this piece wins my "Most Relevant Op Ed" award. I hope some high - and junior - high schoolers have a chance to read it.
Ping
The Tiggywinkles watched a documentary of Iwo Jima, last night on the History Channel. I had never before taken time to learn what Iwo Jima was all about..I came away humbled.
Here's a 2nd attempt to excerpt the more relevant material...
Yet even this valor and sacrifice is not the full story of what Iwo Jima means, or what Rosenthal's immortal photograph truly symbolizes. The lesson of Iwo Jima is in fact an ancient one, going back to Machiavelli: that sometimes free societies must be as tough and unrelenting as their enemies. Totalitarians test their opponents by generating extreme conditions of brutality and violence; in those conditions--in the streets and beheadings of Fallujah or on the beach and in the bunkers of Iwo Jima--they believe weak democratic nerves will crack. This in turn demonstrates their moral superiority: that by giving up their own decency and humanity they have become stronger than those who have not.
Free societies can afford only one response. There were no complicated legal issues or questions of "moral equivalence" on Iwo Jima: It was kill or be killed. That remains the nature of war even for democratic societies. The real question is, who outlasts whom. In 1945 on Iwo Jima, it was the Americans, as the monument at Arlington Cemetery, based on Rosenthal's photograph, proudly attests. In the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s, it was the totalitarians--with terrible consequences.
Today, some in this country think the totalitarians may still win in Iraq and elsewhere. A few even hope so. Only one thing is certain: As long as Americans cherish the memory of those who served at Iwo Jima, and grasp the crucial lesson they offer all free societies, the totalitarians will never win.
Uh, let me guess.....
The New York Times
"The lesson of Iwo Jima is in fact an ancient one, going back to Machiavelli: that sometimes free societies must be as tough and unrelenting as their enemies."
By WWII standards, we fail miserably. Two-thirds of the Marines who fought at Iwo Jima would be charged with war crimes if the battle were fought today. The persecution of Marine Lt. Ilario Pantano says it all (www.defendthedefenders.org).
But for higher-ranking officers, I can't help but see Iwo Jima as a huge failure and black eye for them. I'll admit I'm no big-time expert so someone will correct me if I'm wrong. But there were ways that these heavily-defended islands could have been bypassed.
I wonder how many officers and enlisted men were investigated for defending themselves by arm-chair attorneys because of political pressure or their own agendas and charged with crimes as we now see in Iraq? Who seem to check every bullet fired, every action, every command?
Ping!