Rear Admiral [Ret.] Jim Carey is Chairman of the NATIONAL DEFENSE COMMITTEE and NATIONAL DEFENSE PAC. His background includes duty in cruisers and amphibs, at Naval Beach Group, and in the Pentagon, and naval service from Seaman Recruit to Rear Admiral. He also served in the Reagan and George Bush Sr. Administrations. Further details at The National Defense Committee and The National Defense Political Action Committee.
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Or if you’re not "Mad As Hell" then at least I think you ought to be.
Remember [gonna date myself] the movie a couple of decades ago named “Network” about the TV Networks, and this one particularly charismatic [also a little goofy] TV Commentator who got the nation all involved and angry over all the craziness that was going on with politicians caught taking bribes and telephones that didn’t work and streets full of potholes that weren’t getting fixed and the thousand and one other things that drive every single one of us up a wall as we pay and pay taxes and these things just don’t seem to get resolved? Can’t remember the guy’s name, but he got the whole nation angry and began forcing some changes on the country. Then, as I recall, he went nuts. Let’s hope that’s not where we’re headed with this dialogue.
This time, I’m talking about terrorism, not potholes.
Am I missing something or have we now reached a point in our national psyche where some nutburger blows himself [or herself] up and kills innocent men, women, and children here in America or in Britain or Spain or Turkey or any other nation, and the TV talking airheads wring their hands a bit and we bury the innocent dead deprived of their lives by these crazed terrorists and then everyone seems to almost immediately segue back to life as usual and rejoin "the bottled water and cell phone generation"?
Shouldn’t we be MAD AS HELL and shouting that "We’re NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE"? Shouldn’t we be outraged that these terrorists think they have a right to blow up our kids and kill the innocent and the elderly and then move on unscathed to do it again in another city or another country? I’m MAD AS HELL, but am I the only one? Is it right to let this continue on without launching an all-out massive worldwide effort to wipe out "this scum of the earth" forever?
I gotta tell you, I think each time we just nod in sorrow and then move on to our next cell phone call, we do great disservice to our innocent dead. And not just the dead, we do a huge disservice to the living - the cost that all these terrorists have forced upon the civilized world to defend ourselves and our families amounts to trillions of dollars around the world. If you but stop to think what that money could be used for - the good it could be doing - rather than it's having to be used to hire 100,000 airport screeners to have the whole world now x-raying its shoes, then I truly think you will join me and like me, open the window and shout that you’re "mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore."
Consider just a few of the consequences of these mass murders and what it’s costing us and our friends and families and nations [I’m sure you can think of more]:
Have you lost a loved one lately to cancer? Might they have been saved if the billions that now have to be spent to protect against terrorists could have been spent on cancer research and a cure? If that doesn’t make you mad as hell, well - I think it should.
Do you have a child or know of the child of a friend that has been diagnosed with an incurable disease? Might that child have hope or indeed have been able to be saved if the billions that now have to be spent to protect against terrorists could have been spent finding a cure? That makes me MAD AS HELL. Doesn’t it you?
Are your kids getting less than the very best education or are you literally mortgaging your future to send kids to college when your tax dollars could have been spent to solve the nation’s education problems and help families with tuition? Might education in America have billions more to use for our kids if the money didn’t have to be spent to protect against terrorists who think it’s their right mandated by GOD to kill the rest of us? Damn, but that makes me raging mad. I just don’t understand why so many seem willing to accept terrorism without getting mad as hell.
Do you have Grandparents or elderly relatives who are now lapsing into total loss of their humanity through Alzheimer’s or dementia? Might that not have had to happen if the billions that we now have to spend to safeguard our nation against terrorism could have been spent on research for a cure? That surely makes me Mad as Hell.
Are you a farmer who’s been through back-to-back droughts or natural disaster and just learned that you’re going to lose the farm that’s been in your family for 6 generations because the federal program that used to be there to help you through these disasters has been cut or cancelled in order to use the money to protect against terrorism? Can we continue to just yawn as each bomb goes off and then go back to life as usual? I’m mad as hell and I want to go after these jerks "industrial strength" and eliminate every last one of them.
Well - I could go on and on with these examples and I’m sure now that you’re thinking about it, you could add many more. The bottom line is, at least in my judgment, while I think we’re doing lots of the right things technologically and strategically and systemically to fight the global war on terrorism, I just don’t see or sense or find the outrage in our citizenry that I feel against the terrorists. We seem to be way too willing to just turn the other cheek and move on.
I think we need to mobilize against global terrorism just like we did against Nazi terrorism in World War II. And while it seems that there are some nations around the world "that just don’t get it," I think there are enough who think like we do that we can join together with to make the war on terrorism what it needs to be to totally eliminate these killers.
In short, as a nation and as a citizenry, we need to GET MAD AS HELL AND NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE.
Or if not, then we’d all better get used to attending funerals of friends and loved ones because the money to cure them had to be used to protect us against the terrorists. Get used to losing relatives who are cut down by Alzheimer’s. Get used to spending trillions on airport inspectors and never-ending cash outflow that otherwise could go for our kids and grandkids and the sick and elderly and needy and medical research and highways and even to pay our sons and daughters in the armed forces.
If we can but regain our national gumption and backbone, we can defeat these murderers and get on with reclaiming our freedom. In my view, the President understands this and has made it crystal clear. The majority of Congress understands it and has funded what’s needed. Now we in the public and the citizenry need to match the greatest generation who won World War II and develop some spunk of our own and quit turning the other cheek.
Otherwise the terrorists will ultimately bankrupt America and the rest of the free world and when we have no money left to defend ourselves, they will kill us all at their leisure.
