Wealth, Women, and War is released in accordance with the solidarity principals of Occupy Wall Street adopted on February 9, 2012.Cliff Potts
December 3, 2014
A Word of Caution
If the War on Terror were an actual war, then the
attacks against the United States
would be continuing in rapid and escalating succession on U.S. soil. They have not. At best
various independent groups of misguided religious jadists have acted independently of any central authority against
various targets in the West.
This trend pretty much began with the “suicide” by an
Islamic terrorist on July 4, 2002, acting alone. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened
fire at the El Al Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International
Airport
Al-Qaeda is
suspected in the March 11, 2004 commuter bombings in Madrid , Spain
The Islamic terrorist activities take a turn for the
worse on July 7, 2005 when the London
underground and a double-decker bus were attacked in London , England London ;
they had a similar modus operandi to the July 7, 2005 bombings.
On March 3, 2006 Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar rammed an
SUV into a crowded part of the University
of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill , injuring nine people. On August 10, 2006 the transatlantic
aircraft plot utilizing explosive liquids was foiled by British intelligence. Omeed
Aziz Popal is awaiting trial for the murder of one pedestrian and the vehicular
assault on 18 others following what is officially labeled “a rampage” in Freemont , California
On May 7, 2007 six men acting on their own, inspired
by Jihadist videos, were arrested for
plotting to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey; three of the six entered the United
States illegally from Mexico. On June 3, 2007 a plot to blow up the fuel supply
at John F. Kennedy International Airport London , England Glasgow
International Airport
Offically, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet , John Allen
Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, and Omeed Aziz Popal,
are not considered terrorists in the United States . This is not
political correctness, or denial. This is an attempt by the authorities of the United States
to keep a lid on the possible reprisal attack on innocent Muslims. This is seen
in the plot by JDL Chairman Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd
Mosque in Culver City , California
Rubin committed suicide under suspicious
circumstances and Krugel was hit over the head with a brick while in prison.
The JDL plot was just one of a number of incidents following the September 11,
2001 attack which took the lives of 2,997 citizens in the United States .
At best the jihad
against the Great Satan, as stated by Ayatollah Khomeini, has been a fiasco. It
would seem that the Muslims have bought into their own propaganda. The Islamic
extremists would rather die for their God than win liberation from Western
occupation. It could be that liberation is unobtainable and the actions are to
somehow shame the West into capitulation to the will of Islam. It did not work
for the IRA (Irish Republican Army); it is not going to work for Islamic
radicals.
Using Khomeini’s November 5, 1979 statement as a
marker for the beginning of hostilities against the United States , over the past 28
years, the Islamic forces have come up with nothing better than road-side bombs
in trash cans, car bombs, explosive vests, and the occasional Katyusha Rocket.
As of late they have degraded to using gasoline cans rigged to explode.
Gasoline in its condensed liquid form does not
explode, it burns. For the sake of this discussion we will not take that line
of dialogue any further as there is no point in telling these people what they
did wrong.
Are they actually trying to win a war of liberation,
or are they engaged in jihad for the
sake of jihad with no real end to the
game other than wanton lawlessness in the name of God?
In 1950, North Korea ,
against the advice of the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea . In a matter of days
they overran their southern neighbor. This action, like Iraq ’s invasion of Kuwait ,
may have been triggered by mixed signals coming out of Washington , D.C.
On July 5, 1950, having a U.N. mandate, forces from
the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, South
Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Greece, the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Colombia, the
Philippines, Belgium, and Luxembourg began a counter offensive. Due to the
demobilization following World War Two, the initial response to the North
Korean invasion was dismal.
By August of 1950, the U.N. forces were pushed back
to the city of Pusan
in the southeastern corner of the peninsula. By September of 1950, the U.N. forces
were reinforced to 180,000 men opposing the North Korean 100,000. On September
15, 1950 the U.S. invaded Inchon . They hit the beach
with 70,000 U.S. Marine and Army troops and 8,600 South Korean nationals. By
October of 1950, the U.N. forces had 135,000 North Korean POWs.
On October 25, China
fearing an invasion by U.N. forces, engaged the U.S. with an army of 270,000.
Through the end of 1950, the U.S.
took heavy losses, and managed an orderly retreat out of North Korea . Seoul fell to the communists, again on
January 4, 1951. The forces of China ’s
PVA (People's Volunteer Army – so dubbed to prevent a direct confrontation
between the U.S. and China )
could move no further south. The U.N. artillery and U.S. Air Force ground
support had been so successful that supplies had to be moved at night by
bicycle and ox-cart.
