Bears and Islamic Radicals are Dangerous [Reader Post]

There are many ways to deal with an adversary in the world of international politics. No matter how you deal with enemies who want to destroy you, it is important to maintain aloofness and not play out your hand too early, for in the arena of politics and war it is a mistake to be regarded as foolish or naïve by your opposition.

President Obama has set his own standards for dealing with ruthless enemies, from rules of engagement to reassuring our enemies that he wishes them no ill feelings. The inexperience and naiveté astounds both our enemies and probably soon to be former allies.

President Obama has once again lived up to his reputation as the quintessential Narcissist, who is so enamored of his own voice that he can’t resist telling our sworn enemies our strategic retaliation plans and of our plans to reduce our nuclear arsenal. In the NYT our president stated that by relaxing our nuclear potential and executing a policy of increasing the isolation of Iran and North Korea will make them see the folly of operating outside of accepted international norms.

Both India and Pakistan have joined the league of nuclear nations under similar conditions; and now Mahmoud Ahmadinijad and Kim Jong-il continue to laugh at the restrictions and mock the United States. Now rogue nations and our sworn enemy Radical Islam of ambiguous nationality have come to realize a Community Organizer who is both naïve and idealistic with Muslim sympathies is as good an opportunity as they will ever have to improve their position.

In a surreal move, our President has ordered that any references to Radical Islam be deleted in government and military papers to avoid Muslim nation assuming that we regard them through the prism of terrorism. This move has been well received by our enemies, especially Radical Islam and their media proxy CAIR. Of course these terms are used daily within the Muslim media.

Many Americans feel that a president’s first priority is to the people of the United States and not the sensitivities of enemies who boast every day about their desire to kill us and enslave our women and children. President Obama told Nicholas Kristof, a NYT reporter, in 2007, that the Muslim call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”, and then recites the prayer in Arabic, can logically cause Americans to doubt his intentions. Denying the existence of an enemy or obfuscating his mission with vague ambiguities can in effect leaves our citizens and military vulnerable.

The incongruity of our political situation and the vulnerability that results fro denying the presence of danger reminds me of an incident of denial and coincidence in the Peace River Country nearly 35 years ago. A customer of mine who lived along the Alaska Highway was hunting moose with a bow. I hunted with a bow when I was too young for my parents to trust me with a firearm and I was proficient enough to kill moose and elk with the bow; but it often meant hours of tracking that sometimes continued on to the next day. Once I was old enough to pack around an old military 8mm Mauser, I never picked up my bow again. To this day, I have only owned one rifle; although the only original part is the receiver and it has been altered to fire an ‘06 brass; it still has the eagle and Swastika stamps on the bolt and receiver, they made excellent rifles and me owning this one is a mark of freedom’s triumph over National Socialism.

I don’t begrudge the archer his sport: I admire his dedication and sportsman’s attitude. Although, when guiding Grizzly hunters who wanted to use a bow, I assured them that I was backing them up with my rifle; there was no debate open to that situation.

None the less, my customer, (a horse customer, not a hunting customer), was trying to call in a moose to a lick a few miles behind his home. He was hidden in some brush on the ground and there is nothing unusual about his method, except while using the call of a sexually frustrated cow pleading for the amorous attentions of a macho type bull, a two year old Grizzly walked up silently behind him.

Now as far as Grizzlies go, the most dangerous bears are the sows with cubs, the two year olds, and the geriatric Grizzlies. No one needs an explanation of why sows with cubs are especially dangerous, except to say that boar Grizzlies are known for eating cubs in a primitive method of population control and eliminating future competition for food and breeding rights; this is probably one of the reasons why sow Grizzlies can be more ferocious when they have cubs than other animals with young. The old ones, like me, can’t run as fast as they once could, their claws and teeth are worn out and broken and they are not the formidable beast they once were; consequently, humans eventually come to be more attractive as a food source; we can’t run with any speed, our swimming skills are laughable and we are weaker than a three month old cub, in other words we are easy pickings if they can overlook the odor of soap and the stench of civilization. The two year old youngster that has been just kicked away from the sow so that she can, hopefully, have another cub or two or three is another dangerous animal. If the cub didn’t learn his lessons well, he often faces starvation during that two year old year. Thus the human becomes more attractive as a food source: the elk and moose are wary, smart, and can run like hell. Humans in the mountains, tend to run like a blind fat man, how easy can it get?

This two year old was starving and was attracted to the strange moose calls from near the spring and thought he might just make the kill that would keep him alive. He snuck within a few feet of the sounds and there was a stinking human; throwing natural caution aside, he reached out with one paw and slapped the human in the head. Fortunately, the head remained attached (I once investigated the kill site of a Charlois Bull, with my friend Knarley Manners, the community wolf hunter, a Grizzly had caught the bull unaware and with one swat took the bull’s head off, the head landed 20 feet away, we’re talking about a 2200 pound bull); but the scalp flew down over my friend’s face and flipped him over on to his back. The starving two year old once again seized the initiative and jumped on my friend’s body and began ripping away the flesh of his chest in a ravenous effort to relieve his hunger.

