Response to President Bush's Inaugural Address
January 20, 2005
My fellow citizens of the United States and the world:
On this day prescribed by United States law, George W. Bush was sworn into the Office of the President of the United States of America. On January 28, 2003 President Bush stated in his third State of the Union address: "The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person, and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men."
Today President Bush stated:
"At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire."
"At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire."
"We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom."
All throughout today's address the President spoke of freedom . . . "Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. . . . America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way. . . . America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause."
But I must ask Mr. President and Honorable Members of Congress . . . At what cost to the American People?
The demise of a Social Security System designed to aid our citizens in our golden years of retirement?
The reduction of benefits and services to the 26 million plus men and women of this country who put their lives on the line to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and freedom of the American People?
Or maybe the milking of the various "trust-funds" for aviation, sea ports, highways and others by borrowing millions if not billions of dollars from them to pay for this "War on Terrorism"?
Mr. President, you state: "I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."
"A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause - in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy ... the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments ... the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice."
Mr. President in 2003 you stated: "The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person, and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men." In nearly every nation of the world today, the American flag flies proudly at our embassies. It flies as a symbol of human success: the freedom of speech; to choose who will govern us at every level, from the small town right up to our nation’s capital; to worship and believe as our own personal conscience dictates; to educate our children in a manner of our own choosing; to own property; and to enjoy the fruits of our own hard work.
History has shown the willingness of the United States to stand beside any nation determined to build a better future by seeking the rewards of liberty for its people. However, as much as our allies and friends abroad may not like it, the duty of the United States Government is to the people of those United States, first and foremost. I would like to quote a part of some famous Canadian words at this point,
"Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans . . . .
. . . You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Gordon Sinclair, 1973
Many of you may notice I omitted a portion of the middle of Mr. Sinclair’s "Tribute to the Americans." I did so not because they were not true when Mr. Sinclair broadcast them, I omitted them, because as one of my personal beliefs state, "Speak the truth, but only of good in others."
Sound foreign policy begins at home. What is the desired goal of American Foreign Policy?
The willingness of the United States to stand beside any nation determined to build a better future by seeking the rewards of liberty for its people.
Is not our Foreign Policy not like a business’s Public Relations Policy?
Should not American Foreign Policy be based on an attraction to our principles? The freedom of speech; to choose who will govern us at every level; to worship (or not) and believe as our own personal conscience dictates; to educate our children in a manner of our own choosing; to own property; and to enjoy the fruits of our own hard work. Rather than the promotion or projection of those principles? We must always work daily to place those principles before personalities.
While our American system of principles works here, we could use some improvements on their application here at home. The same applies to many countries around the world, their systems work for them, and some could also likely use some improvements.
Yet you do not see Ford Motor Company telling IBM how to build computers. You do not see IBM telling Boeing how to build airplanes. You do not see Boeing telling Hormel how to make chili. And you do not see Hormel telling Ford how to make cars. What you do see in business, is those in the same line of business observing each other and learning from each other’s mistakes.
But governments are not corporations, they direct peoples lives you say. To that I say our elected, and then subsequently appointed government leaders are there for one and only one purpose, to serve then needs of the People of the United States of America. Look at the words of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States."
There are seven key phrases there:
We the People
Form a more perfect union.
Establish justice.
Insure domestic tranquillity.
Provide for the common defense.
Promote the general welfare.
Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Why do many nations not trust the United States or dislike us? Could it possibly be that we do not practice at home what we preach abroad? It took the United States how many years after the end of World War II to pay restitution to the survivors of the Japanese-American internment camps? How many treaties with the original residents of this continent, the Native Americans, were blatantly ignored and what of those atrocities, such as Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears?
In the Bible, the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7 it says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there is a plank in you own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
True compassion comes without judgment. True compassion means we personally are accountable and responsible for our own actions. True compassion comes when our own house is clean, first. True compassion is experienced when we respect the rights and property of others.
Yes, Mr. President we live in one of the most wonderful and greatest nations in the world. But as that beacon of freedom standing atop the hill, we must remember that the light from that beacon does not only shine outward to other nations, but also downward upon our nation for all to see. Have we established justice? Have we ensured domestic tranquillity? Have we promoted the general welfare? Have we secured the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? At best in these areas if we as a nation were graded, we might receive a "B" quite possibly a "C" by other nations or independent observers.
Mr. President you speak of the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act and the G.I. Bill of Rights and how "now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time." I'm sorry but you can not "Save the World" on the backs and the wallets of hard-working Americans and our senior citizens. Do not worry today what the history lessons twenty years from now will say about your Presidency and if you helped advance the cause of freedom.
As a former Federal Employee and a Honorably Discharged United States Air Force Veteran, we can not and will not stop the bleeding of America's military men and women on foreign soil, until we can stop the figurative and literal bleeding of our citizens on American soil.
