To Win A War, You Must Be Willing To Look 'Bad'
Harold's List
Human Events Online
by Rabbi Aryeh Spero
Listening to the media, the talking heads, and many in Congress, one gets the sense that the most important element in our war against jihadist terrorism is not victory but who can show that he cares more than the other guy about the comfort and "rights" of terrorist detainees. In other words, who can boast that he is more "ethical" than the rest of us.
This is no way to win a war.
Instead of determining what best can achieve immediate victory, our preoccupation has been more about feeding detainees the Islamic food of their choice; safeguarding the Koran more than our own Bible; trying them not in military courts where they should be tried but in civil courts so they can have the best lawyers and chance at acquittal; providing them with all the Constitutional rights reserved for those born here who wish not to destroy our Constitution; and instituting anti-torture standards whose definition judges can expand so that effective interrogation will be impossible.
Better for a million Americans to be incinerated, avant garde thinking goes, than use on known terrorists procedures that might elicit dates, time and place of imminent bombings of U.S. cities and citizens.
It is not that the country has gone moral, it has gone crazy.
It reminds me of the administration of Mayor David Dinkins in New York City between 1988-1992, where the purpose of government city services was not to supply the service but push affirmative action at all costs and various "feel good" social engineering schemes. For many in today's chattering classes, the army is not allowed to be used for its purpose of winning wars but for demonstrating our "compassion."
Worse, more effort is spent dangerously telling our troops what they cannot do than empowering them to do what they must to save their comrades and defeat the enemy. No doubt our young field soldier is at risk when in the back of his mind is a picture of a liberal lawyer eager to throw him into jail if he acts like a soldier instead of a nurse. The ACLUnik attorney who puts him in this danger couldn't care less, since his sons, relatives, and bourgeois friends rarely serve in the military.
If we loose this war and our lives, it will be because people cared more about "not looking bad" than our own survival. But morality dictates that you save the lives of your family and fellow citizens before agonizing over the sensitivities of those coming to saw your head off your body. We may loose precisely because liberalism forced us to adopt a demented view of morality, one that is classically immoral.
No question, we are witnessing how perverted values engender perverted definitions and decisions. Current liberalism has destroyed our moral compass and replaced it with its own foolish and destructive value system.
How did this happen? When a nation becomes tentative about its own identity, it adopts a new "morality" to furnish identity. Such is the reality when people throw off age-old moral surety and replace it with "ersatz" morality.
Only men who have lost their masculinity care more about how others will perceive them over what it takes to achieve a crushing victory. My grandfather and his friends, who lived way before the ubiquitous effeminate male, lived their lives based on more than how other people saw them.
"What will the other countries and people think of us" is the refrain we so often hear from the Woody Allenized male members of Congress. Those who don't have the stomach to do what military victory demands find their cover and justification for weakness in "morality." Sending another 100,000 troops means nothing if they are not deployed to do what armies are trained to do -- demolish the enemy.
Truth be told, there are many in Congress who feel guilty having to support war, military means. They want, therefore, to be able to "stand above it" by saying they approve of no aspect that can be criticized. They don't want to be soiled by it.
My grandmother had a Yiddish phrase that described moral midgets such as these who never took a position that could make them look "bad." They were sarcastically referred to as finer mentshen, too good to get their hands dirty. She also would have been appalled by our post-60s masculinized women whose leftist ideology results more in rage at their own country than gratitude to it for protecting hearth and home.
While our President has the correct convictions, often his tenacity atrophies. I sometimes wonder if too much focus is placed upon not harming the "innocents" among the Religion of Peace as opposed to more pressing battle imperatives. We could have been victorious in this war a while back if not for this new "Compassionate War" theology, plaguing even the President.
If the United States is unwilling to fight a war with every ounce of its power, it should not go to war, for then it is not the United States at war but some reduced power at war. Yes, the rules of war must be different than those that govern everyday civic life. Even the Bible says so.
Instead, we are allowing the ACLU and other leftists to run our wars. We are permitting newly-hatched domestic "humanitarian" organizations -- comprised of a director, staff of three, a fax, and a Soros-type sugar daddy -- to downsize the effectiveness and capability of the U.S. military.
Those liberal members of Congress who have become finer mentshen, caring more about how refined and politically correct they appear, are not made of the pluck to lead. We should therefore not follow. Those who exploit this bogus "morality" as a means for America to loose a war in order to topple a President so they can regain power are treasonous. Those who think that the terrorists will go easy on us if we simply announce our proscription against torture are showing that in their mind our safety depends on the goodwill of the enemy. If so, we might as well already raise the white flag.
As for the ACLUniks, the Kuntsler-type lawyers, and the perverted lefties who always prefer our enemies over us -- how about reinstating a special draft just for them so that for once in their life they could serve their country instead of diminishing it.
