THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 269, December 11, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE ANTIWAR PROTESTERS: THEY JUST DON'T GET IT
By Alan Caruba
PACIFISM IN TIME OF WAR & GREAT DANGER FOR AMERICA: THE ANTIWAR PROTESTERS' ASSERTION THAT
THE WAR BEING WAGED AGAINST ISLAMIST TERRORISM & MIDDLE EASTERN DESPOTISM IS IMMORAL -- THE PROTESTERS'
FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE ULTIMATE GUARANTEE OF THEIR BASIC RIGHTS UNDER THE UNITED STATES
CONSTITUTION, INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF DISSENT & PROTEST, IS THE WILLINGNESS OF LOYAL, PATRIOTIC AMERICANS TO
FIGHT & RISK DYING IN WARS TO DEFEND & PRESERVE LIBERTY UNDER THE RULE OF LAW
FULL STORY:
Some of the most prolific letter writers to my local weekly newspaper are the folks for whom the Sixties and Seventies were a
period of intense meaningfulness in their lives. It was all peace, love and rock’n roll, followed by their rejection of the war in
Vietnam.
The reality, of course, was that we were still hip-deep in a Cold War that started the day World War II ended. Proxy wars in
places like Korea and Vietnam were fought as Soviet-style Communism tried to replace the freedom that Americans knew
could only be protected with blood and money. The stakes were high.
The stakes are high again as the entire world slowly concedes that a whole new war must be fought. This time, the enemy is
Islamofacism (aka: Islamism, militant Islam, radical Islam, and Islamist jihadism), and the enemy is not polite enough to put on
a uniform. This time the enemy blows up people in trains, buses, and, yes, the World Trade Center.
So, while I normally just try to ignore the pathetic bleating of the antiwar protesters, telling myself they have no sense of
history and often no sense of decency as regards the sacrifices of the good men and women who defend America, my eye
was caught by the typical letter crying about the horrid treatment of “several members of [the] Committee to Stop the War”
who stood outside the local high school last week to hand out leaflets. These folks were approached by a police officer and
asked to stand across the street because “the Principal didn’t want us there.”
Well, good for the Principal! One can only hope that the history courses in the local high school teach about the
Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, and,
who knows, maybe even Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom gets discussed too.
The letter states:
“It is now well-reported how military recruiters give children false
promises to recruit them. Legalities aside, it is misguided when
salesmen for the military are allowed into the lunch room to try to
convince students to kill and be killed in an immoral war, while
those offering a different view are prevented from talking to
students in front of the school.”
Get out your crying towels! First of all, I haven’t read anything of late about military recruiters except that, in the midst of a
war in a faraway place, they still seem to be able to find enough courageous and patriotic young men and women to join up
for the cause of freedom. When they talk to students, presumably those students, raised on television shows and movies
about war, understand it involves combat and that combat involves killing the enemy and possibly being killed. The military
does not want to recruit idiots.
Lastly, who except the letter writer thinks it is “an immoral war”? Was it immoral to remove Saddam Hussein from power,
along with his Baathist regime, which had filled the sands of Iraq with mass graves, had prisons with rape rooms and torture
chambers, and gassed a city filled with Kurdish men, women, and children? Was it immoral to restore Iraq to the thousands
of Iraqis who came out to vote for the rule of law, despite the threat of death?
And, here at home, were the antiwar protesters clubbed, shackled, and hauled off to jail? No. They were asked to do their
protesting across the street from the front of the school. Across the street!
This benign request, the request that they do their protesting across the street, was the direct result of the sacrifices of
those Americans who lie in graves in the Arlington National Cemetery, in a vast cemetery near Normandy Beach in France,
and elsewhere here at home and around the world where the forces of evil wanted to deny the right of dissent and protest
and to blow out the flame of freedom.
Those graves are filled with men and women in the military. Some volunteered, as is the case with the members of today’s
all-volunteer military, and some were called by the nation as conscripts. Either way, they summoned their courage, they
examined their values, and they gave their last full measure of life to insure that protesters could protest.
And the antiwar protesters still don’t get it. They think they can talk and reason with people who kill the innocent, behead
“unbelievers,” blow themselves up in Jordanian wedding parties, in mosques, and in a school house in Beselan, Russia, to
kill children. These protesters think they are doing something good when they tell our children there’s nothing worth
fighting or dying for.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Culture, Patriotism, & American National Identity
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
A National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2005
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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