A great responsibility rests upon you and the Congress to develop the best possible public relations policy for the United States. Through many painful experiences, some should have and idea of what that policy ought to be. It is the opposite in many ways of usual promotion practice. Policy makers must realize that they must rely upon the principle of attraction rather than promotion.
America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers;
America isn't about a place;
America isn't even about a bunch of bodies.
America is about an IDEA.
An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness.
No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!
The principle of attraction, rather than promotion. Something rare in the world -- a society that wishes to publicize its principles and its work. We Americans know what we have here. Yes, at times it is not so rosy or covered with silver-lined clouds, as Gordon Sinclair stated, we put our scandals in the store front window for all the world to see.
This principle of attraction in geo-political affairs requires a delicate balance. As you stated, "supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people." Those truths and standards are global in nature, if not universal. But we as a nation can not expect others to follow our lead in the ideal of freedom, unless we as a nation have made direct amends to those we have harmed whenever possible.
Yes, it is unfortunate that there are tyrants who rule and control people by fear and oppression. But it was only 229 years ago that the first Americans faced similar fear and oppression.
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Do we aid others in their efforts to throw off such government and help to provide new guards for their future security? Most certainly, however the world has dramatically and dynamically changed since 1776, there are no new "frontiers" but the ocean and space any longer. Therefore we must then act in concert with other like-minded nations to aid others in this endeavor, i.e., the United Nations. How many years did the American Revolution last?
Do we respond in kind to any acts of aggression against the American Homeland or its Territories? Hopefully diplomatic efforts can preclude the necessity to respond in kind, but that is always an option. However, when in the case of September 11, 2001 an act of aggression or terrorism is perpetrated against the American Homeland, ... what is the appropriate response? Is the act sponsored or effected by the government of another sovereign nation? Or is the act sponsored or effected by some cross-national group without government support?
Obviously we face a new warfare scenario. A tactical/surgical operation such as was launched against the Al'Qeda facilities in Afghanistan in my personal opinion was and is warranted and politically acceptable.
At issue is the perceived lack of integrity for the hawk-like methods used for Operation Iraqi Freedom. For as history has brutally shown us in Vietnam, 20th and now 21st Century wars of liberation are not only expensive in dollars, but in the lives of American Military men and women.
I close with two quotations from General Douglas MacArthur:
"I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept, that the members of our armed forces owe primary allegiance or loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive branch of the government rather than to the country and its Constitution which they are sworn to defend."
(In testimony before a Senate committee)
"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace," but "military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by the way of the crucible of war." Now "we have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be for the spirit if we are to save the flesh."
(September 2, 1945, on the deck of the USS Missouri)
All throughout today's address the President spoke of freedom . . . "Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. . . . America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way. . . . America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause."
But I must ask Mr. President and Honorable Members of Congress . . . At what cost to the American People?
The demise of a Social Security System designed to aid our citizens in our golden years of retirement?
The reduction of benefits and services to the 26 million plus men and women of this country who put their lives on the line to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and freedom of the American People?
Or maybe the milking of the various "trust-funds" for aviation, sea ports, highways and others by borrowing millions if not billions of dollars from them to pay for this "War on Terrorism"?
Mr. President, you state: "I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."
"A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause - in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy ... the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments ... the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice."
Mr. President in 2003 you stated: "The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person, and the possibilities of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men." In nearly every nation of the world today, the American flag flies proudly at our embassies. It flies as a symbol of human success: the freedom of speech; to choose who will govern us at every level, from the small town right up to our nation’s capital; to worship and believe as our own personal conscience dictates; to educate our children in a manner of our own choosing; to own property; and to enjoy the fruits of our own hard work.
History has shown the willingness of the United States to stand beside any nation determined to build a better future by seeking the rewards of liberty for its people. However, as much as our allies and friends abroad may not like it, the duty of the United States Government is to the people of those United States, first and foremost. I would like to quote a part of some famous Canadian words at this point,
"Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans . . . .
. . . You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Gordon Sinclair, 1973
Many of you may notice I omitted a portion of the middle of Mr. Sinclair’s "Tribute to the Americans." I did so not because they were not true when Mr. Sinclair broadcast them, I omitted them, because as one of my personal beliefs state, "Speak the truth, but only of good in others."
Sound foreign policy begins at home. What is the desired goal of American Foreign Policy?
The willingness of the United States to stand beside any nation determined to build a better future by seeking the rewards of liberty for its people.
Is not our Foreign Policy not like a business’s Public Relations Policy?
Should not American Foreign Policy be based on an attraction to our principles? The freedom of speech; to choose who will govern us at every level; to worship (or not) and believe as our own personal conscience dictates; to educate our children in a manner of our own choosing; to own property; and to enjoy the fruits of our own hard work. Rather than the promotion or projection of those principles? We must always work daily to place those principles before personalities.
While our American system of principles works here, we could use some improvements on their application here at home. The same applies to many countries around the world, their systems work for them, and some could also likely use some improvements.