Human Events Online
by Rabbi Aryeh Spero
Listening to the media, the talking heads, and many in Congress, one gets the sense that the most important element in our war against jihadist terrorism is not victory but who can show that he cares more than the other guy about the comfort and "rights" of terrorist detainees. In other words, who can boast that he is more "ethical" than the rest of us.
This is no way to win a war.
Instead of determining what best can achieve immediate victory, our preoccupation has been more about feeding detainees the Islamic food of their choice; safeguarding the Koran more than our own Bible; trying them not in military courts where they should be tried but in civil courts so they can have the best lawyers and chance at acquittal; providing them with all the Constitutional rights reserved for those born here who wish not to destroy our Constitution; and instituting anti-torture standards whose definition judges can expand so that effective interrogation will be impossible.
Better for a million Americans to be incinerated, avant garde thinking goes, than use on known terrorists procedures that might elicit dates, time and place of imminent bombings of U.S. cities and citizens.
It is not that the country has gone moral, it has gone crazy.
It reminds me of the administration of Mayor David Dinkins in New York City between 1988-1992, where the purpose of government city services was not to supply the service but push affirmative action at all costs and various "feel good" social engineering schemes. For many in today's chattering classes, the army is not allowed to be used for its purpose of winning wars but for demonstrating our "compassion."
Worse, more effort is spent dangerously telling our troops what they cannot do than empowering them to do what they must to save their comrades and defeat the enemy. No doubt our young field soldier is at risk when in the back of his mind is a picture of a liberal lawyer eager to throw him into jail if he acts like a soldier instead of a nurse. The ACLUnik attorney who puts him in this danger couldn't care less, since his sons, relatives, and bourgeois friends rarely serve in the military.
If we loose this war and our lives, it will be because people cared more about "not looking bad" than our own survival. But morality dictates that you save the lives of your family and fellow citizens before agonizing over the sensitivities of those coming to saw your head off your body. We may loose precisely because liberalism forced us to adopt a demented view of morality, one that is classically immoral.
No question, we are witnessing how perverted values engender perverted definitions and decisions. Current liberalism has destroyed our moral compass and replaced it with its own foolish and destructive value system.
How did this happen? When a nation becomes tentative about its own identity, it adopts a new "morality" to furnish identity. Such is the reality when people throw off age-old moral surety and replace it with "ersatz" morality.
Only men who have lost their masculinity care more about how others will perceive them over what it takes to achieve a crushing victory. My grandfather and his friends, who lived way before the ubiquitous effeminate male, lived their lives based on more than how other people saw them.
"What will the other countries and people think of us" is the refrain we so often hear from the Woody Allenized male members of Congress. Those who don't have the stomach to do what military victory demands find their cover and justification for weakness in "morality." Sending another 100,000 troops means nothing if they are not deployed to do what armies are trained to do -- demolish the enemy.
Truth be told, there are many in Congress who feel guilty having to support war, military means. They want, therefore, to be able to "stand above it" by saying they approve of no aspect that can be criticized. They don't want to be soiled by it.
My grandmother had a Yiddish phrase that described moral midgets such as these who never took a position that could make them look "bad." They were sarcastically referred to as finer mentshen, too good to get their hands dirty. She also would have been appalled by our post-60s masculinized women whose leftist ideology results more in rage at their own country than gratitude to it for protecting hearth and home.
While our President has the correct convictions, often his tenacity atrophies. I sometimes wonder if too much focus is placed upon not harming the "innocents" among the Religion of Peace as opposed to more pressing battle imperatives. We could have been victorious in this war a while back if not for this new "Compassionate War" theology, plaguing even the President.
If the United States is unwilling to fight a war with every ounce of its power, it should not go to war, for then it is not the United States at war but some reduced power at war. Yes, the rules of war must be different than those that govern everyday civic life. Even the Bible says so.
Instead, we are allowing the ACLU and other leftists to run our wars. We are permitting newly-hatched domestic "humanitarian" organizations -- comprised of a director, staff of three, a fax, and a Soros-type sugar daddy -- to downsize the effectiveness and capability of the U.S. military.
Those liberal members of Congress who have become finer mentshen, caring more about how refined and politically correct they appear, are not made of the pluck to lead. We should therefore not follow. Those who exploit this bogus "morality" as a means for America to loose a war in order to topple a President so they can regain power are treasonous. Those who think that the terrorists will go easy on us if we simply announce our proscription against torture are showing that in their mind our safety depends on the goodwill of the enemy. If so, we might as well already raise the white flag.
As for the ACLUniks, the Kuntsler-type lawyers, and the perverted lefties who always prefer our enemies over us -- how about reinstating a special draft just for them so that for once in their life they could serve their country instead of diminishing it.
posted by Marko at 11/29/2005 11:50:00 AM
<< Home