By February of 1951 the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division,
including the French Battalion, learned how to address the Chinese tactics, and
the war began to turn in favor of the U.N. again. On March 7, 1951 Seoul was again liberated.
In April 1951 the Chinese hit back with 700,000 men
in the Chinese Spring Offensive and
were stopped cold. The war stalled just north of the 38th Parallel
which divided the Korean peninsula between the North and South at the end of
World War Two. An armistice was put into effect on July 27, 1953, and to date North Korea and South Korea are technically still
at war. Since neither China
nor the United States
officially declared war, both sides walked away to lick their wounds.
Total Casualties for the U.N. forces range around
474,000. Total casualties for the Communist are in the range or 1,500,000.
Civilian deaths exceed either total, as is the case since the advent of
mechanized warfare in World War One, and are numbered in the millions.
Various factors played into the Korean stalemate.
Truman feared that Korea
could spark World War Three. The fact that the Soviets were flying air support
for the North Korean and Chinese forces to the 38th Parallel was
hidden from the U.S.
citizens in the 1950s. Truman, who had no misgivings about using the Atomic
Bomb to end World War Two, was hesitant to fully mobilize the United States so soon after the defeat of Germany and Japan . He, like so many citizens of
the United States ,
was war wary. The people of the United
States were not inclined to see a war
continue indefinitely which did not have definite aims. Running forces up and
down the Korean peninsula was not something that they could fathom as a
victory. The U.S. leadership
was not inclined to lead the nation into a wider war against the Communist
Chinese and the Soviet Union .
Hindsight, however, is very clear. Given the level of
technology available to China
and the Soviet Union in 1950, the likelihood
of a clear western victory over the communists could have saved millions of
lives and put an abrupt end to the Cold War. That, of course, is speculation,
and the technological advantage of the west dwindled over the years.
Somehow, in the eyes of the Chinese and communist
supporters around the world, the communists defeated the U.N. in Korea .
It is hard to see how. That may serve the nationalist Chinese propaganda
machine, but it is far from a realistic appraisal of the situation. The U.N.
liberated South Korea .
That was the only legitimate
end-game. The U.N. stopped the Chinese in their tracks. North Korea has become impoverished
and has little power in the world of politics. South
Korea is now an economic powerhouse, taking on the U.S.
production facilities. The Soviet Union
dissolved. And, China
is now working as a colony of the West.
Without meaning to sound cold, one can conclude that
the Chinese consider it a victory because the U.N. did not engage in nuclear
genocide and eradicate the massive civilian population of North Korea or China . If this is a victory for
them, then it is a victory they can have. Even with China ’s superior manpower, they
could not hold their ground.
Movies like Red
Dawn not withstanding, it would be nearly impossible to land a large number
of troops on the U.S.
mainland. It is vogue around the world to say we are incompetent warriors, but
the casualties inflicted tell a greater story than the opinion of jealousy. It
is not bravado to say that if a final
showdown were to occur, the U.S.
would lament and eventually mourn the casualties inflicted on the enemy, but we
would use every means necessary, no matter how unchivalrous it is, to wage a
genocidal war against the Chinese. This lesson does not come from the Korean
Conflict; it comes from our own Civil War.
Briefly, for the first two years of the Civil War, Lincoln was hard pressed
to find generals who could successfully lead the war against the Confederates.
Once he put Grant and Sherman in charge the South was doomed. Sherman
committed carnage across the South from Georgia
to the Atlantic Ocean . Grant would not give
up, nor give in, and proceeded to use everything available to grind the
Confederacy into the ground. Men like Grant do exist in the United States today,
If Islamic radicals think that the survival of the
Islamic people is a victory, then it is a victory that the West is willing to
give them. If, however, we were to play by the Islamic rules, the same barbaric
rules they learned from King Richard the Lionhearted, then the victory they now
have would vanish like a soap bubble in the wind.
The West in general still has patience with Islam,
but how long that will remain is not clear. There are many in the West who
chide Europe and the U.S.
for what has been done in Arab lands. There is some validity, based on
criminology, to that chastisement. While the colonial actions and provocations
are questionable, and criminal on the part of the various corporate players who
have engaged in the region, it does beg one question: if the Islamic radicals
have such support among their general populations why have they not achieved
their “liberation” through the means they have selected since the end of World
War One?