Yet you do not see Ford Motor Company telling IBM how to build computers. You do not see IBM telling Boeing how to build airplanes. You do not see Boeing telling Hormel how to make chili. And you do not see Hormel telling Ford how to make cars. What you do see in business, is those in the same line of business observing each other and learning from each other’s mistakes.
But governments are not corporations, they direct peoples lives you say. To that I say our elected, and then subsequently appointed government leaders are there for one and only one purpose, to serve then needs of the People of the United States of America. Look at the words of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States."
There are seven key phrases there:
We the People
Form a more perfect union.
Establish justice.
Insure domestic tranquillity.
Provide for the common defense.
Promote the general welfare.
Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Why do many nations not trust the United States or dislike us? Could it possibly be that we do not practice at home what we preach abroad? It took the United States how many years after the end of World War II to pay restitution to the survivors of the Japanese-American internment camps? How many treaties with the original residents of this continent, the Native Americans, were blatantly ignored and what of those atrocities, such as Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears?
In the Bible, the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7 it says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ when all the time there is a plank in you own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
True compassion comes without judgment. True compassion means we personally are accountable and responsible for our own actions. True compassion comes when our own house is clean, first. True compassion is experienced when we respect the rights and property of others.
Yes, Mr. President we live in one of the most wonderful and greatest nations in the world. But as that beacon of freedom standing atop the hill, we must remember that the light from that beacon does not only shine outward to other nations, but also downward upon our nation for all to see. Have we established justice? Have we ensured domestic tranquillity? Have we promoted the general welfare? Have we secured the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? At best in these areas if we as a nation were graded, we might receive a "B" quite possibly a "C" by other nations or independent observers.
Mr. President you speak of the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act and the G.I. Bill of Rights and how "now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time." I'm sorry but you can not "Save the World" on the backs and the wallets of hard-working Americans and our senior citizens. Do not worry today what the history lessons twenty years from now will say about your Presidency and if you helped advance the cause of freedom.
As a former Federal Employee and a Honorably Discharged United States Air Force Veteran, we can not and will not stop the bleeding of America's military men and women on foreign soil, until we can stop the figurative and literal bleeding of our citizens on American soil.
A great responsibility rests upon you and the Congress to develop the best possible public relations policy for the United States. Through many painful experiences, some should have and idea of what that policy ought to be. It is the opposite in many ways of usual promotion practice. Policy makers must realize that they must rely upon the principle of attraction rather than promotion.
America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers;
America isn't about a place;
America isn't even about a bunch of bodies.
America is about an IDEA.
An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness.
No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!
The principle of attraction, rather than promotion. Something rare in the world -- a society that wishes to publicize its principles and its work. We Americans know what we have here. Yes, at times it is not so rosy or covered with silver-lined clouds, as Gordon Sinclair stated, we put our scandals in the store front window for all the world to see.
This principle of attraction in geo-political affairs requires a delicate balance. As you stated, "supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people." Those truths and standards are global in nature, if not universal. But we as a nation can not expect others to follow our lead in the ideal of freedom, unless we as a nation have made direct amends to those we have harmed whenever possible.
Yes, it is unfortunate that there are tyrants who rule and control people by fear and oppression. But it was only 229 years ago that the first Americans faced similar fear and oppression.
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Do we aid others in their efforts to throw off such government and help to provide new guards for their future security? Most certainly, however the world has dramatically and dynamically changed since 1776, there are no new "frontiers" but the ocean and space any longer. Therefore we must then act in concert with other like-minded nations to aid others in this endeavor, i.e., the United Nations. How many years did the American Revolution last?
Do we respond in kind to any acts of aggression against the American Homeland or its Territories? Hopefully diplomatic efforts can preclude the necessity to respond in kind, but that is always an option. However, when in the case of September 11, 2001 an act of aggression or terrorism is perpetrated against the American Homeland, ... what is the appropriate response? Is the act sponsored or effected by the government of another sovereign nation? Or is the act sponsored or effected by some cross-national group without government support?
Obviously we face a new warfare scenario. A tactical/surgical operation such as was launched against the Al'Qeda facilities in Afghanistan in my personal opinion was and is warranted and politically acceptable.
At issue is the perceived lack of integrity for the hawk-like methods used for Operation Iraqi Freedom. For as history has brutally shown us in Vietnam, 20th and now 21st Century wars of liberation are not only expensive in dollars, but in the lives of American Military men and women.
I close with two quotations from General Douglas MacArthur:
"I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept, that the members of our armed forces owe primary allegiance or loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive branch of the government rather than to the country and its Constitution which they are sworn to defend."
(In testimony before a Senate committee)
"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace," but "military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only path to be by the way of the crucible of war." Now "we have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be for the spirit if we are to save the flesh."
(September 2, 1945, on the deck of the USS Missouri)
posted by Silver Eagle | 6:42 PM
1 Comments:
Hey babe, I love your blog its got alot of spirit in it. Keep up the good work. Love ya, hugs & kisses!!
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