Normally, a bear will bury a fresh kill under six feet of dirt and leaves to let it get ‘high’ before enjoying their meal. Apparently this is because they don’t have a cook stove and their teeth aren’t capable of the marvelous mastication abilities of human teeth.

Realizing he was now in a desperate situation, my friend reached for his knife.

Usually, cowboys, trappers, hunting guides, and men who make their living in the bush will carry a folding knife because of safety issues. The drama and look of the straight knife is forsaken for the inherent safety features of a folder. For some reason, my friend had a straight knife that day, and although he was temporarily blinded by the blood and his own scalp draped over his face- he made a valiant last ditch effort to stab at least once with his straight knife. The knife plunged into the bear and severed the carotid artery; the bear ran fifty meters and fell down dead. My friend placed his scalp back in a fairly correct position, walked out to the Alaska Highway and thumbed a ride to the hospital.

At almost the same time, another friend of mine, a trapper who was a little unscrupulous and had a dubious reputation, and tended to get in trouble with the law now and then for making moonshine and such was doing something illegal once again. He was trying to smoke a Grizzly out of a freshly dug den in a side hill. He had a brush fire at the bottom end producing a lot of smoke, while he was waiting at the top end with his rifle.

This is probably the oldest method of killing bears, our great ancestors surely did the same technique, except they and our native people, yes we are all related by experience and blood, were waiting with spears and bows rather than high powered rifles. The kill was probably never guaranteed and there was a good chance that someone or several could die in the melee.

My friend felt fairly safe with his rifle, while he waited for the bear to stick his head out the upper entrance. He became impatient and thought the smoke wasn’t heavy enough or hot enough so he piled on more brush and sticks to up the ante. He then resumed his position waiting for the bear, for it was only seconds before the bear made his appearance. He hit my friend at a dead run from behind. Surprise! The bear wasn’t sleeping in his den; he had been out for a walk. My friend was now on his back and the bear was extremely agitated. The bear lunged at my friend’s neck and face and he threw his left forearm over his face to protect himself; fortunately, he was wearing a thick parka and that tended to protect him while the bear was biting huge holes in his arm. While his left arm was being mauled, he tried to get his folding knife out of its sheath on his belt under his parka with his right hand. Every time he would grasp the knife and start to get it out of the sheath, the bear changed tactics and went for his abdomen, he would then protect his abdomen with his right arm and the bear would bite through the parka and into his right arm, after several switches, without getting his knife out, he decided to roll over and play dead, since he seemed to be losing the battle all to quickly with his present strategy.

After my friend rolled over the bear put my friend’s head in its mouth and shook him like a dog shaking a squirrel. At that point he passed out and when he woke up he was buried under snow, dirt, and leaves. He didn’t really want to crawl out from under his slow cooker; but if he was going to survive, he had to get out of there.

When he crawled out from under the debris the bear was gone. My friend stumbled to his snowmobile and drove 26 miles to the highway and caught a ride into town to see if anyone was at the hospital.

The hospital staff, being a fun loving bunch, put them both in the same room; I suppose it was in the forlorn hope that they could fine tune their bear wrestling skills by comparing notes.

Soon the moccasin telegraph notified me of these two lonely souls holed up at the local hospital; I figured it to be a twofer hospital visit, two visits for the price of one visit. A Conservative should always seek value for your effort or money.

They were in extremely good spirits, the hospital staff kept them in stitches with bear jokes, of course that wasn’t too hard, they each had over 500 stitches. They told me they were starting a bear club; but they were finding it hard to build the membership because of the initiation ceremony. They asked me if I wanted to join and I told them I would need to think on it for a while, I’m still thinking.

On one hand we have a hunter who was going by the book, much like a politician might while leading a country. He is attacked and by a stroke of luck and the sheer will to survive, he survives. Could he have been more prudent, yes indeed, when in Grizzly country, you are never supposed to leave you’re back exposed. The Grizzly often attacks from behind, waiting in a tree is the safest but this story serves to illustrate how being preoccupied with something leaves you vulnerable to another attack.

In the other attack, the man was doing an illegal act, but his primary mistake was to have tunnel vision and forget about the possibility of the bear not being in the den. Again, against all odds he survived by luck and sheer will.

President Obama has tipped his hand and told our terrorist enemies and more importantly the countries that fund and arm them that we will never respond to attack with a nuclear response. It is a small concession, that accomplishes nothing except for the opportunity to do some political posturing on the world stage; however for a country who has the money to finance such an attack and apparently there is no small number of Islamic martyrs who are more than happy to get a direct pass to the promised land with all the cool babes. Such an admission will not decrease the chance of a maniac sponsoring such an attack; it only serves to embolden his resolve, for if there is nothing to fear, why should you hesitate.

President Obama’s latest policy of ignoring the Radical Islamist by direct obfuscation of facts and by refusing to acknowledge the nature and purpose of our enemy only serves for him to posture on the world’s political stage and for the welfare of our country to be gambled upon by the naïve and foolish presumptions of a Narcissist; who actually believes his voice and demeanor has the ability to charm the Radical Islamist as successfully as the women who could faint on cue during the campaign.

There is one glaring problem with these presumptions by the president, the Islamic Radical is not stupid and like the Grizzly, he will exploit every advantage you leave available to take the opportunity to kill you