They were not able to retain the empire following
World War One. They were not able to resist French or British occupation
between the World War periods. They were not able to prevent the establishment
of Israel .
They were not able to successfully sustain opposition to the governments
installed by the UK or the US .
They were not able to overthrow the murderous Iraqi government. Yes, the West
has interfered in the Arab world. All the skullduggery of MI-6 and the CIA has
effectively toppled nationalist governments. However, if the Arabs were not so
willing to sell out their own nationalism, national identity, and resources to
the West, then all the covert operations would be fruitless. The U.S. ,
even at the height of it capitalist power is not a God or a Demon. It is a
nation, run by men, who are fallible.
These arguments may be overly simplistic, and
somewhat obvious, but it still stands to reason that the Arab community has not
effectively achieved anything outside of antagonizing the people of the west
with little gain in the process. Iran , if one want to call that an
example of modern Islamic pride, exists only because no one has funded the
Iranian opposition or used force to topple them. Carter is no longer in office,
1978 was a long time ago. A man of Truman’s caliber supported by Generals like
Eisenhower, Patton, or Bradley would have absolutely no qualms about unleashing
the full furry of the U.S.
war machine on any foreign power. In a confrontation where it is a choice
between the citizens of the United
States and Islam, it is a rather simple
choice. We win; the enemy loses. The only reason that this has yet to occur is
that the war has yet to escalate to that point. Right now, however, if the
Arabs want to take a different path, they may find some tools in the history
books worth considering.
The gate swings both ways, and there is enough blame
to go around. If Islamic forces truly wanted to be free of the West
“occupational” forces then they would not continue with a line of action
guaranteed to bring in the same occupational force. In a way they are like
wayward children who insist on acting out just so they can get attention. If
they wanted freedom they would see what does work and what does not work.
What did work was Gandhi’s nonviolent resistances in India .
What has not worked is the continuation of a string of tactics which has only
littered the earth with the bodies of the innocent. If this is winning, it is
very hard to see how.
In the previous chapter we discussed how the use of
religious identity brings in allies to a conflict which would not be aligned
otherwise. This is the case with Iran ’s political and material
support of the Islamic fanatics. While it is hard to pinpoint a date, the Arabs
lost the war against Israel .
The best estimation would be it was lost in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. That
defeat ledto the peace treaty between Egypt
and Israel , the loss of the Golan Heights by the Syrians, the obliteration of the
Syrian Air Force, and the Saudi withdrawal of active support of the Palestinian
Cause. The front then shifted to Iran , and the Persian people.
Since 1978 there has been a lot of saber rattling, suicides in the name
of Islam, and road side sabotage, but no progress in unseating Israel .
This type of warfare produces martyrs, and headlines, but no authentic
strategic advances. Other than political grandstanding that plays well within
the local media, it is hard to see what the Islamic extremists have to gain by
this continuation. In the absence of tactical and strategic victories, the only
gain has to be logistical. Islam, by perpetuating the war, has a ready made foe
which it strives to provoke on a regular basis so that it can rally its own
people around a common enemy.
This is the same charge leveled against the West for
the constantly shifting hot spots; the West suffers from fatigue and stress
over the constant warfare. Whether or not that fatigue is taking its toll in
the Islamic community has yet to be seen. There have been some reports coming
out of Pakistan and Iran
that the younger Muslims are less inclined to follow the hard line Islamic
approach to life. They may be suffering from a war fatigue of their own. Islam
may be heading the direction of the KKK and the Neo-Nazis in the United States .
They are losing popular support because their
underlying philosophies are not living up to the reality of the world, or the
promises of a better life. As a matter of fact they seem to be degrading the
community far more than Western corporate influence is. While the Taliban is still
in Afghanistan ,
it is resurrected in opposition to the NATO occupation forces, not in the call
for Islamic purity. It is showing it colors as a violent political faction
perpetuating violence in the protection of national identity, and the
perpetuation of the opium trade, in opposition to the current government
supported by NATO.
Islam is not a kind government philosophy. It is, by
Muslim standards, oppressive and regressive. While it is beyond the scope of
this report to get into the details of Sherri
law, it is sufficient to say that Islam, like many Christian sects, picks and
chooses what it will apply, how it will apply it, and what it will ignore. The
use of the human wave (massing troops against a single point in order to assure
that opposition line is broken) is not exactly sanctioned in the Quran.
Furthermore, it was as ineffective against Iraq
as it was against the U.N. forces in Korea . A burnt barrel of a 30
caliber machine gun can be replaced far easier than an Army can be raised.
