Posted on 02/18/2007 6:49:58 AM PST by Teófilo
By Pedro O. Vega
As published today in the Johnstown Tribune Democrat
The situation in which we find ourselves in Iraq because of the war on terror defies my attempts at originality to describe.
I find myself in need of laying hold of aphorisms and clichés said by the truly Great Ones, and some not-so-great.
The first one that comes to mind is from Thomas Paine, an American Founding Father, written in 1776. Its one I used in a previous column, one I keep returning too because of its sheer wisdom: These are the times that try mens souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
A movement is afoot in Congress to remove funding from military stabilization operations in Iraq. The nonbinding resolution designed to disagree with the presidents military surge currently being debated in the House and Senate represents the first step in that direction.
The resolution is mute when it comes to offering an alternate plan ensuring victory and protecting our national interest in the region.
Summer soldiers and sunshine patriots are intent on prolonging the war on terror for two more generations by hastening a unilateral retreat from Baghdad without giving current operations a chance to work.
Emboldened politicians and pundits now behave as generals, claiming to be masters of the retrograde fighting maneuver and the pursuit of peace.
Another saying comes to mind, this one by that great Pennsylvanian, Benjamin Franklin: There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
Not knowing the original context of Franklins declaration, I am left to deal with its meaning at face value.
I agree with him that all wars are bad, but it goes without saying that some are worse than others. On occasion, theres such a thing as a bad peace if this peace becomes a cover for defeat, humiliation and eventual surrender to the will of the enemy.
Franklins actions in the field of diplomacy belied his own assertion. Once converted to the patriots cause, Franklin ensured that the nascent United States had enough weapons to win the war. His diplomatic skills doubled the size of the country at the end of the revolution, at the expense of the British.
If aversion to war and love of peace ever moved Franklin to appease the British, he never showed it.
Thomas Friedman is credited for coining the Pottery Barn rule of foreign policy. That is: You break it, you own it.
This is what Colin Powell, retired Army general and then secretary of state, told President Bush before the start of the war in Iraq.
Events are about to disprove the logic of this common-sense assertion. We went into Iraq and broke the status quo there, and now our armchair generals want us to retreat without fulfilling our responsibilities, despite an already dreadful investment in American lives and treasure.
We want to walk away; we dont want to own the situation. But the fact is that we do.
Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference in 1938, waving a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler and saying, My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British prime minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.
Winston Churchill wryly replied, You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.
Many Chamberlains run around today in the guise of politicians and pundits, waving papers and declaring peace for our time.
Their views might even prevail and become both law and accepted wisdom. But by choosing peace over dishonor, they will ensure the coming of even more war.
Sadly, summer soldiers, sunshine patriots and enlightened pundits alone are not going to bear the bitter consequences of failure in Iraq. They will befall all of us, our children and our childrens children.
One more aphorism is in order. George Santayana once said: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
As we get ready to abandon Iraq, were about to relearn this lesson in spades. Truly, these are the times that try mens souls.
Congressman Billybob
I did not reply kindly. Voting for Murtha is not the "high road." You're a troll for the enemy.
DO NOT POST TO ME AGAIN.
Congressman Billybob
LSLM !!!
Not on that one devolve!! Your wonderful creation.
Vote against him as soon as possible. At his age and in his condition and with heightened political attention to his treasonous and corrut habits of life, you probably won't have many more chances one way or another.
Are you a Yale alumnus? What year? POR?
God bless you and yours.
Some interesting reading in the responses ?
I thought that you might enjoy some of them ?
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight: nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety: is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions and blood of better men than himself." John Stuart Mill
You writing is excellent.
From my view : well thought out and presented.
Thank you.
Donald Rumsfeld found a nice historical echo in his speech at Arlington Cemetery to commemorate September 11.
... In the dark days of our revolution, George Washington's army had been decimated in New York. A British admiral told three of our founding fathers that the revolutionaries could have peace if only they would reject the Declaration of Independence and give up their rebellion. To many it might have seemed a tempting offer. Prospects for victory seemed bleak. But those patriots refused. Their army rallied. And our country's independence was secured.
That date was Sept. 11, ... 1776. As it happens the place where those patriots refused to surrender is just minutes from the site of the World Trade Center.
Today, a vastly more vicious adversary seeks our surrender. Once again, we will refuse. And once again, our forces have rallied.
Today, history is being written by the valiant men and women of America's armed forces, and by determined citizens who will do all they can to keep other children from experiencing the heartbreak and terror of Sept. 11.
So today let us recommit ourselves to continuing history's great and necessary task. And to continuing to pursue these enemies until they pose no threat to free people.
Other 9/11 highlights include: 1973 when Chilean Communist President Salvador Allende committed suicide by firing his machine gun at Augusto Pinochet's forces who restored Chile's traditional non-communist civilization during a brief interlude of military restoration of order. 1970 (?) when Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia (a footstool for Marxist-Leninists) was overthrown by Lon Nol. There are others as well. These two were particularly important strategic victories although Cambodia eventually fell into the communist swamp again. As the late Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick so eloquently explained in full book-length treatment, authoritarianism is preferable to totalitarianism because totalitarianism tends to be a permanent enslavement as authoritarianism does not. Freedom is, of course, far preferable to authoritarianism and still farther preferable to totalitarianism.
Thanks for your kind words and for #114 as well.
The choice of 9-11 has always interested me.
911 days after our 9-11 they struck again. I wonder what math number and location they will use next.
7 October 2007 will be the 436th anniversary of the Naval Battle of Lepanto ...I believe.
I forgot that the Vienna date was September 11th.
The Democrats consider it 'peace' when our soldiers are not engaged in combat anywhere on the planet. They don't even stop to consider the fact that terrorists will continue to ply their trade. That does not even enter the Democrat equation, because it's happening somewhere else.
Of course, if it started happening HERE, on a regular basis, they might change their tunes, but frankly, by then, it would be almost too late to do anything to stop it.
Jack Murtha and his friends in the defeatist movement...
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