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Tuesday, 26 September 2006 14:42 |
| Lt. Gen. Thomas McIerney
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By JIM GENARO
After discussing his perspectives on the War on Terror at a luncheon sponsored by the John Locke Foundation on Sept. 19, retired Air Force commander and Fox News commentator Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney answered questions and listened to the opinions of several members of the audience.
About 70 people attended the event at the Asheville Renaissance Hotel.
Norm Roberts told McInerney that the war should be seen in religious terms.
"I come at this from the perspective that this is a spiritual war," he said. "This is a war between Christ and anti-Christ."
Roberts
went on to suggest that the U.S. should stage an appearance by a Muslim
on Fox News, who would claim that he had "died and come back, just like
Jesus," and tell potential insurgents, "thereës no 76 virgins," waiting
for martyred suicide bombers ÇƒÓ a reference to a belief held by some
extremists that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for their
attacks on westerners.
"I think thatës
very good," McInerney replied. "We need to articulate this more and
take it to the masses and say, ǃÚThis is not true.ë"
Tim Peck spoke next, asking, "In a defensive war against aggression, who is responsible for the deaths of the innocent?"
"In any war for
survival, innocents get killed," McInerney answered. "Who is
responsible? Those who started the fight. We didnët ask for this war."
Another man
raised a concern about the effect of weak enforcement of immigration
laws locally. "If we donët enforce our laws on the local level, they
know we arenët going to enforce it on a national level," he told
McInerney, asking for his opinion about this.
Illegal
immigration is "changing the fabric of what the nation has been,"
McInerney said. "We are still in denial and we hope that nothing
drastic will happen to us, but hope and denial are not strategies."
A woman in the
audience asked about the tendency of the media to solicit commentaries
by retired military officers. "To what extent does the Bush
administration listen to the wisdom of these retired generals?" she
asked.
McInerney
replied that despite allegations that the administration does not
listen to the advice of its generals, the military in fact plays a
critical role in decisions about campaigns ÇƒÓ including the number of
troops that were used to invade Iraq, a decision that was later
criticized by several high-ranking retired generals.
"(Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfieldës got the guts to take the heat, but the military made the decision," McInerney said.
However, he
added that more troops would not have prevented the insurgency the U.S.
has faced in Iraq. "I donët think a million troops would have solved
this problem," McInerney told the audience.
The problem, he
argued, is that the insurgency is very effective at recruiting new
members ÇƒÓ particularly through the use of propaganda on Web sites.
These sites, he said, tell potential insurgents, "Give us your support and we will return your dignity."
Furthermore,
McInerney argued, these sites focus on a "crusade mentality" that
presents the war in Iraq as part of a long-term struggle of Islam
against western invaders. "The fact is, thatës all they think about,"
he said. "They live in the rearview mirror. We live in the wind screen."
He also had
strong words for three senators ÇƒÓ John McCain, R-Ariz., John W. Warner,
R-Va., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. ÇƒÓ who recently challenged President
Bushës proposal to change the Geneva Conventions in order to allow
interrogation techniques used by the U.S. that some critics of the
administration have claimed fall under the definition of torture.
"Theyëre
wackos," McInerney said of the three Republican statesmen. "We treat
people at Gitmo (the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) far
better than the average American gets treated."
He concluded by saying that if he were running the facility, "they would never ever want to" attack the U.S. again.
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