their name immediately. In fact, I will no longer use this ethnic slur in any future published commentaries. So there!