Shut Up, Charlie
By Cathryn Crawford (07/25/03)
Poor Uday and Qusay. We all know how persecuted they were, and Charles Rangel, a Democratic (what a surprise!) representative from New York, is genuinely upset by their untimely passing at the hands of U.S. troops. "We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody," he grumbled Tuesday night on Hannity and Colmes. Well, Charlie, thanks so much for living up to your reputation. Charlie didn’t even vote for the resolution that simply supported the troops in Iraq.
My question is, what is Charlie still doing holding office when he makes these stupid and unverifiable statements? It’s not a law, Charlie! It’s called an executive order, and it was signed by Gerald Ford. Don’t tell me that Charlie doesn’t know that. Any representative that will go on T.V. and make such an uneducated and unfounded statement deserves to be kicked out of office – if not for sheer stupidity, at least for ineptness.
To go past that to the crux of the matter, however – Uday and Qusay were not assassinated, Charlie. They were given chance after chance after chance by the U.S. military to simply surrender and have their lives spared. They were given warnings that if they did not surrender they would be killed, and they chose to ignore these warnings. As a matter of fact, not only did they ignore the warnings, Charlie, they fired on the troops that were attempting to peacefully arrest them!
But, for the sake of argument, let’s get Charlie’s perspective straight. According to him, the troops that were coming under direct fire from Uday, Qusay, and their bodyguards were not supposed to return fire. What is Charlie’s alternative? He doesn’t indulge us enough to detail that – I have my suspicions as to why – but let me try to guess. I suppose they could have attempted some sort of negotiation. I can hear the conversation now.
U.S. Commander: “Uday, Qusay, you have 10 minutes to come out of that building with your hands in the air and without any weapons!”
Uday: “Or what?”
U.S. Commander: “Or we’ll sit here till we get a message from Charlie Rangel telling us what to do next!”
I am so sick of listening to people – Democrats in general and Charlie Rangel in specific - gripe and moan and whine about what a crappy job the military is doing in Iraq. I’d love to see some of them over there, in their Armani suits and their fake khaki desert-shirts that they love to wear when they are slumming it in a Middle Eastern country – God knows why, I guess they think it makes them look less like idiots – and I’d love to see what kind of job they would do when faced with the enemy. Do they know, I wonder, how to shoot an M-16? Of course, we don’t want to mess up their manicures. We’d better not force them to do that. I suppose it could be classified as cruelty.
Charlie would be a whole lot better off if he simply shut up and stopped making inane comments that only make him look like an idiot. If he really wants to serve this country, he could start by supporting the troops in a way that befits the veteran that he is. He, more than anyone, should be standing up in support of the U.S. military, instead of tearing it down continually as he has done for so long.
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