- Oct 15, 2008
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As political opportunists now reach the pinnacle of their loathing for former President Bush and seek criminal charges against his administration, it saddens me to think how Americans have such a short memory that it doesn’t remember who we are as a nation, how wars are fought and won and the level of sacrifice we endured to fight evil.
I remember reading how audiences greeted President Roosevelt with thunderous applause when wartime newsreels were run at the start of movies in theaters. The country was resolute against evil and its foreign manifestation. Kids in elementary school brought in the tin foil from the parents cigarette packs, used household grease and stacks of newspapers – all for the war effort. Media or activist outcries would have been un-American at the very least.
We now complain of gas prices, but back then there was not a national outcry when gasoline was rationed. We idolize Ferragamo shoes now but I wonder how we would feel if we, like then, had to use shoe-rationing stamps to buy even the most basic of footwear. Rationing stamps of different colors were needed as well for household staples such as butter, meat and most groceries. Still, no media or activist group outcry.
Civilian air-raid wardens were given practically carte-blanch authority and nary a peep from nare-do-wells and do-gooders. No one cried of the “injustice of it all.” Most folks of that generation had Victory Gardens and grew what they could in their own backyards.
This was war, and freedom and liberty were threatened. Proportionality and political correctness in battle were foreign terms to those with the will to win. We laid waste to towns and cities with little restraint. We had to…this was war. The media of a by-gone era called them the Greatest Generation….and they were right.
These were no United Nations for Hitler and the Japanese Emperor to curry favor and strike alliances with. The American media recognized that they were Americans first, reporters second and knew that living under a different nations’ flag, their hands would never be allowed to hold freedoms’ pen….if they were to hold anything ever again.
President Obama now wants to have discourse with our enemies, not heeding the lessons of the past – some not so distant. Just a cursory study of history would have yielded a well-worn pattern of deception and appeasement:
In 1995, the Dayton Accords were signed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to bring an end to their ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Milosevic then moved his killing spree to Kosovo, which killed thousands and created over a million refugees.
Discussion and appeasement in 1994 heralded an agreement with North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program to the delight of U.S. politicians. North Korea officials admitted eight years later that they never observed that agreement and produced nuclear weapons.
Remember Arafat on the south lawn of the White House in 1993 signing the Oslo Accords which promised peace in exchange for Israel giving up land? For all that discussion - Arafat, and later Hamas - returned intifadas, terrorism and constant violence.
Iraq agreed with the U.N. enforced No-Fly Zone over northern Iraq, subject to inspection by coalition aircraft in 1991. Violating that agreement, Iraq constantly attacked the inspection aircraft supporting that effort which Iraq agreed to.
Discussion and diplomacy in 1973 with North Vietnam resulted in the Paris Peace Accords promising an end to aggression. Twenty-seven months after that brilliant peace of discussion, North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam.
Discussion in 1972 led to an agreement with Brezhnev of the Soviet Union called the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The first of many violations was when the Soviets deployed a prohibited phased array radar station near Krasnoyarsk.
North Korea was once only a threat to its democratic neighbor South Korea during the 1953 negotiations with United Stated leading that discussion through the United Nations. Now, nuclear-armed North Korea is a world-wide threat and the world can only watch while they starve their population.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill tried diplomacy with Joseph Stalin and signed the Yalta Agreements which promised the world that countries under Soviet control would be given democratic governments. Civilians were enslaved from that point on.
War-time Presidents understood what Thomas Jefferson meant when he stated that “…self-preservation is paramount to all laws.” True leaders know that, unlike in peace, war sometimes necessitates the temporary suspension of some freedoms. How would the ACLU and hand-wringing activist groups respond to the closing down of media outlets unfriendly to the war; or the suspension of habeas corpus (the right to be brought before a court as soon as possible); re-location camps and the registration and arresting of thousands of aliens; or the imprisonment of those speaking against our involvement?
