What does it take for these wacko peaceniks to declare war? Those A$$H*&ES!
Posted on 09/25/2001 8:04:00 PM PDT by ppaul
Just as America must fight a "new kind of war," so it must deal with a new kind of peace movement, one that blames American foreign policy for the recent terrorist attack. Blame the hateful mass murderers seeking martyrdom in their radical holy war against America? Not the new peace movement -- it's a part of a global war against America.
Those who opposed U.S. military action in the past questioned the right of America to protect its interests in other countries. That questioning centered on two issues: the definition of American interests and our right to impose our interests on others. These have always been reasonable questions, whatever one's view in particular cases.
The new peace movement has nothing to do with reasonable questions. "Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" So asks Susan Sontag in The New Yorker.
Never before have so many Americans been killed on American soil. But the new self-proclaimed peaceniks are anti-American cultural warriors willing to sink to unimaginable moral equivalencies.
Whereas the old peace movement questioned America's right to kill people in other countries when no attack on American soil had occurred, the new peace movement defends the brutal killing of thousands of Americans on the grounds that America got what it had coming.
The new peace movement doubtless recalls the old. The latter began with communist sympathizers who excused the Soviet Union its innumerable crimes against humanity, seeing capitalism as the world's great evil. Having adjusted to the end of the Cold War, the new peace movement hates America for being the world's sole remaining superpower. And it wants that power eviscerated.
Unmoved to anger against the perpetrators of the atrocious violence of September 11th, the new peaceniks merely heat up their longstanding anger against America.
Deplorably, they turn the death of thousands of innocent lives into an opportunity to point a cold ideological finger at America.
In its extremism, the new peace movement has something in common with Jerry Falwell: the refusal to blame those responsible for the September 11th atrocity, choosing instead to blame America.
Falwell blames America for harboring heretics. The peaceniks blame America for harboring Americans. Put the two together and you get the holy war of Osama bin Laden, the jihad declared against the U.S. by the Taliban.
So far the percentage of Americans who blame America is small. But those who do blame America congregate in places that shape the future of American culture: our nation's college and university campuses.
Anyone who thought that the loss of more than 6,000 lives on American soil might have led to unanimous patriotic compassion even at America's campuses was too hopeful. The Sontag sentiment is highly audible on campus.
The day after the September 11th attack, one of my Columbia students voiced this representative reaction: "I hope it will cause America to examine its foreign policy decisions."
Like the old one, the new peace movement is rooted in our universities. Thus, it is ruled by political correctness, which, after expunging America's virtues and exaggerating its crimes, credits America's most vicious enemies with political and moral validity.
As part of its anti-American campaign, political correctness teaches young Americans to identify their country as a global oppressor and to regard the rest of the world as blameless victims.
It not only urges identification with such victims but also encourages students to see themselves as victims too.
Thus they can simultaneously identify with the victims of the September 11th attack and blame the oppressive U.S.
Off campus, Americans are united, and their present unity is a beauty to behold. A New York Times/CBS poll shows 85 percent supporting military action against whoever is responsible for the recent attacks.
But once America starts fighting, opposition will grow. The same poll shows there is already less support for a protracted war than for a short one. And this "new kind of war" is likely to be a very long one.
If we are to win this long war against terrorism, the next generation will have to be another great generation. Lines at recruitment offices for America's armed forces suggest it just might be exactly that.
But courageous, patriotic young Americans will find their peers using the cloak of a new "peace" movement to make a war against them.
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Refreshing simplicity. Why argue with these leeches and parasites? Hopefully, there will be more like you "telling it like it is" -
confronting these traitors to America and exposing them for what they really are.
I hear you; however, you need to define "screwing" and define "repercussions". It appears to me that nothing in our foreign policy amounted to initiating an attack on foreign civilians, although a lot of it was drifting or reactive. We were a superpower without a national interest firmly in mind, trying to sort out everyone's civil wars, but we did not earn the attack.
It is then incumbent on our government to bring closure to this and that means war, and not police action, because as soon as we punish one set of individuals there will be another.
Defense of Liberty , for your comment.
Mr. Bungle, #2 is classic!
What does it take for these wacko peaceniks to declare war? Those A$$H*&ES!
Oh lord, don't even get me started on this subject! But I can't help wondering ... where've you been?
President Bush has a most capable cabinet to assist him in his quest to end this subversion of our freedom. Had our Founding Fathers taken on this pacifist attitude, we would not be here today.
I disagree with your analogy. That woman's husband obviously believed in protecting our country or he would not have been in the armed forces. In a way, she disgraces his honor!
I am really having a terrible time even trying to understand you. I suggest you study history, let alone what happened! They hijacked our planes on our shores and killed 6500 innocent civilians, not to mention our financial capital! You go to work tomorrow and get trapped like those innocents--then tell me what you will say. Take up arms? Put up or keep quiet!!!!!
I am afraid your are right . Do I really have to get out our shotgun.
Craig was, evidently, useful only for carrying water. Why didn't he join the Peace Corps?
Thank you for your reply.
> I hear you; however, you need to define "screwing" and define "repercussions". It appears to me that nothing in our foreign policy amounted to initiating an attack on foreign civilians, although a lot of it was drifting or reactive.
I would argue differently. If, by "nothing in our foreign policy amounted to initiating an attack on foreign civilians," you mean that we have not mounted "blitzkrieg" style operations where citizens were killed, then yes, we are innocent. Unfortunately, our aggression is far more subtle, yet still yields, IMO, the same deadly results.
In 1953, we did not invade Iran (although the British seriously considered the option), instead we funded and fomented and managed the overthrow of a democratically elected government. Because of these actions, civilians were killed.
As part of our plan, we then installed the infamous Sha of Iran into power. Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. is even reputed to have helped the Sha develop his vicious SAVAK secret police. This regime had one of the worst human rights records going at the time, and yet we continued to support the regime we created. Thousands were jailed, beaten and killed. Millions were coerced into acceptable behavior.
When our buddy the Sha was overthrown, we again encouraged the killing of citizens by promoting war between Iraq and Iran. We set about arming and funding the Iraqi war machine. Millions were killed.
And when this Iraqi war machine we created did what we created it to do (engage in aggression against neighboring countries) we went about killing Iraqis to stop our own creation. Today we continue to kill Iraqis through sanctions (most reports put the figure at 5,000 Iraqi children killed per month).
This is what I mean by "screwing" people. The "repercussions" of this policy were seen on September 11.
Let me make this clear. Nothing excuses the killing of American innocents. Likewise, nothing excuses the killing of Iranian and Iraqi, to use my example, innocents. And whether we want to admit it or not, there is a definite connection between our policies and the resultant terrorism.
> We were a superpower without a national interest firmly in mind, trying to sort out everyone's civil wars, but we did not earn the attack.
No innocents ever earn an attack. As to the earlier part of your statement, we may not have had a national interest firmly in mind, but I suspect someone had some interest in mind. It was not for entertainment that we installed and supported dictators in the M.E. and looked the other way when they used our resources to kill innocent civilians.
Defense of Liberty , for your comment.
I read your paper and found it to be an elegant exposition of your position.
Unbelievable! But true.
Imagine yourself a US diplomat in a country that is on the brink of a civil war or revolution. Civilians will die on both sides with or without US involvement, but you see the national interest in supporting one side. Why is that necessarily wrong?
Our policy in the Middle East tended to be in support of stability, and so in support of the established regimes, no matter how undemocratic. I don't see it as a priori wrong, although it could be unwise.
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