Leaving masses of young men writhing in agony in some soon to be forgotten
battlefield is not an exercise in holiness. This addiction to violence and
human sacrifice is not serving anyone.
In spite of Hezbollah’s boastful bravado to the
contrary, Israel
is not going anywhere. Palestine
is not a vestige of antiquity. It was created by the British in the 1920s.
Eighty percent of Palestine
was handed over to the Arabs, and twenty percent was set aside as a Jewish
homeland. That twenty percent was further diminished by the U.N.’s
gerrymandering in the 1940s. The refugee camps did not come into existence by a
dictate of the Jews in Israel .
They came into existence from the Palestinians fleeing the violence of the Arab
attack on Israel in the
six-day war following the independence and recognition of Israel .
There are those in the U.S.
and the E.U. who are whispering that Israel should be abolished. This is
nonsense. If anything it smacks of rewarding aggressive criminal Bedouins for
murdering civilians for the acquisition of a parcel of land no bigger the
greater part of Chicago
and its suburbs. One cannot say that Israel
is without guilt and has always acted honorably, however, anti-Semitic
sentiment aside there is no cause to punish Israel
because the Islamic thugs want what they lost when they chose to back Germany
in the First World War. If we consider that World War Two was a continuation of
World War One, the current conflict is also a direct result of that initial
conflict some hundred years ago in Europe .
To attempt to abolish Israel would set off a war that
would be akin to the Armageddon of the Christian faith. Based on the numbers
provided in the 1980s by Ground Zero the U.S. alone could expect 149 Million
dead in a full scale Nuclear War. That is what we can expect from any attempt
to dislodge Israel .
Is the appeasement of Islam worth that kind of carnage?
According to David Horowitz, the activist, and Walid
Phares, there is a movement afoot to dislodge the U.S.
support of Israel
through political means. Their theories center on the mass migration of Muslims
from the affected regions of the globe to the United States . This is creating a
more sympathetic climate for the idea that blanket support of Israel should be dropped.
The U.S.
intelligence community has released two disquieting reports concerning
Al-Qaeda. One is that Al-Qaeda is at the operative strength that it held before
the 9/11 attacks. The second is that Al-Qaeda is attempting to recruit
operatives in the United
States in an effort to continue to engage in
its ongoing murderous agenda. We have already seen that certain individuals are
susceptible to the Islamic call to violence. How successful the Islamic
radicals will be in recruiting members within the Muslim community rests on
certain social and economic factors.
If the majority population of the U.S. begins to perceive all Middle Easterners
as an enemy then it could further drive them into a sympatric posture toward
Al-Qaeda. This is already happening in France ,
and Great Britain .
The social stigma in conjunction with fear, prejudice, segregation, and an
economic downturn could further push the Muslim community into the Al-Qaeda
camp. The harsh reality of capitalism can be misconstrued as a form or
disrespect to the Muslim people, and by extension to Islam.
Based on rhetoric we are hearing out of the E.U. and Great Britain from the Muslim community, this
perceived disrespect due to the fear generated by the Islamic activities is the
primary motivating factor for the slow escalation of violence in Great Britain .
While the Patriot Act gives the U.S. authorities certain leeway in suspending the
civil liberties of a suspected terrorist, neither the E.U. or the U.K. have
such well defined specific legal protections. The U.K. has no first Amendment rights
under constitutional law. The Muslim community in the E.U. and the U.K.
do have some legitimate concerns, but the very acts they passively pardon are
the cause of the increasing civil strain. Once again we are addressing life at
level two of Maslow’s pyramid.
The other scenario mentioned was Vietnam . The people of the United States
would like nothing more to put that entire era behind them. It is an
embarrassment. First and foremost, the radicals who opposed the Vietnam War at
the time were a minority. The majority were either fully supportive, or
completely apathetic. That sums up both the sentiments and the failing of the U.S.
propaganda of the era. Most people did not care what we were doing in Southeast Asia , and many did not see the Vietnamese as
fully human. It is not that the Vietnamese won their freedom on the
battlefield; it is that the U.S.
abdicated its moral responsibility within the actions of the war.
Many veterans of the era blame the media coverage of
the Vietnam War for turning public opinion against the war. For the most part
people do not pay much attention to the media. If the media offers something
that the viewers find offensive, the viewer simply turns it off. Local news
take precedence over national news and international news lags even further
behind in importance. Newspaper editors and book authors know this even more.