These were not pleasant things, but all these thinkg occurred in the United States of America. The difference between “us and them” is that these measures are stopped when the war is won and over
How soon we forget.........
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'] [/font]
I remember reading how audiences greeted President Roosevelt with thunderous applause when wartime newsreels were run at the start of movies in theaters. The country was resolute against evil and its foreign manifestation. Kids in elementary school brought in the tin foil from the parents cigarette packs, used household grease and stacks of newspapers – all for the war effort. Media or activist outcries would have been un-American at the very least.
We now complain of gas prices, but back then there was not a national outcry when gasoline was rationed. We idolize Ferragamo shoes now but I wonder how we would feel if we, like then, had to use shoe-rationing stamps to buy even the most basic of footwear. Rationing stamps of different colors were needed as well for household staples such as butter, meat and most groceries. Still, no media or activist group outcry.
Civilian air-raid wardens were given practically carte-blanch authority and nary a peep from nare-do-wells and do-gooders. No one cried of the “injustice of it all.” Most folks of that generation had Victory Gardens and grew what they could in their own backyards.
This was war, and freedom and liberty were threatened. Proportionality and political correctness in battle were foreign terms to those with the will to win. We laid waste to towns and cities with little restraint. We had to…this was war. The media of a by-gone era called them the Greatest Generation….and they were right.
These were no United Nations for Hitler and the Japanese Emperor to curry favor and strike alliances with. The American media recognized that they were Americans first, reporters second and knew that living under a different nations’ flag, their hands would never be allowed to hold freedoms’ pen….if they were to hold anything ever again.
President Obama now wants to have discourse with our enemies, not heeding the lessons of the past – some not so distant. Just a cursory study of history would have yielded a well-worn pattern of deception and appeasement:
In 1995, the Dayton Accords were signed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to bring an end to their ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Milosevic then moved his killing spree to Kosovo, which killed thousands and created over a million refugees.
Discussion and appeasement in 1994 heralded an agreement with North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program to the delight of U.S. politicians. North Korea officials admitted eight years later that they never observed that agreement and produced nuclear weapons.
Remember Arafat on the south lawn of the White House in 1993 signing the Oslo Accords which promised peace in exchange for Israel giving up land? For all that discussion - Arafat, and later Hamas - returned intifadas, terrorism and constant violence.
Iraq agreed with the U.N. enforced No-Fly Zone over northern Iraq, subject to inspection by coalition aircraft in 1991. Violating that agreement, Iraq constantly attacked the inspection aircraft supporting that effort which Iraq agreed to.
Discussion and diplomacy in 1973 with North Vietnam resulted in the Paris Peace Accords promising an end to aggression. Twenty-seven months after that brilliant peace of discussion, North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam.
Discussion in 1972 led to an agreement with Brezhnev of the Soviet Union called the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The first of many violations was when the Soviets deployed a prohibited phased array radar station near Krasnoyarsk.
North Korea was once only a threat to its democratic neighbor South Korea during the 1953 negotiations with United Stated leading that discussion through the United Nations. Now, nuclear-armed North Korea is a world-wide threat and the world can only watch while they starve their population.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill tried diplomacy with Joseph Stalin and signed the Yalta Agreements which promised the world that countries under Soviet control would be given democratic governments. Civilians were enslaved from that point on.
War-time Presidents understood what Thomas Jefferson meant when he stated that “…self-preservation is paramount to all laws.” True leaders know that, unlike in peace, war sometimes necessitates the temporary suspension of some freedoms. How would the ACLU and hand-wringing activist groups respond to the closing down of media outlets unfriendly to the war; or the suspension of habeas corpus (the right to be brought before a court as soon as possible); re-location camps and the registration and arresting of thousands of aliens; or the imprisonment of those speaking against our involvement?
These were not pleasant things, but all these thinkg occurred in the United States of America. The difference between “us and them” is that these measures are stopped when the war is won and over
How soon we forget.........
[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'] [/font]
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