Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Understanding the Anti-War Sentiment

It is probably not a good idea for any American or ally of America to send any journalist to the Middle East or Africa for the foreseeable future. Sadly, another American, Steven Sotloff was shown to be killed by ISIS in a Internet video. His mother begged that he be released, but they killed him anyway. Her quoting the Koran did no good. It is my belief that he was killed on the same day that James Foley was killed. They probably killed both men that day and just held back the video on Steven Sotloff until they wanted to release it. God bless both men and their families.

You simply cannot ignore this type of terrorism. I do believe that ISIS/Al Qaeda or the current Jihad name for the day will attack us in America at some point. They will probably try car bombs and suicide bombers at first. Later they may become more brazen and do more targeted mass killings with a group of terrorists where a large gathering of people are formed. I hope it never happens, but hope is not a defensive strategy.

President Obama knows that most Americans are tired of war and want nothing to do with it. He knows this and feels that he is complying with the American people's wishes. However, this ISIS problem is too big to be ignored. It doesn't matter whether we want war or not. We got it. Like it or not. Just because the American people don't want war, doesn't mean a thing. Your evidence is James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

I like to watch documentaries on wars and look at how decisions were made and why one side or the other won or lost. I have studied World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Irag and Afghanistan wars through documentaries. In every case, the side that lost or surrendered finally were put in a position where they had no choice but to give up. In other words, they lost their will to continue.

I am not a military person, but I know that if you don't have the will of Harry Truman during war, then you will likely fail. Think about the will of Harry Truman and his decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If he didn't have the will to do that, then the war in the Pacific would have continued to go on throughout the islands of the Pacific at great cost to both sides. President Truman made a conscious decision to kill innocent civilians in exchange for ending the war. Japan didn't surrender after the first bomb. It took two bombs for Japan to surrender.

The greatest generation as they are known, the soldiers of World War II, fought for our country and many died for our country. Some of those also fought in World War I. This generation of Americans understood war and got behind the war effort. They were American heroes who understood the danger of doing nothing. They sacrificed their lives for our country.

The baby boomers however are a different story. They grew up in the sixties with the war in Vietnam which was started by John F. Kennedy, a Democrat. The Vietnam war continued under Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat and dragged on until it was finally ended by Richard Nixon, a Republican. During the sixties and seventies, there were numerous protests against the Vietnam war. These protests were all over the television and they helped to shape the anti-war sentiment of the baby boomers. Soldiers coming back from Vietnam were not hailed as heroes like the greatest generation were when they came back from World War II. These soldiers who fought and died in great numbers were treated horribly by a large group of these protesting American people. Vietnam veterans never received the respect and admiration that they deserved.

Fast forward to today and you must understand that we are losing more and more of the greatest generation every day. The baby boomers are a large demographic and they grew up with the Vietnam war. Is it really any surprise that fifty years later they are still adamantly against war of any type? Not to me.

If you talk to the military leaders of Vietnam, they will tell you that America was winning the Vietnam war and would have won it, if not for the demands of the American people and the lack of will. This same demographic of American people, the old protesters from the sixties and seventies are the ones today who do not want us to do anything other than limited action in Iraq, Syria and Africa. Just fire a few drones and be done with it, they think. They do not want us sending any troops over there at all. Unfortunately, this is the kind of thinking that got millions of Jewish people killed during World War II. No one had the stomach for war at first in World War II, but when we got attacked at Pearl Harbor everything changed. What bothers me is that James Foley and Steven Sotloff were brutally executed and no one seems to care. They don't care about the 150 or so Syrian solders who were stripped down to their underwear and shot and killed in the desert. They don't care about the 20 civilians in the Gaza strip killed by Hamas, because they were thought to have collaborated with the Israeli's. They don't care about the Yazidi's in Iraq who were murdered. They don't care about the many Christians who were murdered in Iraq and Africa. They simple do not care, because they foolishly believe that it doesn't affect them.

I wonder about those protesters from the sixties and seventies who seem to have so much influence over President Obama. I wonder will their attitudes change when there is no doubt that ISIS has come to American shores and carried out their terrorist activities? For America's sake, I sure hope so. In my opinion, it is better to kill them in Iraq and Syria than to kill them in New York City or Washington, D.C.

God bless America.


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