Posted on 10/08/2004 3:21:51 PM PDT by Calpernia
After Pearl Harbor, do you know what we attacked?
Do you?
After that horrendous Japanese assault against our territory, in which hundreds of American servicemen were killed, do you know who we went after?
Probably not.
Not unless you’re a history buff, or unless you’ve listened to some of your grandfather’s war stories.
Let me tell you why it matters.
The Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, has attacked the American war on terror, particularly the invasion of Iraq, saying that our action was wrong. He has said that by going into Iraq, which did not attack us on September 11, we have gone astray. He says that we have mismanaged the war on terrorism, that we have been sidetracked. He claims that this is the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place.
Which makes me think he doesn’t know what happened 60 years ago.
Because if he doesn’t like George W. Bush, he would have hated Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Because we didn’t attack Japan.
Not in a serious way, not right away.
After Pearl Harbor, the first thing we did was invade northern Africa.
Which is about as far away from Japan as you can get.
Here’s why.
Japan attacked us without provocation. It was the ultimate sneak attack, an act of duplicity and cowardice. And it stunned us with its audacity and cruelty. So much so that the next day we declared war on the empire of Japan.
But the world is a big place, and things have a tendency to interconnect. And Japan had friends and allies, loose partners in a game of world conquest.
And though we started fighting in the Philippines, and Doolittle flew some bombers over Japan, the first real offensive of the war, the first bit of payback for Pearl Harbor, was our attack on German troops in North Africa.
I wonder, back then, if the likes of John Kerry would have mocked President Roosevelt and claimed Africa – and Italy and Normandy after it – were “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I wonder, as the Americans tried to take Hitler down, if the John Kerrys of that day would have railed against the president because Hitler wasn’t Hirohito.
If Franklin D. Roosevelt had responded to Pearl Harbor the way John Kerry wants George W. Bush to respond to September 11, Europe would be speaking German today and all the Jews, communists, gypsies, gays and Jehovah’s Witnesses from the Atlantic to the Urals would have been exterminated 50 years ago.
But, thankfully, President Roosevelt was smarter than that. And so is President Bush.
The first key to war is knowing who the enemy is. President Roosevelt knew that was more than Japan and President Bush knows that is more than Al Qaeda.
At a time of world conflict, it’s important to know who is on whose team. You have to know who’s for you and who’s against you.
President Roosevelt faced Japan, Germany and Italy. President Bush faces an array of governments, religionists and terrorist groups who share a common hatred of our nation, our freedom and our religions.
When a gang is stomping you, you strike back at them all, not just the one who landed the first or the most recent blow.
As President Bush has said from the days immediately after September 11, our fight is not just with Al Qaeda, it is against terror. It is against all those who would threaten our nation, its citizens or interests.
And that includes a tyrant in Baghdad who slaughtered thousands of his own people, offered rewards to the families of terrorist bombers, started a war that killed a million people, invaded a neighboring country, used poisonous gas on defenseless women and children, bribed foreign officials, defied United Nations sanctions and deceived the world into believing he had weapons of mass destruction.
And it includes any other organization or regime that dares to raise a hand or a threat against the security and liberty of the United States of America.
That’s what we’re doing. We’re fighting for our survival. And anyone who would obscure that fact for personal political gain is no patriot.
We are in the right place, doing the right thing, for the right reason. John Kerry is wrong and George W. Bush is right. Common sense teaches us that, and so does history.
Franklin Roosevelt was right, and he saved the world. George W. Bush is also right, and he may also save the world.
No matter what John Kerry says.
Thanks for the link. You are right, it is an excellent article.
Florida is one of five battleground states Muslims have targeted for get-out-the-vote efforts, foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray said Thursday. VIP recruiters in Florida registered about 7,000 new Muslim voters he hopes will go to the polls on Election Day and vote for Kerry, he said.
Florida has about 120,000 Arab American voters, of whom about 15 percent are Muslim, according to pollster James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. The other states VIP has targeted are Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, which has 235,000 Arab American voters, the largest in the country.
I never heard him on the radio. NW_arizona_granny turned me on to his columns. Thanks, I will try to tune into his show.
Bump.
Actually, Operation Watchtower (Guadalcanal) kicked off in August of '42, Operation Torch (North Africa) didn't begin until November of '42...but I get your point. FDR pursued the "Europe-first" strategy in conducting the war.
LOL
I didn't know he was on radio either.
Read one of his columns a year or so ago and signed up for them.
He is always looking for writers, if anyone is writing.
I know that many of you do.
Thank you Calpernia, for posting this, it reads better in FReeper, than it did at Yahoo.
LOL
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