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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He also suggested that the Jews commit mass suicide and present their throats to Hitler.
With all due respect and condolences to this poor widow, I have a couple of things to say:
1. We are citizens of the United States of America before we are citizens of the world.
2. IMO, it isn't very realistic for an enlisted man to think that he is high enough to effect real change in the military. Armies are meant to fight, not wage peace. Not many would look at his uniform and assume he's bringing a bouquet of flowers
3. Osama ain't visualizin' world peace- if he were, her husband would likely still be alive.
1) The Vatican is truly tiny.
2) Are you intending to imply that we INVADED Saudi Arabia?
3) If the Vatican called in the Saudis to ask for protection, I would not be offended. I might question their judgement, but I would not be offended at the Saudis for showing up.
This is exactly why Bush is acting with forethought and great and fully evident discrimination. So what's the problem? Have you not been paying attention?
You are aware that the aspirin factory bomber is no longer in office, right? (Thought maybe you've been in a coma for the last six years or something.)
He also suggested that the Jews commit mass suicide and present their throats to Hitler.
Gandhi also made a rather remarkable radio broadcast during the middle of WWII calling on the US and the UK to unilaterally lay down their arms and surrender to Hitler to bring about world peace.
Right off the bat, our only legitimate interest in other countries should be to set up democratic republics like our own, which can grow on their own, so that all the world's refugees don't want to come here! We are among the few countries that have individual liberties.
Why haven't we been exporting THAT? Until we do that, there will be no peace. ( And even after that, because some people are so fanatical that they will hate us no matter what we do.)
What is it that Rush likes to say? - "Armies are for killing people and breaking things."
Crude, but essentially true. When a small army that fully realizes that this is its purpose, meets a much larger army that is confused about its purpose, watch out, big army!
There will always be evil. God knows us, that is why he instituted civil government to punish lawbreakers to protect those who keep the law.
No matter what kinds of policies our nation has engaged in, no matter what anyone in this country, or anywhere in the world thinks about us, there is absolutely nothing this nation could ever have done that would justify the brutal murder of over six thousand innocent civilians. NOTHING! Anyone who could think differently has no concept of decency or honor, or the value of human life. They are just as uncivilized as the terrorists themselves.
Worth repeating.
BTW: I would add that after EVERYTHING our nation has done FOR others - more charity and humanitarian acts than any nation in human history - no argument can ever be made that could justify such a horrible atrocious act of terrorism committed against innocent Americans.
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