People will skim through a document until they find some reason to reject the
material and then toss it aside. Anyone who thinks that media has that much
power in a free market capitalistic society is not thinking straight. We can,
and do, “vote with our feet”, as the saying goes. The people of the U.S.
cherish their individual ability to reject what they find distasteful. As such,
blaming the media coverage for the failure in Vietnam is like blaming the runny
nose for the infection.
Moreover, news was an after work affair in the 1960s.
The average man came home and was well on his way to relaxation by the time
national news aired. The college set were rolling and toking by the time the
news came around to the rice patties of Vietnam . The only ones who may have
been paying attention were the ones who were too young to imbibe or to vote.
The sited works concerning the cause of the Vietnam
fiasco can go on ad nauseam. One of the best is a work from the late 1970s
titled The Decline and Fall of the U.S.
Army by a general in the Pentagon writing under the pen name of Cincinnatus.[1]
Vietnam has been a spectral
apparition that has hounded the liberal and conservative policy makers for the
past three decades. When one reflects on the chain of events that led us to the
war in Southeast Asia, an honest conclusion was that Vietnam was an epic mistake.
The United States ,
while on the ground in Vietnam
as advisors, recommended that the French negotiate with Ho Chi Min to find an
equitable solution to the Vietnamese Civil War which rose out of the power
vacuum following the Japanese withdrawal after World War Two. The South
Vietnamese government, based on a Catholic French variation of plantation based
capitalism, was wantonly corrupt and did not have the support of the
predominately Buddhist communal population.
The United
States under John Fitzgerald Kennedy
actively supported the South Vietnamese government with elite Army units which
later became known as the Green Berets. The United
States escalated the war in Vietnam
based on the Tonkin
Gulf North Vietnam while in international waters
within the Tonkin Gulf region of North
Vietnam ; this incident, still clouded in some mystery, is
suspected to be a fabrication of the U.S. intelligence community at the request
of the Johnson Administration. Once escalated, there was no clear military
objective other than the containment of Communism in the region. Moreover,
there was no exit strategy. There was no clear path to victory, and no vision
on how to disengage from the aggression. At no point was it realistically
suggested that North Vietnam
be invaded and conquered. Even the United States
could not see the government of Saigon managing a unified Vietnam ; the U.S. had spent far too much time
propping up the military rule which had been allowed to take control in the
south in the 1960s.
By 1968 when the anti-war movement arose in the U.S. , the nation had been at war in South East Asia for thirteen years, and there was no end
in sight. Vietnam had become
a foreign war for the sake of fighting a foreign war; as if it was a political
statement to the Soviets and the Communist Chinese that the United States could engage in a
prolonged struggle in the name of capitalism for the sake of the struggle
itself. That violates one of the tenants of capitalism - a course of action has
to be cost effective, efficient, and maintain a positive return on investment;
the course of action in Vietnam
was not pragmatic to these ends.
Once Vietnam
was unified under the rule of the Communist North Vietnamese, communism did not
spread through the region. Vietnam
under the communists initiated the course of action which destroyed the
murderous regime in Cambodia
and withdrew once Cambodia
was stabilized. Today Vietnam ,
like most countries in the Asian region, is flourishing under a centralized
communist government acting like a national corporation and engaging the rest
of the world in free market capitalism.
On almost every level the U.S. government misunderstood the
Vietnamese people. This is not unusual since the U.S. government is confined to one
socioeconomic class operating in one centralized location and has a propensity
toward misunderstanding any population outside the narrow confines of its own
social class. This, of course, includes the population of the United States .
The U.S.
attempted to liberate a people from the tyranny of communism who simply did not
want to be liberated and did not perceive the communists in the North were a
threat to their centuries-old communal existence. The Vietnamese people saw the
French and then the United
States as being the primary threat. It is
impossible to win a war when the allies whom you are fighting for see you as
the primary cause of hostilities.
As to the opposition at home, there was one case that
runs through the voices of the era: The Vietnam War was a never ending war.
Like the Islamic counterpart today, the U.S. was fighting for the sake of
fighting. It became a religious obsession in the U.S. government and once engaged it
had no clear end.
We could beat them in the rice paddy, and they would
bomb a check point in Saigon . We flattened
their industry in Hanoi , and they would carry
weapons in from China and
pack them through Laos and Cambodia .
No matter what the U.S. did
in Vietnam , there was no
clear path to victory for the forces of the United States . The only way we
could liberate Vietnam
was by getting out of the quagmire and let them decide their own fate. The
majority of the Vietnamese people did not want U.S.
forces in Vietnam .
