Lt.
Commander Bill Goss, USN (Ret) is an internationally
known speaker and author. Enlisting in 1974,
Bill worked on underwater weapons in Europe
for the U.S. Navy until he was discharged
as a Mineman Second Class in 1977. A former New Jersey Golden Glove boxer, Bill was also the light-heavy weight boxing champion at the U.S. Naval Air Stations in Pensacola, Corpus Christi, and Jacksonville. After his enlisted tour of duty, Bill attended
Rutgers University on the GI Bill and earned
an MBA from the Southern New Hampshire University. Bill graduated Aviation Officer
Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, and
earned his Navy Wings of Gold the following
year in Corpus Christi, Texas.
As a P-3
Orion pilot, Bill flew missions against
Soviet submarines in the North and South Atlantic
and Mediterranean and deployed to a very wide
variety of sites around the world. He became
an instructor pilot in the T-44 Pegasus and
then the Assistant Navigator of the nuclear
aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, deploying
throughout the Pacific from the Vinson's homeport
in the San Francisco Bay area. Bill and his
family returned to the east coast where he
flew P-3 Orions and a variety of other aircraft
while working for the admiral at NAS Jacksonville.
While there, Bill was diagnosed with a rare
form of cancer called amelanotic malignant
melanoma, had surgery, and retired from the
Navy. Bill is the author of The Luckiest
Unlucky Man Alive: A Wild Ride Overcoming
Life's Greatest Challenges -- And How You
Can Too. His second book, published by
Simon and Schuster's newest hardcover imprint,
Atria Books, is titled There's a Flying
Squirrel in My Coffee: Overcoming Cancer With
the Help of My Pet.
Bill is a contributing writer to many other
books including the New York Times bestseller,
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul.
Bill's life story has been featured on national
and international radio shows, and in publications
such as the Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles
Times, New Jersey Star Ledger, The Dallas
Morning News, The St. Petersburg Times,
and Maxim Magazine.
A motivational and inspirational speaker,
Bill is featured every month on the Discovery
Channel's Animal Planet. Bill's mailing address
is:
Bill Goss International
P.O. Box 7060
Orange Park, FL 32073
It's time for all of us, conservatives and liberals alike, to finally come clean with the truth. We should finally start being honest with one another by stating the obvious. We should start moving away from general non-specific declarations about the war on terror, and instead we should start making some very specific statements regarding our intent and why. Our President should consider making a statement that creates a short and very precise sound bite for the media and for the world. It should be a statement that easily defines what we are doing, why, and against whom. And maybe he should forego the how and when and for how long; that is information that only helps the enemy. And this statement should also clearly state that this is a world war and it will last a long time and that, no, this not a minor police action or an exercise in law enforcement. This is World War Three.
I believe that something like the following needs to be stated to the world in big bold black and white print:
"We are not in a world war against a group of non-descript terrorists - instead, we are specifically and unequivocally in a world war against Islamist extremists."
Let's make it very clear to everyone in the world EXACTLY WHO our enemy is and EXACTLY WHY they are our enemy.
WHO? "The enemy is Islamist extremists."
WHY? "The reason why they are our enemy is because Islamist extremists believe that the Koran has ordered them to kill everyone else in the world who does not believe in Allah in exactly the same way they believe in Allah."
WHY DO ISLAMIST EXTREMISTS FEEL THIS WAY? "Because according to Islamist extremists, tolerance of any kind, especially tolerance of religion and sexual equality, is a sign of great moral weakness and will not be - no pun intended - tolerated."
Islamist extremists are people living all over the globe who, under the pretense of religion and their interpretation of the Koran, despise the concept of personal and spiritual freedom and despise the concept of sexual equality. They are brainwashed almost from birth to believe that this is the only way to live. Their fanatically radical religious leaders demand total obedience and control over their subordinate subjects. These leaders often prove to be extraordinarily cruel men who encourage the youngest of boys, as well as pregnant women, to blow themselves up in areas crowded with those of us who do not take the Koran quite so literally. The result is a massive slaughter of completely innocent and totally unsuspecting people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...a place targeted by an Islamist extremist.
Extremists are just that...people who will go to the most extreme measures to achieve their extreme ideals. And, for what it's worth, taking the Koran literally is an impossible thing to do, if you take into account the vastly dissimilar translations that this religious book has undergone over the past 1300 years. I've read the most widely accepted English translation, but since then I've learned from reading the teachings of Muslim scholars that unless I read the Koran in ancient Arabic, I've wasted my time...I have simply not learned anything at all. Remarkably, most of the people who follow the teachings of Islam are unable to really read the Koran, because they don't comprehend ancient Arabic either. So, most Moslems are wholly dependent on their religious leaders' interpretation of the Koran (although many of their religious leaders can't comprehend ancient Arabic either). This evidently results in a lot of confused and angry people who appear incapable at times of independent thought.
While training to be a U.S. Navy pilot, one of the most important things I learned was to attempt to have no deadly enemies. But if you unfortunately ended up having an enemy or two, especially enemies that have clearly demonstrated that their intentions against you are deadly, then you must quickly define who those enemies are and you must come to understand exactly why they want you dead and how they might do it.
Then you must plan accordingly and take care of this problem quickly - with plans that extend over the long term as well as the short term.
And in regards to how this applies to the war on terrorism, we must never forget the cardinal rule that we have learned over the past ten years or so…that Islamist extremists want us extremely dead. If you don't get rid of them, they will get rid of you. Islamist extremism allows for no compromise and, according to the Koran, deal breaking is totally okay when it is deal with an infidel…and to a Islamist extremist, we're all infidels.
Once again: WHO? We are at war with Islamist extremists.
WHY? Because the Koran instructs Islamist extremists to have zero tolerance towards people who do not believe in Allah exactly the same way they believe in Allah and because of this, they want to kill us.
