Gino Piroli – 8/21/06

This page was last updated on August 26, 2006.

It’s not so strange what people I know; Gino Piroli; Beaver County Times; August 21, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject column.

“A recent survey was conducted with people being questioned on their knowledge on a variety of subjects.

“Some of the results revealed that more people knew who Snow White’s seven dwarfs were than the names of the nine Supreme Court justices.

“They also knew who the Three Stooges were but not the three branches of government.

“Let me digress a bit, because any discussion of the Stooges brings me back to when I saw them in Aliquippa almost 68 years ago to this day. Moe, Larry and Curly appeared at the State Theater for four shows on Monday, Aug. 29, 1938.

“It was advertised in the newspaper as ‘those howling comedians appearing in person’ and ‘their only showing in Beaver County after appearing last week to Standing Room Only business at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh.’

“But let me get back to the knowledge, or lack thereof, of many of the citizens of this nation. It’s no surprise because it seems that really delving into and seeking information on the world around us or its history isn’t on the agenda of many people in this era. It’s easier to watch certain television channels and radio talk shows to form or justify opinions.

“Thomas Jefferson said: ‘Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.’

“That’s why I tell people who predict what appear to be obvious outcomes of elections - ‘never overestimate the intelligence of the voters’ - that most don’t take the time to be informed.”

[RWC] As you will see below, don’t go to Mr. Piroli if you “take the time to be informed.”

“There is no doubt that we are now in a war with terrorists throughout the world. The Pakistanis in London showed that, and we must remember that 19 Saudi Arabians were involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.”

[RWC] Talk about a fact-challenged sentence. The terrorists picked up in the airplane bomb plot were not Pakistanis. All were “homegrown” English Muslims, though of Pakistani ancestry.

The 9/11 attacks were on more than the WTC, Mr. Piroli. One plane hit the Pentagon and the fourth was headed for an unknown target in Washington, DC. Regarding the 19 terrorists, they were not all Saudis; 14 were Saudis, three were from the UAE, one was Lebanese, and the leader was Egyptian.

“We also have to contend with Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, groups in Indonesia and many terrorists in other regions of the world.

“It bothers me when comparisons to World War II are made by those supporting the current policies of the Bush administration. There was no question then on how to win the war: Defeat Germany and Japan. We did and won.

“Today it’s a different kind of war. The enemy is everywhere, so what’s the plan to win this war? Where’s the battleground? As London demonstrated, it’s not Iraq. We need to support our troops with more than rhetoric and slogans. We need leadership and direction.”

[RWC] There’s a good reason loyal Democrats like Mr. Piroli don’t like comparisons to World War II. There are similarities and comparisons that aren’t flattering to Democrats.

First let’s look at the similarities. During the nine years preceding Pearl Harbor, we had a Democrat president. For eight years of the eight years and eight months preceding 9/11, we had a Democrat president. I don’t blame FDR and Bill Clinton for World War II or 9/11. I’m just pointing out a similarity.

For the nine years plus before World War II, we knew there was trouble with Germany and Japan and chose to do nothing about it. Beginning with Islamofascism’s “birth” during the Jimmy Carter administration, we knew there was trouble with Islamist terrorists and chose to do little about it. That was true for both Democrat and Republican presidents and Congresses.

During the run up to World War II, Hitler said land would buy peace. For example, “ignore my invasion of (fill in the name of a country), and I promise to leave you alone.” “Peace in our time” was how British PM Neville Chamberlain referred to the Munich Conference in which Europe’s appeasers turned Czechoslovakia over to the Nazis in 1938. In the Middle East, Muslim terrorists tell Israel it can trade “land for peace,” but the attacks don’t stop when Israel turns over the land. In both cases, we know “land for peace” was a lie.

Now let’s look at the differences.

In one big way, World War II was less complicated than the war on Islamofascism. As Mr. Piroli correctly noted, our enemies were nations and to win the war you defeated the enemy countries. Today, the enemy is more pernicious. He uses religion (Islam) to justify his actions, refuses to fight on a battlefield, and hides amongst civilians. Indeed, he straps bombs on his children and sends them off to kill other children. The enemy’s goal is also different. During World War II, the goal of the Axis countries was to conquer the world, but not to exterminate its inhabitants (with a big exception for Jews, gypsies, et cetera). Today, the enemy’s goal is to kill all infidels. To an Islamofascist, an infidel is a non-Muslim or a Muslim who isn’t “Muslim enough.” When your enemy’s goal is your death, what is there to negotiate?

While I’m sure there had to be stray crackpots, you didn’t have a concerted effort by the Republican Party to destroy FDR’s ability to conduct the war. Today, Democrat bashing of President Bush is so bad that our enemies use exactly the language. Indeed, when you listen to Democrat/liberal leaders, activists, et cetera, you come to the conclusion they consider President Bush to be the true enemy of the U.S., not terrorists.

As a virtual extension of the Democrat Party, most of the media also believes President Bush is the real enemy. That’s why the press proudly prints national security secrets and believes doing so actually helps the U.S. What happened to the World War II admonition “Loose lips sink ships?” During World War II, the press generally supported our effort.

If during World War II Republicans and the press treated the war as Democrats and the press do today, FDR would have jailed them. After all, FDR sent over 100,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps simply because of their ancestry.

Finally, Mr. Piroli shows he’s a good Democrat, almost. Though Mr. Piroli bucks the party line and concedes “[t]he enemy is everywhere,” he gets back into good graces by asserting the battleground is everywhere except Iraq. Though he’s not alone among Democrats, I still find this position amazing. If Mr. Piroli was a “real” Democrat, though, he would assert terrorism is something made up by the Bush administration as a scare tactic.

Folks like Mr. Piroli want us to believe terrorists are everywhere, except Iraq before we got there. Unfortunately, that believe requires us to forget all history before 2003. It’s not like Iraq was not home to terrorists itself or didn’t fund foreign terrorists. Remember, Saddam Hussein paid $25,000 “rewards” to the families of Palestinian bombers. Some of the victims were Americans. The convicted chief conspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, reached the United States with an Iraqi passport. The bomb maker – Abdul Rahman Yasin (an American citizen) – ended up in Iraq after the bombing. Yousef was also the mastermind behind the failed 1994 Bojinka Plot intended to blow up multiple planes over the Pacific Ocean en route to the U.S. During the 2003 Iraq invasion our troops found at least two terrorist training camps, including one with an airplane fuselage to practice hijackings. The mastermind of the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, during which the terrorists killed a wheelchair-bound American (Leon Klinghoffer), lived in Baghdad since 1994 and was captured there in April 2003 by U.S. Special Forces.

Folks like Mr. Piroli hope we forget this history.