That has become apparent after the fact.
The war news playing across the screens of the
nightly news fed a growing frustration with the youth of the era for being
shanghaied into a fight that was woefully ill planned, and poorly executed. It
was not an opposition to the Constitutional government of the United States . It was a reflection
of the survival instinct given that there was no end in sight. Add to that, the
lack of clear goals, the constant rotation of troops bringing home tales of the
war’s horror, the draft exemption awarded along socioeconomic lines, the social
and racial inequities within the United States , there was a raw
social wound that was being probed on the nightly news.
This is a lesson which the Islamic radicals need to
learn from the United Sates. A protracted war is not sustainable. Eventually
the population grows tired of fighting for the sake of fighting, and they will
seek alternative solutions to the situation.
While the fatalities inflicted upon the United States in Afghanistan
and Iraq may seem like
victories for Islam, they are not exactly punishing losses for the United States .
The number one killer of young men in the United States currently is car
accidents. In 2003, the same year we went to war in Iraq ,
the United States
lost approximately 45,000 people to car accidents. Since 2003 the U.S. has lost roughly 3,000 troops to the
insurgents in Iraq .
During the same time frame the United States
has lost approximately 180,000 people on the highways of the United States . It is safer to be in
the Army and the Marines in Iraq
than to take a drive on the U.S.
highways. This is nothing new. One veteran of two tours in Vietnam was killed on leave before
starting a third tour in-country; he was killed by a car while crossing Pacific Coast Highway
on foot.
The losses in Iraq ,
therefore, sad as they are, do not amount to blistering punishment of the United States .
The only real punishment is that which the U.S. has inflicted upon itself by
engaging in a foreign war while engaged in economic expansion outside of the
local economy in conjunction with a massive tax cut for the wealthy.
What is forgotten by the adversaries of the United States is that the Vietnam era generation were the
children of the G.I. Generation. The veterans of World War Two, in spite of
patriotic bravado, did not want to engage the communists at the same level with
which they engaged Imperial Japan or the German Nazis. That is the main reason
the Cold War never turned into a hot global war.
This is where the generational dynamics as proposed
by Howel and Strauss come into play. Those who saw and suffered the carnage of
World War Two were not inclined to fight that type of war again. Even today,
with the dependence on high technology we see a reluctance to engage in that
level of total war. The wanton murder of millions is not an idea that civilized
people embrace willingly. This is the reason that we have the European Union
now, and why, corporations are so desperate the run the affairs of the nations.
War, at the level that existed from 1938 to 1945, contrary to popular opinion, was
not good for business. There is nothing wrong with building weapons systems,
but it is considered insanity to ever fully utilize them. Rumsfeld’s decision
to minimize the number of troops sent to Iraq still reflects this horror of
Total War. The United States
is loath to commit to that level of warfare.
Having said all that, there is a caveat: The men and
women who saw action in World War Two, and suffered the losses of loved ones
and the economic deprivation of that war, are now surrendering peacefully to
the care of the eternal. Their voice of caution, and moderation, has forever
been stilled. Those who learned at their feet the horrors of war are now fading
into retirement, and will soon join their older siblings. The ones who now run
the nations know nothing of such horrors. They know nothing of cities being
rendered smoldering piles of debris by conventional weapons. They have no
knowledge of night time air raids sirens, overcrowded bomb shelters and the
stench of humans cowering in fear, or surviving to recover, count, and bury the
increasing mind numbing number of dead. They know nothing of mothers and
fathers burying one son after another and seeing the family line halted in the
struggle for the cause. Nor, for that matter, do our foes.
While it may seem arrogant to speak of the
motivations of our enemies, it is clear enough that they have yet to come to
terms with the finality of their own violence. They have wrapped themselves in
the jihad mentality that embraces
carnage and violence and they trust that the West will never resort to
uncivilized genocide to solve the struggle. One can hope that their trust is
well placed.
[1]
Being 50, I have consumed many books over my lifetime. This may be suspect in
today's anti-literate culture. This work is one such work. I barrowed it from
the Chicago Public Library in 1982. Consumed it with great vigor as it
explained exactly what happened in Vietnam and what went wrong.
However, today, 2008, the ability to give you an exact citation is lost sine
the work did not get catalogued on he internet. You'll have to forgive me; I
have lived a real life and engaged in real adventures across the land over the
past 26 years. Some details do get lost over time.
Comments
Post a Comment