Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
(a couple of good thoughts From an article in American Heritage Magazine)
Western nations from the Greeks to the present are not weak at war, but enormously lethal, far out of proportion to their sometimes small populations and territories. Nor is our power merely an accident of superior technology; rather it is founded on our very ideas and values. The underpinnings of Western Culture; Freedom, Civic Militarism, Capitalism, Individualism, Constitutional Gov, Secular Rationalism and Natural Inquiry immune from Political or Religous backlash--have always brought carnage to adversaries when applied on the battlefield. Setbacks, from Cannae to the Little Bighorn have led not to capitulation but rather to study, debate and analysis--and finally to devistating reprisals.
The terrible protocols of the West at War have already been made known to the terrorists we are fighting, who had no idea what they were arousing. Instead of parading pictures of Bin Laden in the streets, the taliban would have done better to study the history of the names of the American ships off their shores: USS Peleiu, Enterprise and Roosevelt.
In Sept. 1898, Winston Churchill took part in the last great cavalry charge in history. It was at the battle of Omburman, in the Sudan. The British were fighting an army of Islamic fanatics. Here is what Churchill wrote:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammidism lays on its devoted supporters. Besides the fanatical frenzy... there is this fearful fatalistic apathy... Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce... " "Mohammidism is a militant and prosletyzing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science--the science against which it had vainly struggled--the Civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. "
Western nations from the Greeks to the present are not weak at war, but enormously lethal, far out of proportion to their sometimes small populations and territories. Nor is our power merely an accident of superior technology; rather it is founded on our very ideas and values. The underpinnings of Western Culture; Freedom, Civic Militarism, Capitalism, Individualism, Constitutional Gov, Secular Rationalism and Natural Inquiry immune from Political or Religous backlash--have always brought carnage to adversaries when applied on the battlefield. Setbacks, from Cannae to the Little Bighorn have led not to capitulation but rather to study, debate and analysis--and finally to devistating reprisals.
The terrible protocols of the West at War have already been made known to the terrorists we are fighting, who had no idea what they were arousing. Instead of parading pictures of Bin Laden in the streets, the taliban would have done better to study the history of the names of the American ships off their shores: USS Peleiu, Enterprise and Roosevelt.
In Sept. 1898, Winston Churchill took part in the last great cavalry charge in history. It was at the battle of Omburman, in the Sudan. The British were fighting an army of Islamic fanatics. Here is what Churchill wrote:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammidism lays on its devoted supporters. Besides the fanatical frenzy... there is this fearful fatalistic apathy... Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce... " "Mohammidism is a militant and prosletyzing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science--the science against which it had vainly struggled--the Civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome. "
